Carbonara Pasta – Quick and Easy!

Have you ever had Carbonara Pasta? If you haven’t you should definitely make this rich and delicious pasta. Carbonara is one of the most popular pasta dishes of Rome, along with Amatriciana and Cacio e Pepe (recipe coming soon). Basically, this is “eggs and bacon pasta”. The eggs cook while being mixed in with the hot pasta and create a most wonderful silky sauce. You will feel like you’ve made a difficult and fancy dish when you make this pasta, but it really isn’t difficult at all!

Here’s what you’ll need:

• 1 lb spaghetti or bucatini pasta – I think you could also use rigatoni
• 4 oz guanciale (pork cheek) OR pancetta
• 2 cloves garlic
• 2 eggs
• Olive oil
• Romano and Parmesan cheese
• Splash of half and half or heavy cream

Guanciale is cured pork cheek and it is incredibly delicious. It has wonderful spices added and the flavor is just incredible. This ingredient may be a challenge to find, but you can google where you can find it in your area. You can also substitute pancetta if you can’t find guanciale. You can buy pancetta already diced, which is what you need for this recipe. If you want to make it totally authentic, find some guanciale. I actually used a mixture of the two meats today.

Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet. Add the guanciale and/or pancetta and cook until it is starting to crisp up. Next, add the minced garlic and let cook for a minute. Remove from heat. While you are cooking the meat, cook the pasta one minute less than the package directions. This will allow the pasta to cook a bit when you add it to the sauce and still be the right texture. Reserve a 1/2 cup of the pasta water before you drain it.

Whisk together two eggs, a splash of half and half or heavy cream, a half cup of grated romano cheese and about a quarter cup of parmesan. You want this sauce to be pretty thick, that’s why I say just a splash of cream.

Return the meat/olive oil/garlic mixture to the heat. Don’t drain it because you want the flavor that this little bit of fat gives to this wonderful sauce. Now add the reserved pasta and when this mixture is hot, add the pasta. Stir the pasta so that it gets completely coated in this mixture. The starch in the pasta water will help incorporate everything.

Once the pasta is all coated, remove from heat. Here’s where you have to work quickly. Add the egg mixture to the pasta and quickly stir until you have a silky sauce coating all the pasta. If you don’t work quickly for this part, your eggs will scramble. When you have it all combined, you sill see that you have a beautiful silky sauce.

Finally, add lots of black pepper. This is a key ingredient in this dish. Garnish with parsley if you’d like. This is a “serve pretty immediately” kind of dish, so have your bowls and appetites ready!

Print Recipe

Carbonara Pasta - Quick and Easy!

(2 votes, average: 3.50 out of 5)

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Italian

By Denise Palma – Serves: 4-6

Pasta with a guanciale and a creamy sauce made from eggs and cheese.

Ingredients

• 1 lb spaghetti, bucatini, or rigatoni
• 4 oz guanciale (may substitute pancetta) diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1-2 T Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• 1/2 c grated Romano cheese
• 1/4 c grated Parmesan cheese
• 2 eggs
• Splash of half and half or heavy cream

Instructions

1

Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add diced guanciale and/or pancetta.

2

Cook until the meat is starting to crisp.

3

Add garlic and cook for one minute. Remove from heat.

4

Whisk together the eggs, cheeses and a splash of cream. This mixture should be pretty thick.

5

Meanwhile, cook pasta one minute less than package directions. Be sure to salt your pasta water. Reserve 1/2 c pasta water.

6

Return olive oil and meat mixture to heat and add reserved pasta water.

7

Drain pasta and add to the skillet, stirring to coat the pasta in the mixture.

8

Remove from heat.

9

Add the egg mixture to the pasta, stirring quickly so as not to scramble the eggs.

10

Stir until thoroughly incorporated and you have a silky sauce.

11

Add lots of black pepper before serving.