(Also known as Spanish spaghetti or noodle paella. I’ve heard of a paella version that substitutes noodles for the rice. I love paella and wanted to make some, but I couldn’t locate a recipe. This is how I define fideua. It cooked much more quickly than paella and came out fantastic. I prepared enough of mine to feed around 4 people in a 10″ cast iron skillet.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 55 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 25 mins |
| Servings: | 4 |
| Yield: | 4 servings |
Ingredients
- 3 cups chicken stock, or more if needed
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 pinch saffron
- 1 cup pancetta bacon, diced
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- ½ cup diced carrots
- ½ cup frozen artichoke hearts, thawed
- ½ cup fresh green beans
- 2 cups diced white onion
- salt and black pepper to taste
- 2 cups diced tomatoes
- 1 (16 ounce) package spaghetti, broken into 2-inch pieces
Instructions
- Combine the chicken stock, garlic, and saffron in a saucepan. Warm until hot, but not too hot to put your finger in. Cover, and keep warm over low heat so the saffron can infuse while you continue with the recipe.
- Cook and stir the diced pancetta in a cast iron skillet over medium heat until most of the fat has rendered out and the pancetta has cooked to your desired degree of doneness, about 10 minutes. Once done, remove the pancetta and set aside.
- Discard the grease and pour in 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Cook and stir the carrots, artichoke hearts, and green beans until the vegetables begin to soften, then remove from the pan and set aside. Heat the remaining 1 tablespoon of olive oil in the skillet, and stir in the onion. Season with salt and pepper, and cook until the onion has softened, about 10 minutes. Add the tomatoes, and cook until the tomato-onion mixture is practically a paste, 15 to 20 minutes.
- Spread the onion mixture evenly over the bottom of the skillet, and sprinkle evenly with the broken spaghetti pieces. Pour in enough saffron broth to cover the noodles, then arrange the pancetta and cooked vegetables over top. Add additional saffron broth as needed to cover the vegetables. Bring to a simmer, then reduce heat to medium-low, and cook until the noodles are tender, about 15 minutes.
- Paella and fideua are versatile dishes. In fact the original idea was to make this dish and use up leftovers, and rumor has it that paella is an old Arabic word for ‘leftovers’. Little trivia for ya! You can make paella with sausage, chicken, scallops, clams, mussels, and all sorts of veggies; ideally they work the same. If you only use vegetables, you can replace the olive oil with butter.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 636 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 101 g |
| Cholesterol | 17 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 8 g |
| Protein | 24 g |
| Saturated Fat | 4 g |
| Sodium | 895 mg |
| Sugars | 10 g |
| Fat | 16 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I cut the recipe in half and it still made more than enough for my husband and I. Followed the directions exactly with the exception of using more stock as it wasn’t enough to cover the noodles and vegetables. The dish ended up with a slightly off flavor and we couldn’t figure out why.
I had a wonderful vegetarian fideua this past spring in Barcelona (fideua is popular in the Catalonia region of Spain), so was excited to find this recipe. I couldn’t find frozen artichoke hearts, and thought using canned might be too mushy…plus they weren’t in the dish I had, but peas were, so I added those instead. This is a very tasty recipe and close to the real thing. I think using the cast iron skillet and sticking it in the oven would add the final touch. Will make this again.
Simple, but excellent. I used 4 cups of chicken stock, and could have used slightly more. Next time i’ll increase the quantity of tomoatos to 2.5 cups.