Super Quick Spaghetti Carbonara Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is the golden rule of cooking a carbonara? ›

What is the golden rule of cooking a carbonara? The golden rule of cooking carbonara is to never cook the sauce over direct heat once the eggs are added.

Whisk Like You Mean It

You're using more egg yolks than whites here, which is what makes carbonara so rich and luxurious. But there's still two eggs-worth of whites in there. Whisking your eggs so that the whites are completely incorporated into the yolks will give your sauce a more uniform texture.

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.

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.

You should never use cream to make carbonara . The creamy sauce should only be made by egg yolks and grated pecorino cheese. First of all your only ingredients should be: Italian spaghetti.

While a simple spaghetti carbonara recipe uses pancetta as the meat and a traditional Italian recipe may use guanciale, a cured pork, De Laurentiis combines bacon and pancetta to give her dish a unique salty kick. But she ups the ante even more with a secret ingredient — cinnamon.

Why It Works. A sauce of mostly yolks has a richer, silkier, tighter texture than one made with only whole eggs.

Must-have ingredients

that there are only five ingredients: pasta, pork cheek, eggs, cheese and pepper. That's it. A real carbonara does not contain onion, garlic, or cream.

The Italian version doesn't use cream or ham. It is made with pancetta (pork belly meat that is salt cured, also referred to as Italian bacon), Parmigiano Reggiano or pecorino romano cheese, eggs, and black pepper—called the basics. The pork is fried in fat, usually olive oil.

What kind of cheese is good in carbonara? ›

Pecorino Romano and Parmigiano Reggiano – I like to use a combination of Pecorino Romano and Parmigiano Reggiano. While these two cheeses ARE similar, I strongly recommend you use BOTH (and not sub one for the other), as it adds a layer of complexity to the flavors.

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.

Egg whites will provide texture but too much could make the eggs curdle. Meanwhile, egg yolks help to bind the pork fat to the sauce. This also helps to enhance the creaminess. So a good rule to follow is to include one egg yolk per person and one egg white per four people.

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.

I like to use a ratio of 1 whole egg to 3 egg yolks because it balances the richness. If you are looking to avoid using raw eggs, I would recommend making my Cacio e Pepe recipe – this is another one of the four classic Roman pastas but requires only three ingredients (cheese, pepper, and pasta).