Pasta with Chard, Beans, and Sausage

These mid-winter days have had me longing for cozy food—dishes that are warming but interesting, simple to make but full of good flavors.  Soups and stews are certainly in this category.  But I think of pasta first when I imagine my cozy food.  Pasta with Chard, Beans, and Sausage is inviting and appealing, a dish that can wrap a lot of comfort into a meal.

This recipe is adapted from one I found in Molly Stevens’ most recent cookbook, All About Dinner. Molly’s writing style is knowledgeable, yet friendly.  She excels at offering helpful hints for success at each step in a recipe.  I followed Molly’s instructions pretty closely, but chose to use less pasta than she called for.  In its place, I added cooked white beans to lend more protein to the sauce as well as a bit of creaminess.

I love how Swiss chard serves as an important building block of this pasta dish.  You get to use the whole leaf!  Chard stems offer a lovely texture and a bit of color while the leaves become velvety and soft in the time it takes the pasta to boil. And adding dark leafy greens to the dish boosts the color, the nutritive value, but most of all, the flavor.

Starting the Sauce

The sauce for this pasta recipe is built in one pan, starting with chunks of fresh sausage.  I’ve used Italian sausage in the past, but for this version, I tried bratwurst and loved how it worked.  Half dollar-size patties of the sausage brown in the pan before being lifted out to drain.

Molly Stevens points out that bigger, flat pieces of sausage brown better than crumbles do.  I separated the sausage into smaller pieces once it was draining on paper towels.

While Stevens recommended keeping some of the sausage fat to cook the rest of the sauce in, I poured the fat off and instead used a bit of olive oil for sautéing the onions and chard stems. Great flavor from the sausage developed as I scraped up darkened bits from the bottom of the pan.

What looks like a full pan of fresh leaves quickly cooks down into a thin layer of flavorful green and red.

Once the chard cooks down in a bit of broth, the sausage returns to the pot along with the beans to further enhance the sauce.

Then the pasta goes in, soaking up flavors from the broth as it cooks a bit more.  This is when you can add some of the finishing ingredients.

Some Final Touches

In addition to the play between the chewy pasta, bits of sausage, creamy beans, and leafy sauce, this recipe offers other layers of flavor. Adding a little butter near the end helps the sauce cling to the pasta. Lemon zest brings a bright note to the dish.  Parmesan lends a richness, and walnut pieces a lovely crunch.

We enjoyed this pasta dish alongside a crisp green salad.  While a chilly world lay outside our windows, the pasta warmed us up and kept us cozy.

It was just how midwinter should be.

Pasta with Chard, Beans, and Sausage

Sunnyside Cook

Dawn Dobie

Fresh chard leaves and stems join hearty sausage and beans to make a cozy pasta dish.

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 35 minutes mins

Total Time 50 minutes mins

Ingredients

  

• 1 bunch Swiss chard about 1 pound, washed
• 2 tablespoons olive oil divided--see below
• 1/2 pound fresh pork sausage (about 3 links) casings removed (I used bratwurst, but Italian would work great)
• 1 medium yellow onion diced
• 1/2 teaspoon salt or more to taste
• 3 garlic cloves minced
• 1/2 teaspoon Aleppo chile flakes or more to taste
• 1 cup low-sodium chicken broth
• 8 ounces short dried pasta --I used rigatoni
• 1 15- ounce can of Great Northern beans or other white beans --drained and rinsed and drained again
• Zest of 1/2 large lemon
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 1/2 ounces grated Parmesan cheese --1/2 to 3/4 cup
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts --lightly toasted

Instructions

 

• Prepare the chard by trimming the stem ends and discarding them.Then trim the leaves from the large center stems. Set the stems aside and pile up the leaves. Slice the stems into 1/2-inch pieces. Pile 4-5 leaves on top of each other, roll tightly, then slice into 1 inch ribbons. Repeat with the remaining leaves. Cut the strips of leaves again sideways so that they are roughly 1- by 3-inch rectangles.
• Put a large pot of water on to boil over high heat. This will be for the pasta.
• Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a separate large deep, skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the sausage in chunks and flatten each piece with the back of a wooden spatula or spoon. Flip the sausage pieces occasionally until they are golden brown, then remove them to a plate lined with paper towels. Drain the fat from the pan. Once the sausage has cooled a bit, break it up into smaller pieces with the wooden spatula or spoon you’ve been cooking with.
• Return the Dutch oven to the stove. Lower the heat to medium and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the pan. Put in the chopped onions and sprinkle them with 1/4 teaspoon of salt. Cook for about 5 minutes, stirring frequently, then add the chard stems. Cook another 5 minutes, stirring frequently and scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. (I added a tablespoon or two of water when the onions and chard stems started sticking.)
• Add garlic to the onion/chard stem mixture and cook for about 1 minute. Then add the chard leaves, the chile flakes, and about 1/4 teaspoon salt. Cook, using tongs to lift the chard leaves near the bottom of the pan to the top over and over so that they all cook evenly. After about 1 minute, add the broth to the pan. Lower the heat to simmer and cook about 8 minutes. Add the sausage and drained beans to the pot.
• In the meantime, cook the pasta according to the package directions until it is almost al dente. (It will cook further with the chard mixture later on.) Scoop up about 1 cup of pasta water and put it aside before draining the pasta. Drain the pasta in a colander and add it to the chard mixture.
• Stir the pasta into the warm chard, bean, and sausage mixture. Add 1/4 cup of pasta water along with the lemon zest and toss the pasta mixture over low heat for 2-3 minutes. Add more pasta water in 1/4 cup increments to keep the pasta loose, but not soupy. Stir in 1 tablespoon of butter and allow it to melt and coat the pasta mixture. Add half of the Parmesan cheese and the walnuts to the mixture, stir again, and dish out into servings bowls.
• Offer more Parmesan for each person to add as they like.

Notes

The sauce can be prepared up to one hour ahead of time. After adding the sausage and beans to the chard mixture, turn off the heat.  Cover the pot and remove it from the heat source. Gently rewarm the sauce while the pasta boils.

If you don't want to put the walnuts directly into the pasta, you can offer them as an extra garnish along with the Parmesan cheese.

Adapted from Molly Stevens’ cookbook All About Dinner (2019).