Creamy Pasta Carbonara Recipe (2024)

FAQs

How do you keep carbonara creamy? ›

“It's the main ingredient, so egg yolk is one of the most important aspects of carbonara. The quantity is crucial: the right amount is two egg yolks for each person. As with all pasta, you have to keep the pasta water – the starchy water is how you get a perfectly creamy sauce.

The golden rule of cooking carbonara is to never cook the sauce over direct heat once the eggs are added. Instead, remove the pasta from the heat and toss it with the egg and cheese mixture off the heat, allowing the residual heat from the pasta to gently cook the eggs into a creamy sauce.

Carbonara is a classic, 5-ingredient Roman pasta dish made with 5 simple ingredients: pasta, eggs, guanciale, Pecorino Romano cheese and black pepper. It's made by tempering eggs, cheese and starchy pasta cooking water into a luscious creamy pasta sauce. The taste is rich, salty and addictive!

What not to put in Spaghetti Carbonara? Don't put garlic, cream, milk or butter. It is not needed. It is fine if you want to make a dish with those ingredients, but if you want to learn how to make this dish correctly, use only pecorino, eggs/egg yolks, black pepper, guanciale, and pasta water.

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.

Blown. Taste.com.au Food Director, Amira Georgy, confirmed this, saying: “Traditionally, carbonara sauce contains no cream, just eggs and cheese. The eggs and cheese are added to the hot pasta and tossed together until a silky sauce forms.”

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.

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.

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.

What does a traditional carbonara contain? ›

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.

Because carbonara is a codified recipe and its ingredients are guanciale, black pepper, egg yolks, grated pecorino (or a mixture of pecorino and Parmigiano Reggiano). That's all. Four ingredients.

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.

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.

Add extra pasta cooking water to keep it saucy (several tablespoons should do it). You don't want it wet, just moist. Season with a little salt, if needed.

For an extra creamy sauce, it's best to use mostly egg yolks. The egg whites tend to make carbonara watery, but too many egg yolks can make the sauce too custardy. The solution? Five egg yolks and one whole egg.

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.

We have a few tips to make sure your carbonara sauce is super smooth: Make sure your eggs are at room temperature! Cold eggs can cause lumps in your pasta sauce, so we recommend letting them sit on the kitchen counter while you prep the rest of the sauce.