Pasta with Hearty Greens

Jeff the Chef
Improvisation № 6

The sauce doesn’t disguise the flavors in this Pasta with Hearty Greens. It creates a canvas for them instead. It’s clean and refreshing. It’s not heavy, but it is deliciously satisfying.

Pasta with Hearty Greens
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Pasta with Hearty Greens

Recipe by Make It Like a Man!Course: Dinner
Servings

4

servings

The sausage accents this dish in a crucial way; choose something with interesting flavors.

Ingredients

  • ½ lb. farfalle

  • 2 Tbs olive oil

  • 1 onion, peeled and thinly sliced

  • 2 cloves of garlic, minced

  • 4 oz. beet greens, sliced into thin shreds

  • 4 oz. spinach, sliced into thin shreds

  • 10 oz. sausage, sliced into rounds (see notes)

  • 1 dried Thai chile pepper, stem (and seeds, to taste) removed

  • 1 Tbs cornstarch

  • 1 cup of chicken stock

  • Salt, to taste

  • 1 Tbs fig-and-plum balsamic vinegar

  • Shredded Parmesan, optionally

  • Freshly ground black pepper

Directions

  • Boil the pasta according to package directions (but salt the water … the box doesn’t always tell you to). Drain it. Set aside.
  • Heat the oil over a medium-high flame and add the onion. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the onions soften, maybe five minutes. Add the garlic, stir continuously for about a minute, then turn heat to lowest flame and stir in the greens. Stir in the sausage. Stir in the chile. Let it all get warm, which will take just a couple of minutes. Mix the cornstarch thoroughly with 2 Tablespoons of water. Turn the flame back up to medium-high, and add the stock, and stir in the cornstarch liquid. Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring constantly. Off heat. Salt to taste, add the vinaigrette, and re-check the seasoning.
  • Stir in the pasta. (Toss in some cheese and give it no more than one or two, good stirs.) Dust will pepper. Serve.

Notes

  • Ideally, by the time the pasta is ready, the rest of the dish will be just done. You don’t want the pasta waiting for the sauce for very long, although the exact opposite is completely fine.
  • I chose a sweet basil-tomato-and cheese chicken sausage that was fully cooked and needed only heating. If you choose a raw sausage, it will need a ton more cooking that what I’m describing.

For me, cooking often means following recipes. Finding a well-written, thoroughly-tested recipe isn’t easy. What’s more, depending on your level of experience, you may not fully understand even well-written directions. On top of all of that, some people are better at following directions than others – and I say that as someone who asked his 7th grade shop teacher, incredulously and in all honesty, “Do you seriously expect me to measure it to the 16th of an inch?”

If I’m not following recipes, I’m modifying them … to adapt them for what I happen to have on-hand, for instance.

This recipe, however, is more of an improvisation. It started with beet greens that I happened to have, and a desire for pasta, which I also happened to have (both the desire, and the box of pasta). The next part came just from imagining what I was in the mood for: just enough sauce to coat the pasta. Protein. The rest of the ingredients came from trying to balance the flavors of the greens, and create something that had depth and interest.

  • Starch: pasta
  • Allium: onion, garlic (aromatic)
  • Hearty Greens: beet greens, spinach (bitter)
  • Protein: sausage (sweet, umami)
  • Heat: chile pepper (spicy)
  • Flavorful liquid: chicken stock (salty, umami)
  • Seasoning: salt, balsamic vinegar (salty, sweet, sour)

With these categories and flavors in mind, you could turn this Pasta with Hearty Greens into a million different dishes. Swap out the onions and garlic with other aromatics: carrots (cut into matchsticks) and shallots (minced), for instance. Use cream instead of – or in addition to – the stock. Swap out or augment the sausage with cannellini beans (another protein).

The method is insanely simple: I sautéed everything, starting with the things that needed or wanted it most, and finishing with the things that don’t really need any cooking at all. Then made a super-simple sauce.

I’m pleased with how this came out. I put my cooking into four categories: 1) never again! 2) I’d eat that, 3) I’d serve that to guests, and 4) I’d be happy if I were served that in a restaurant. This dish is a solid category three, possibly four – so long as the get-together wasn’t formal, or the restaurant was the cool kind of place where you’d expect to find beet greens on the menu.

What makes this worth bloggin about:

I think it’s important for your body and soul to eat a wide variety of foods. Many of us eat greens, but only a handful of types, which we buy expressly to eat them: lettuce, spinach, and cabbage, for instance. There are other greens we sometimes buy because they happen to be attached to another food we want to eat – carrots, beets – and we often throw them away. This dish offers variety, and avoids thoughtless waste. AND, beet greens are delicious!

 Pasta with Hearty Greens

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man!, unless otherwise indicated. Thank you, Kesor and Proper Circle. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. Make It Like a Man! has been ranked by Feedspot as #16 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs. Eight intriguingly mysterious notches above Alton Brown. It must’ve been the pierogi.

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36 thoughts on “Pasta with Hearty Greens”

  1. I have some jalapeno gouda chicken sausage that I bet would be delicious in this dish. Thank you for sharing. It sounds and looks amazing.
    Lori recently posted…My Week

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  5. I don’t think I’ve ever cooked with beet greens before – there’s a first time for everything! And I’d say you did a fan-freakin-tastic job working with what you had on hand, Jeff. I’ll be over for leftovers!
    David @ Spiced recently posted…No Knead Honey Oat Bread

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  10. We have never incorporated beet greens into any dish. So, your recipe inspires us to try this and we’ll let you know! Thanks for another great recipe, Jeff

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  13. This is definitely my kind of dish Jeff. Pasta dishes that come together quickly, and incorporate greens and a protein, are hard to beat! Love that you used beet greens, I’ve never tried them. That needs to change! And this sauce sounds delicious!
    shannon recently posted…Lebanese Cheese Rolls (Rekakat)

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    • I know! I’ve come to love them such that if I have a choice between buying beets with the green on them, I always do.

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  15. What a hearty dish with rich ingredients! Looks a restaurant quality dish. Bye the way Fig-plum vinegar so new and haven’t used it before. Its taste must be different than the grape-vinegar or apple-vinegar. Happy day,

    Reply

    • It’s definitely different from, say, white or red wine vinegar, or cider vinegar. If you wanna sub, you should use another balsamic. The fig and plum is quite thick and rich, and sweet.

      Reply

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