Super Quick Spaghetti Carbonara Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is carbonara sauce made of? ›

Classic Italian carbonara sauce is typically made with just 4 ingredients: eggs, black pepper, pecorino Romano (or parmesan), and guanciale (or pancetta). Of course, you can play around with the ingredients to your liking (we added cream and garlic to this one and often use bacon or ham instead of pancetta!)

The golden rule to silky carbonara is to whisk your egg whites so that they're completely incorporated with the egg yolks. This will create a smooth, velvety sauce. As like any pasta dish, including carbonara, cook the pasta perfectly al dente so that it's soft but still firm, with some bite.

In traditional Italian carbonara, cream is the ingredient that should never be used. Authentic carbonara is made with eggs, hard cheese (like Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano), pancetta or guanciale (cured pork cheek), and black pepper.

Every carbonara chef, from purist to apostate, agrees on one thing, though: it's a meal that should be eaten immediately—carbonara is at its best fresh off the heat.

The difference between alfredo and carbonara is that carbonara contains an egg while alfredo sauce does not. Carbonara is usually thinner in consistency than alfredo sauce, using the egg to coat the noodles instead of relying on the cream.

Should carbonara have cream? Typically carbonara sauce is only made of eggs, bacon, parmesan, olive oil, seasoning, and sometimes, vegetables. As for cream, Italians will tell you that is a big no no.

1. Adding your eggs while the pasta is still on the heat. This is one of the most common mistakes when making carbonara. It is very easy to end up with pasta a la scrambled eggs instead.

Prep the egg mixture.

In a measuring cup, combine the full egg, the separated egg yolks, the cracked pepper, and the pecorino cheese and whisk into a gritty slurry. Because the eggs and cheese are now mixed together, they will both emulsify on contact with the starchy water, creating a smooth sauce.

It uses the correct egg to egg yolk ratio

Using too many whole eggs will create a thin sauce; using too many egg yolks will create a stubborn paste that's difficult to loosen and toss through the pasta. The perfect ratio, however, creates the rich, silky smooth Carbonara Sauce.

A mixture of Pecorino Romano and Parmigiano-Reggiano delivers that essential Roman flavor without making the pasta taste excessively salty or sharp. Using a large mixing bowl and setting it over the boiling pasta water to create a makeshift double boiler helps prevent you from accidentally scrambling the eggs.

Why is there no garlic in carbonara? ›

Why is there no garlic in carbonara? Because it's an Italian dish, not an Italian-American dish, and Italian cooking does not use garlic as heavily as Italian-American cuisine. This is the flowchart of Roman pastas.

What cheese should I use in carbonara? Pecorino Romano, a sharp sheep's milk cheese, can lean salty, especially when combined with cured pork in carbonara, but a 50:50 ratio of Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano hit the ideal mark, balancing sharp, salty, and nutty flavors.

Carbonara is made with guanciale (cured pork), eggs, Pecorino Romano cheese, spaghetti pasta, and lots of black pepper. Italians don't add extra ingredients like cream, milk, garlic, or onions. Try this recipe if you want to make an authentic, creamy carbonara that comes straight from Italy, where I live.

Spaghetti alla carbonara is a traditional Italian dish, which the sauce made of raw egg yolks is heated using only the heat of cooked pasta.

Traditional Carbonara is a pasta sauce that gets its famously smooth, silky texture from the special way eggs (with extra egg yolks added) are cooked in the hot pasta itself. There is also the addition of hard Italian cheeses like Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano that add to the smoothness.

Carbonara: History

Because the name comes from the word carbonaro, “coal burner,” some believe the dish was created as a hearty easy-to-make meal by men working outdoors for long periods.