This recipe was written for canned beans.
You can cook beans from dry first and then make the recipe, but cooking dry beans and the pasta at the same time would result in very overcooked pasta.

You can absolutely use pinto beans and another reader had great luck cooking for 5 minutes so you can reduce the cook time a bit if you’d like!

Thanks! I’ll add a note of it (I don’t like el dente pasta, but I forget that others do!)

Awesome! Thank you, this recipe is delicious. I am making it for a larger crowd this time ?

It won’t overfill it, but it will take a bit longer to cook the meat so give yourself a bit longer for that step. Don’t worry about increasing the cook time either – the pasta will cook and the sauce will thicken in the same amount of time.

Awesome! Would you just double all ingredients? I’m a little concerned because I am a new IP user, should I worry about my 6qt being too full by doubling!

It makes four adult portions, but it doubles well 🙂