Pasta Carbonara (2024)

FAQs

What is the golden rule of cooking 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.

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.

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.

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.

friends' homes, in a trattorias or in starred restaurants of the capital alike, throughout Italy and abroad, in countless versions: with or without pepper, with one yolk per person or the addition of at least one whole egg, with guanciale or strips of bacon. The carbonara sauce is prepared in a matter of minutes.

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.

That means you'll have to make carbonara more than once…. oh well! 1 egg per person plus a yolk for the pan is a good starting point. Whole eggs and egg yolks are equally “authentic” as you will find about as many Italian cooks on either side of the debate.

Add a little of the pasta cooking water when you bring the spaghetti into the pan with the pancetta/bacon. The water is starchy, so acts as a natural thickener, making the dish extra silky. It's also taking some of that sting out of the pan heat so you can add the eggs and cheese without scrambling.

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.

How do I improve my carbonara? ›

“To make the best carbonara, you need to fry the guanciale in a pan until it is nice and crispy. Strain the pasta when it is half cooked. Keep cooking it in the pan where you made the guanciale crispy, adding starchy water until it is cooked al dente.

Now quickly pour in the eggs and cheese. Using the tongs or a long fork, lift up the spaghetti so it mixes easily with the egg mixture, which thickens but doesn't scramble, and everything is coated. Add extra pasta cooking water to keep it saucy (several tablespoons should do it).

If you want your carbonara to be as authentic as possible, you should be using guanciale, not bacon or pancetta. Guanciale is cured pork cheek. It looks a little like bacon, but isn't smoked, so its flavor leans more towards pancetta. Rich, unctuous and packed with umami, guanciale is what real carbonara is made from.

Guanciale – This is a key ingredient in carbonara, and is a cured fatty pork that is similar to bacon and pancetta. It adds adds flavour into the dish and the fat makes the sauce creamy when mixed with the egg and starchy pasta cooking water.

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.

Seriouseats has written about this in the past, preferring a 3:1 ratio. With so few ingredients, and the eggs receiving such minimal cooking, ultra fresh eggs will give the best flavor. Seek pecorino. The sheepy sharpness of pecorino is what cuts through the egg fat.

Guanciale – This is a key ingredient in carbonara, and is a cured fatty pork that is similar to bacon and pancetta. It adds adds flavour into the dish and the fat makes the sauce creamy when mixed with the egg and starchy pasta cooking water.