pasta e ceci

from guest author Colu Henry

Click here for the WTC recipe index, and scroll to the bottom of this post for a printer-friendly version of today’s recipe by guest author Colu Henry!

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guest spotlight

From Caro: Oh man, I couldn’t be more pumped to introduce you guys to Colu Henry — my fourth maternity leave guest author! Colu is a writer, recipe developer, and frequent contributor to the New York Times and Food & Wine. 

She has worked in food for over 15 years and has learned what resonates with home cooks by creating elegant, yet approachable recipes without overthinking it. She is the author of Back Pocket Pasta and Colu Cooks: Easy Fancy Food, and the writer behind Colu Cooks on Substack. Which you should all subscribe to!

Colu splits her time between Hudson, New York, and Nova Scotia, Canada, with her husband.

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my cec

From Colu: The original request for this one-pot recipe came from my lovely editor Margaux at the New York Times. I’d oddly never made pasta e ceci (pasta with chickpeas) this way before, even though I wrote a whole book on pasta! And, although I’m generally against cooking pasta in the sauce it’s served in, I make an exception here. It really works. A lot of readers thought so too as it became one of my most popular dishes in record time!

I started affectionately referring to her as “My Cec.” I’ve changed a few ingredients in this version to make it how I would serve it at home, but the best part about this recipe is that it relies on pantry ingredients and is incredibly forgiving. Use water in place of stock, use uncased sausage instead of pancetta (or leave the meat out entirely and keep it vegetarian).

It’s truly a crowd-pleaser of a dish, and on a cold and blustery night it’s easy to double, so having friends over and opening a lot of red wine are actually the only two ingredients that aren’t optional.

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pasta e ceci aka “my cec”

By Colu Henry