Cheese-Rind Broth
with end-of-bag pasta

Stop throwing away Parmesan rinds. This is the most common piece of food-waste advice you'll hear in professional kitchens, and it's worth repeating because most people still do it. A Parmesan rind simmered in water for thirty minutes makes a broth that tastes like you had good stock. Add pasta and you have a real bowl of something to eat.

The rind is the hard, waxy exterior of a block of Parmesan or Pecorino. It doesn't melt the way the cheese does, but it releases enormous flavor into liquid over heat — glutamates, salt, the deep umami funk that makes those cheeses so good. You won't want to eat the rind itself (it gets soft and rubbery), but the broth it makes is the point.

The pasta part uses whatever you have. This is the recipe for the end-of-the-bag situation: a cup of ditalini here, a handful of broken spaghetti there, the last of the orecchiette that aren't enough for a proper pasta dish. They all go in the same broth and cook at roughly the same rate. Nobody will notice they're mismatched.

What you need

• 2–3 Parmesan or Pecorino rinds (from a block of hard cheese, saved in the freezer or fridge)
• 1 cup dry pasta — any shape, any combination of what's left in bags
• 4 cups water (or chicken broth if you have it — better, not required)
• 3 garlic cloves, smashed
• 1 bay leaf
• Handful of any leafy greens: spinach, kale, chard, or even just parsley
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• Salt and black pepper
• Extra Parmesan to grate over the top

How to make it

Step 1: Make the broth. Put the cheese rinds, smashed garlic cloves, and bay leaf into a medium saucepan. Add four cups of cold water. Bring it to a gentle simmer over medium heat. Don't let it boil hard — a steady, gentle simmer is what extracts the flavor without making the broth bitter or cloudy in a bad way. Let it go for twenty-five to thirty minutes. The water will turn cloudy and faintly yellow. Taste it around the twenty-minute mark. It should be savory and good.

Step 2: Pull out the solids. Remove the cheese rinds (they'll have swelled up and gone soft), the garlic, and the bay leaf. Taste the broth and season with salt carefully — the rinds release quite a bit of salt as they cook, so you may need less than you think. Add a little at a time.

Step 3: Cook the pasta. Bring the broth to a rolling boil. Add all the pasta at once. Cook until just tender, following the timing on the package — though with mixed pasta shapes, check the smallest pieces first. Small shapes like ditalini or orzo take about eight minutes; larger ones like penne take ten to twelve. If your shapes are very mixed, add the larger ones first and the smaller ones partway through.

Step 4: Add the greens. In the last two minutes of cooking, stir in whatever leafy greens you have. Spinach wilts in about thirty seconds. Kale and chard need a minute or two. The greens will drink up some of the broth, so if the soup looks too thick, add a splash of hot water.

Step 5: Serve and finish. Ladle into deep bowls. Drizzle with olive oil. Grate as much Parmesan as you like over the top. Crack some black pepper over it. This soup benefits from a lot of black pepper. Serve with bread if you have it.

Storing rinds

This recipe only works if you've been saving the rinds. The best system is a small zip-lock bag in the freezer — every time you finish a block of Parmesan, the rind goes in the bag. Once you have two or three, you have enough for a batch of broth. Rinds keep in the freezer indefinitely and don't need to be thawed before using.

What else goes in

White beans added with the greens make this a more substantial meal. Diced canned tomatoes stirred in after you remove the rinds give it a slightly different, more tomato-forward flavor. A leftover Parmesan rind is the main ingredient — everything else can flex.

See also: 30-minute lentil soup from pantry · Garlicky greens pasta · NowCook pricing