Roasted Red Pepper Pasta with Creamy White Bean Sauce
“White beans give a cream-free sauce enough body to stay in the ridges.”
Published by MommyCooking.org · Published September 30, 2026
A jar of roasted peppers and a can of white beans make a sauce with the body of cream and none of the dairy, provided the blender runs long enough to lose the bean skins. The tomato paste is not a garnish here; cooking it dark is where the depth comes from.
Starchy pasta water does the final adjusting. The purée comes out of the blender thicker than you want it on the plate, and splashes of that water let you take it exactly as far as the rigatoni needs.
🌶️ The promise: The sauce is smooth with no bean flecks and a glossy coral coating sits inside every tube.
🌶️ Everything you need, all in one look🧂 Ingredient notes & easy swaps
Butter beans blend even smoother than cannellini and are worth using if you have them. Jarred peppers vary a great deal in salt, so taste the sauce before adding the full teaspoon.
During “Blend the pepper-bean sauce,” use this checkpoint for Roasted Red Pepper White Bean Pasta: blend peppers, beans, seasoned oil, broth, salt, and lemon until completely smooth.
Use “Finish after direct heat” to reach the final cue—sauce is smooth with no bean flecks, and a glossy red coating fills each pasta tube—and stop there.
🍳 What you actually need (equipment)
A large pasta pot and a high-speed blender or food processor. Scrape the blender sides down twice rather than adding liquid to get the blades moving, since a thin sauce cannot be un-thinned.
Bring the large pasta pot of salted water to a boil and cook 12 oz (340 g) rigatoni for 10 to 12 minutes, until the tubes bend but still resist at the core. Reserve 1 cup (240 ml) of the starchy water before draining.
Boil the rigatoni
Warm 2 tablespoons (30 ml) olive oil in a wide pan over medium heat, add 3 sliced garlic cloves (15 g), and stir until the slices turn pale gold at the edges. Add 2 tablespoons (32 g) tomato paste and cook 2 minutes, until it darkens to brick red.
Sizzle garlic and paste
Tip the garlic mixture into the high-speed blender with 2 jars (340 g each) drained roasted red peppers, 1 can (425 g) rinsed cannellini beans, ½ cup (120 ml) vegetable broth, 1 teaspoon (6 g) kosher salt, and ½ teaspoon (1 g) smoked paprika. Blend until glossy and completely smooth.
Blend the pepper-bean sauce
Pour the sauce back into the wide pan and warm it over low heat for 4 to 5 minutes, stirring often. It thickens slightly and loses its raw edge, deepening to a richer orange-red as it heats.
Warm the sauce through
Add the drained rigatoni and 2 tablespoons (30 ml) lemon juice, tossing over the heat until every tube is coated inside and out. Splash in the reserved pasta water a little at a time until the sauce slides rather than clings.
Toss pasta with sauce
Take the pan off the heat and stir in ½ cup (50 g) grated Parmesan so it melts into the sauce without stringing. Tear ¼ cup (15 g) basil over the top just before it reaches the table.
Finish with cheese and basil
✅ How to know it's done
The rigatoni sits in a silky, sweet pepper sauce that clings to every ridge, scented with basil and Parmesan. At “Blend the pepper-bean sauce,” blend peppers, beans, seasoned oil, broth, salt, and lemon until completely smooth; adjust ingredients only after comparing the batch with the cue that sauce is smooth with no bean flecks, and a glossy red coating fills each pasta tube.
💡 Practical tips (and what not to do)
Cook the tomato paste until it darkens. Two full minutes takes it from tinny to brick red, and that is the difference between tasting jarred peppers and tasting a cooked sauce.
Blend longer than feels necessary. Cannellini skins are what make a bean sauce grainy, and losing them usually takes a full minute on high.
Reserve the cooking water before you drain. A cup of it is what turns a thick purée into something that stays in the ridges; plain tap water will not do the same job.
Pull the rigatoni a minute early. It keeps cooking in the warm sauce, and tubes boiled to soft collapse under a purée this heavy.
Parmesan goes in off the heat. Cheese stirred into a simmering pan seizes into strings instead of melting smooth.
Budget: Dried cannellini cooked from scratch cost about a third of canned and give a thicker sauce; use 1½ cups cooked. Lighter: Halve the Parmesan and stretch the sauce over 1 lb of pasta so it feeds eight rather than six. Kids: Blend the sauce without the smoked paprika and stir it into the adult bowls at the end. Extra flavor: Add a drained tin of anchovy or a teaspoon of Calabrian chile paste alongside the tomato paste.
💛✨ Flavor boost
Blot the jarred peppers and rinsed beans dry before they go into the blender, because the packing liquid they carry waters the sauce down before you have added anything at all.
🥔 What Goes Well With It
Escarole or radicchio wilted in oil and garlic, bitter against all that pepper sweetness.
Toasted breadcrumbs with lemon zest over each bowl, since nothing in the pan is crisp.
Olives and celery to pick at beforehand, which suits a sauce this rich.
📦 Storage & Freezer Notes
Sauce and pasta keep better apart: the blended sauce holds 4 days refrigerated and dressed leftovers 2, in both cases cooled within 2 hours.
Warm dressed pasta in a covered pan over low heat with a splash of water, stirring for about 4 minutes until it steams through; a microwave dries the ridges and leaves the middle cold.
The sauce alone freezes for 3 months in flat bags, but dressed pasta does not, because rigatoni turns mealy after thawing.
Boil rigatoni until just tender, reserving 1 cup pasta water before draining. Prepare “Finish after direct heat” while Roasted Red Pepper White Bean Pasta moves through “Blend the pepper-bean sauce,” not after the food is ready.
Remove from heat, fold in Parmesan and basil, and rest 3 minutes. Serve Roasted Red Pepper White Bean Pasta as soon as it reaches the stated doneness cue, with lemon-dressed greens. Cool Roasted Red Pepper White Bean Pasta promptly in shallow containers, refrigerate it, and use it within 3–4 days.
🧒 Serving Ideas for Kids
Blend out a small portion of sauce before the smoked paprika goes in, which is the only assertive thing in it.
Snap the rigatoni in half before boiling so a tube is one manageable mouthful.
Tear the basil over the top rather than stirring it through, so it can be picked off without an argument.
❓ Quick answers
Why is my sauce grainy?
Underblended beans. Run the machine a full minute on high, scraping once, and if your blender is not powerful, push the sauce through a sieve — it takes two minutes and removes the skins entirely.
Can I roast my own peppers instead of using jars?
Yes; four large red peppers roasted at 450°F (230°C) for 30 minutes and peeled give roughly the same 680 g. They are less acidic than jarred, so add an extra tablespoon of lemon juice.
Can I make it without cheese?
Replace the Parmesan with 2 tablespoons of nutritional yeast and an extra tablespoon of olive oil, both stirred in off the heat. The beans already supply the creaminess, so nothing collapses.
What other pasta shape works?
Anything ridged or hollow — penne rigate, shells, paccheri. Long strands are the wrong choice, because this sauce is too thick to cling evenly to spaghetti.
🥗 Nutrition, roughly: about 450 calories per serving. Estimates only; brands, cuts and portion sizes change the numbers.
Published by MommyCooking.org. This AI-assisted recipe passed automated checks for page consistency and required image files. The publisher confirms this recipe was tested before publication. The food images are AI-generated illustrations, not photographs of a cooking session. Cooking temperatures should be checked with a food thermometer; nutrition figures are estimates. How we make recipes · Report a problem with this recipe
