Tuscan white beans with crusty bread
Creamy white beans simmered with garlic, rosemary and burst cherry tomatoes, finished with spinach and scooped up with olive-oil toast, a 25-minute Italian dinner from the pantry.
- 25 min total
- 20 min hands-on
- Anyone can make this
- Serves 4
- About $2.72 a serving
- 420 calories
- Vegetarian
Dolly says: I’d make this on a weeknight. It’s on the table in 25 minutes.
Ingredients
For 4 servings.
- 4 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
- 1 package cherry tomatoes, halved
- 2 cans cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
- ½ cup vegetable broth
- 1 package baby spinach
- 4 slices sourdough bread
- ¼ cup grated parmesan (optional)
From your pantry
- 3 tbsp olive oil, divided
- ½ tsp dried rosemary
- ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
- ¾ tsp salt
- ¼ tsp black pepper
Each serving has about 420 calories, 20 g protein, 62 g carbs and 12 g fat, and costs about $2.72 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No baby spinach? Kale or arugula works.
- No sourdough bread? French bread works.
- No grated parmesan? Parmesan wedge works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large over medium heat. Add the garlic, rosemary and pepper flakes and cook 1 to 2 minutes, until the garlic turns pale .
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Medium heat
Dolly’s tip: Take it to the next step the moment the garlic turns golden. Brown garlic tastes bitter.Add the tomatoes and of the salt and cook 5 to 6 minutes, pressing them with your spoon, until they burst and slump.
Pinch. A pinch is what you can hold between your thumb and two fingers, less than an eighth of a teaspoon. It’s a small, forgiving amount, so there’s no need to measure.
How you’ll know: It’s a light sprinkle you can barely see on the food, not a little pile.
Medium heatTimer: 5 min
Add the beans, broth, the rest of the salt and the pepper. 8 minutes, mashing a few beans, until thick and saucy.
Simmer. Simmering means keeping a liquid just below a boil, with small bubbles rising gently. It cooks food evenly and lets a sauce thicken without scorching on the bottom.
How you’ll know: Small, lazy bubbles break the surface every second or so, and nothing is churning.
Medium heatTimer: 8 min
Stir in the spinach a handful at a time until it , about 2 minutes.
Wilt. Wilting means cooking leafy greens just until they go soft and collapse. Greens shrink a lot, so a big pile of spinach becomes a small handful, and that’s normal.
How you’ll know: The leaves turn soft and deep green and slump into the pan, usually within a minute or two.
Medium heat
Toast the bread and it with the last tablespoon of oil.
Drizzle. Drizzling means pouring a thin, slow stream over the top of something. A thin stream spreads a little flavor a long way.
How you’ll know: You see thin lines across the food, not a puddle collecting underneath.
Spoon the beans into shallow bowls, top with parmesan and more pepper, and use the toast to scoop.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
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30-minute dinners ›One-pan dinners ›What to make with spinach and parmesan ›What to make with tomatoes and parmesan ›What to make with cannellini beans and parmesan ›