Make Olive Garden's Delicious Pasta Fagioli at Home

You'll love, love, love this rich, hearty, fiber-packed soup! It tastes very similar to the pasta e fagioli at Olive Garden. Each cup of soup has 156 calories, 2 grams fat, 6 grams of fiber and 4 Weight Watchers Points Plus. So flavorful, this recipe makes a ton of soup to stock your freezer with. It's great as a first course or make the serving size 1.5 to 2 cups and it becomes a very filling main-course soup. You'll want to add this satisfying dish to your soup repertoire. It's a keeper for sure!

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

1 pound lean ground beef or ground turkey, see shopping tip

1 teaspoon olive oil

3 cups onions, chopped

4 carrots, chopped

4 celery stalks, chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 (28oz) can tomatoes, diced

1 (16 oz) can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 (16 oz) can white kidney beans, rinsed and drained

1 (16 oz) can great northern beans, rinsed and drained

3 (10oz) cans reduced-sodium beef broth

1 (24 oz) jar marinara or pasta sauce, I used Prego's Heart Smart pasta sauce

½ cup water

1 zucchini, chopped

2 tablespoons Italian seasoning

Fresh ground pepper, to taste

6 ounces whole wheat penne pasta

Grated Parmesan cheese to top each bowl with, optional

Instructions

1. Brown beef in a large nonstick soup pot. Drain in a colander in sink.

2. In the same pot, heat olive oil. Add onions, carrots, celery, and garlic. Cook for 2 minutes. Stir often.

3. Add drained beef back to pot. Stir in canned tomatoes, beans, beef broth, pasta sauce, zucchini, water, Italian seasonings and pepper.

4. Bring soup up to a boil. Turn heat to a simmer, cover and let cook for 50 minutes.

5. Add pasta to soup. Cover and cook for about 10 minutes longer until pasta is ready. If you like a thinner soup, just add another half cup water or so.

6. Ladle soup into a small bowl or cup. Top with grated Parmesan cheese, if desired

7. This soup freezes great!

Makes 20 cups (each serving, 1 cup)

Shopping Tip
Look for the leanest ground beef in your supermarket. I bought mine at Trader Joe's.

Storage Tip
Freeze leftover soup in pint size containers. Stores like Smart and Final sell deli-style plastic containers that are perfect to freeze in. They're very reasonably priced.

Weight Watchers (old points) 2
Weight Watchers Points Plus 4

Skinny Facts: for 1 cup
156 calories, 2g fat, 12g protein, 25g carbs, 6g fiber, 438mg sodium, 6g sugar

Note:
1. The nutrition facts were calculated on Spark People.com:
2. The Weight Watchers POINTS were calculated on CalculatorCat.com:

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