When I was growing up, my mom served many delicious traditional dishes—including hand-rolled pasta, painstakingly seasoned porkette (an Italian pork roast), and many others—and exposed us to many new ones. Recently, however, we’ve learned to remake many of these recipes to reduce the fat in our diet and focus on old favorites that are more heart healthy.

Tomorrow I plan to try this Good Housekeeping recipe for Baked Pasta e Fagioli that includes spinach, a variation new to me. It brings back memories of my mom cooking her own rendition of pasta e fagioli  on a Friday evening on the stove and even my Grandpop cooking his own variation. His tomato-less white version simmered white beans with ham hocks (before we learned about the benefits of heart-healthy diets:)). Generally, most of the recipes I’ve had are tomato based, but they universally contained pasta e fagioli—pasta and beans.

No one really likes to focus on fiber when they’re thinking about mouth-watering recipes, but this component is essential to a heart-healthy diet and can be an added bonus when the dish is delicious. This recipe packs 12 grams of fiber. Fortunately, you don’t have to sacrifice flavor to be heart healthy!