Product Review: Easy Bean’s – Italian Pasta e Fagioli

I have a slight addiction to beans and eat at least three cans of baked beans a week – it’s a must have in my breakfast fry-up too. I have even been known to pack a couple of cans when travelling abroad. I know, the shame right? However, I’m not so bad that I would eat it cold straight from the can. Someone once told me they did that – now that’s just wrong. Baked beans is one of my favs, but I’ll happily eat most types of bean.

Easy Bean sent me a sample of their newly launched, gourmet one-pot meal – Italian Pasta e Fagioli, featuring the borlotti bean, popular to northern Italy. I’ve had issues in the past with one-pot meals, mainly the vegetarian versions. I’ve occasionally found them to be somewhat bland and lacking in taste. So was keen to see how this one would fare and was pleasantly surprised. It was rich, creamy and had a good depth of flavour. It was filling too – I didn’t feel hungry two minutes after eating, as I had done with similar products of its kind.

The borlotti beans and orecchiette pasta gave it a lovely texture, with the porcini providing a decadent, earthy hit. I also thought the pearl onions was a nice touch that elevated the meal to an overall well-considered, tasty dish. As said, I had my doubts about these types of meals as they hadn’t fared well with me before. But I must say I have been pleasantly won over by this particular product and now eager to try the others in their gourmet, award-winning range; African Palava, New Mexican Chilli, Moroccan Tagine, Spanish Puchero, Indian Sambar & French Cuisinées.

Easy Bean meals are prepared in a converted dairy farm in Somerset. They are available from Waitrose, Booths stores, independents and online via Ocado.com, Waitrose.com and naturalgrocery.co.uk. The gourmet range retails at £3.49 (the Italian Pasta e Fagioli will be available until next spring 2013).

Many thanks to Easy Bean for the sample.