Pasta carbonara

This is my favorite way to make incredible Calbola at home! Our recipes don’t use cream, but instead make it with real ingredients and rely on cured pork, eggs, cheese and starchy pasta water to make silky carbola sauce. You’ll love this!

Every time I make pasta carbonara, I fall in love again. This creamy classic Italian pasta dish with a short list of ingredients, takes about 15 minutes and takes you to a creamy pasta heaven. It relies on the classic carbon la principles of this recipe. In other words, there is no cream.

The real secret to why carbonara is so good is the eggs. Mix eggs and egg yolks with cheese, render fat from the cured pork (bacon, ganciare, pancetta, etc.) and mix with starchy pasta water. The combination turns into a rich, silky sauce, but it doesn’t feel too heavy. The excellent carbon la actually has quite a lighter foot so I shared everything below that I can do! For pasta recipes, check out the Italian meatballs with the best sauce, weekday spaghetti, grilled gitty and brown butter pasta with eggs.

Important ingredients

Pork: You need a cured, fatty pork shape, such as guanciare (the most traditional), pancetta, or thick cut bacon. We render this in a frying pan. This adds flavor to our plates. It renders fat, so after mixing it with eggs and cheese, make the sauce creamy. Pasta: Use your favorite long pasta noodles. My go-to is spaghetti, but the bucatini, which looks like spaghetti with a hole in the middle, is also lovely. If you’re doing that, Carbonla made with homemade pasta is amazing! Room temperature eggs: Carbonara does not have cream. Instead, combine the eggs and egg yolks with rendered fat and some starchy pasta water to make the sauce silky and creamy. The eggs will get hot, but they probably won’t hit the temperature to make them cook perfectly (as when making homemade tiramisu). We are looking for a creamy, emulsified sauce rather than a fully cooked scrambled egg texture. If you are worried about raw eggs, use pasteurized eggs (common at most grocery stores). If you’re still worried, try Fettuccine alfredo, which doesn’t have eggs and uses butter and cheese in the sauce instead. NOTE: If the eggs are straight from the fridge, you can warm them up quickly by adding the eggs (on the shells) to a bowl of warm water and leaving them for a few minutes. Cheese: I use Parmigiano-Reggiano and Pecorino Romano and I love the combination. If you need to select one, use Pecorino Romano. It has a saltier taste than the Parmigiano Reggiano, it is tangier and works very well with carbonara. For best results, use a fine grater to grate the cheese and skip the pre-decorated Parmesan. Salt and black pepper: For the fully seasoned pasta, I would like to season it with pasta water, which seasons the pasta itself. The sauce is then combined with the starchy water, so the sauce is also seasoned. Fresh black peppers are quite common in Carbonla. The spice tips really cut through the sauce. I prefer finely ground black peppers for this.

How to make carbonara

Start by boiling a large pot of salted water. If you use dried pasta, add it to boiling water now. Fresh or homemade pasta cook much faster, so if you’re using fresh pasta, wait for the pork to add to the water until the rendering is almost finished.

You can render pork (bacon, ganciare, or pancetta) while the pasta is cooked (or while waiting for the fresh pasta to be added). Add some olive oil and black pepper, add the pork to a frying pan and cook over medium heat. The pork should be gentle and roasted hot and not browned too quickly. Cook until the fat is rendered and the pork is still slightly chewy in the center (not crispy/crisky).

If the pork is rendered before the pasta is ready, turn off the heat and set aside. When the pasta is finished, reheat the pork and its fat over low heat.

Once the pasta is ready, use tongs to throw it into the frying pan with the rendered pork and its fat. Throw well for 2 minutes. The fever should remain low and you will throw pasta the whole time. This gives spaghetti the opportunity to absorb the flavor from the bacon and render the fat.

Now turn off the heat, let the pan sit for 1 minute, then pour in the egg and cheese mixture. The pan was sitting for a minute so it wasn’t hot enough to scramble the eggs, but it was hot enough to gently cook the eggs, turning them into a silky smooth sauce.

In this step, you’ll want to throw pasta consecutively around the skillet as you keep things moving and make the sauce without scrambling the eggs. You’ll notice that it’s a little thicker as you throw it, so loosen it with pasta water (at least 2 tablespoons if necessary).

If you are satisfied with the sauce, eat it immediately. It’s hot, topped with grated cheese and black pepper. Yam!