Pasta e Fagioli (Italian Pasta and Beans) — The Bean Dish That Reminded Me of Babcia’s Table

I turned twenty-one on... wait. No. My birthday is November. I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm still twenty. But this week felt like a turning point anyway. A food writer from the Milwaukee Record — a local arts and culture website — sent me a DM on Instagram. She'd seen my posts and wanted to do a short interview about "young Milwaukeeans in the food scene." Me. In the food scene. I'm a brewery worker who makes pierogi in a closet-sized kitchen. But I said yes because Kevin would never let me hear the end of it if I said no. The interview was on Thursday at a coffee shop in Bay View. Her name was Sara, she was about thirty, and she asked me questions for an hour. Why I cook. What I learned from Babcia. How brewing and cooking connect. Why Polish food matters to me. I rambled, probably. I said "um" too much. But I told the truth: I cook because my grandmother taught me that food is how you love people, and I brew because it's the same thing in a different language, and Milwaukee raised me to believe that feeding people is the most important thing you can do. She took a photo of me outside the coffee shop. I looked uncomfortable. "Relax," she said. "Just think about pierogi." I laughed, and she took the photo, and that's the one she used. The article drops next week. I'm terrified. At the brewery: we started on the smoked wheat production batch. The smoke malt reduction was the right call — the aroma is campfire-adjacent without being aggressive. Marcus tasted the initial samples and said, "Polish campfire in a glass." I'll take it. I made kielbasa three different ways this week, testing for an Instagram post: boiled with sauerkraut (classic), grilled with mustard (Dad's way), and pan-fried with peppers and onions (my way). All three were good. I posted all three with a poll asking followers which is the best way to eat kielbasa. 400 votes. Grilled won. Dad would be pleased. Sunday at Babcia's: she made fasolka po bretońsku — Polish baked beans with kielbasa. Rich, smoky, sweet. A summer dish that eats like winter. Babcia's food doesn't follow rules. It follows hunger.

Babcia’s fasolka po bretonsku on Sunday hit me somewhere deep — that sweet-smoky richness that doesn’t explain itself, it just feeds you. After a week of interviews and poll results and trying to figure out whether I actually belong in "the food scene," I needed to make something that reminded me why I started cooking in the first place. This pasta e fagioli is not the same dish as hers, but it lives in the same neighborhood: beans, sausage, smoke, and time. I swap in kielbasa for the Italian sausage, and somewhere in the simmer, it starts to feel like home.

Pasta e Fagioli with Kielbasa

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 40 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 12 oz kielbasa, halved lengthwise and sliced into 1/4-inch half-moons
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
• 1 can (14.5 oz) fire-roasted diced tomatoes
• 2 cans (15 oz each) white cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
• 4 cups low-sodium chicken broth
• 1 cup small pasta (ditalini or elbow)
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• Fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish
• Crusty bread, for serving

Instructions

1. Brown the kielbasa. Heat olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add kielbasa slices in a single layer and cook, undisturbed, for 2–3 minutes until the cut sides are deeply browned. Flip and cook 1 minute more. Transfer to a plate and set aside, leaving the rendered fat in the pot.
2. Build the base. Reduce heat to medium. Add onion, carrots, and celery to the pot. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 6–8 minutes until softened and the onion is translucent. Add garlic, smoked paprika, thyme, and red pepper flakes, and stir for 1 minute until fragrant.
3. Add tomatoes and paste. Stir in tomato paste and cook for 2 minutes, letting it caramelize slightly against the bottom of the pot. Pour in the fire-roasted tomatoes and stir to combine, scraping up any browned bits.
4. Simmer the beans. Add the cannellini beans and chicken broth. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a steady simmer. Use the back of a spoon or a ladle to gently mash about 1/4 of the beans directly in the pot — this thickens the broth without any extra steps. Simmer uncovered for 15 minutes.
5. Cook the pasta. Add the pasta to the pot and return to a gentle boil. Cook according to package directions minus 1 minute (it will finish cooking in the residual heat). The soup will thicken considerably as the pasta absorbs liquid.
6. Return the kielbasa. Stir the browned kielbasa back into the pot. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt and black pepper. If the soup is thicker than you like, add broth or water a splash at a time.
7. Serve. Ladle into deep bowls, top with chopped parsley, and set crusty bread on the side. This soup is better the next day — the pasta keeps drinking in the broth, so add a little extra liquid when reheating.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 390 | Protein: 21g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 46g | Fiber: 9g | Sodium: 820mg