Chorizo and White Bean Ragu
This recipe is from Good and Cheap.
Good and Cheap is a gorgeous cookbook for people with limited income, particularly on a $4/day food stamps budget. The PDF is free (ahora en Español!) and has been downloaded more than 15,000,000 times. I have more cookbooks, too!
This recipe from Good and Cheap was inspired by my friend Chris. He told me he loves a good ragu so I worked to develop a version that is as hearty as a meaty tomato sauce without the expense and heaviness of a traditional ragu. It also comes together much more quickly than the longer cooking traditional sauce. A batch of this is probably enough for four people, served with grated Romano or Parmesan over pasta, polenta, or grits.
This sauce freezes very well so consider doubling or tripling the recipe, freezing what you don’t eat and enjoying it later.
- 1 Tbsp olive or vegetable oil
- 1 onion chopped
- 3 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 1 Tbsp jalapeno finely chopped (optional)
- 1/2 lb mexican chorizo casing removed
- 1 1/2 cups canned or fresh tomatoes pureed
- 1 1/2 cups butter beans, navy beans or cannelini beans
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Melt the butter in a pan over medium heat and swirl it to coat the pan.
- Add the chopped onion and cook until it turns translucent. Toss in the garlic, jalapeño, and fresh chorizo (or any other kind of fresh sausage), then sauté for about a minute.
- Add the tomatoes and beans, then simmer until the sauce is thick and the sausage is cooked, about 5 minutes on medium heat. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.
- Because this sauce contains meat, it won’t keep especially long in the fridge, but you can freeze it for later use if you don’t plan to eat it all within a few days.
2 Comments
I made this dish on Wednesday. My mom hates chorizo, so I used beef instead. I served it with whole wheat spaghetti. My mom, sister, and I liked the dish overall. The consensus was that the cannelini beans didn’t taste good in the dish.
Made this for the first time yesterday with Spanish chorizo (all I could find at the store). I subbed powdered smoked paprika for the jalapeno to match the flavor profile. Since I had to stand by the stove and stir the polenta for nearly an hour anyway, I made sure to carefully and thoroughly brown onion, garlic, and chorizo (as Ann Burrell does in the first two steps of her bolognese recipe: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/anne-burrell/pasta-bolognese-recipe-1939315 ), before using the tomato puree to deglaze the pan, then reduced the whole thing to the right consistency. I think putting in that extra time made the ragu really delicious. I would definitely make it again. I ran the numbers; the ragu and polenta together cost ~$6.50.