Hi everyone! Well, I have a half pound of bacon left over from the Napa Cabbage and Bacon dinner, and I’ve got a dozen eggs that I should use pretty soon, so the obvious choice to make for dinner is Pasta Carbonara!
Pasta Carbonara is a rich, decadent, creamy pasta dish that gets its creaminess from eggs, primarily egg yolks, instead of using dairy. It also contains a half pound of bacon, so you know it will be delicious. I prefer to use a thick cut bacon in this dish, but it works well with a regular cut, too, if that is what you have on hand. Pasta Carbonara also contains a lot of parmesan cheese, and when you combine the cheese with the bacon and eggs, each serving contains a tremendous amount of protein. And the flavor is incredibly satisfying.
When I see Carbonara on a menu, it’s usually listed as Spaghetti Carbonara, but I find that the spaghetti noodles don’t hold onto the sauce well enough. I prefer to use a noodle with more nooks and crannies to trap the rich egg sauce and folds to cradle the bacon. I generally use farfalle, or bow tie pasta, and it works perfectly in this dish. It’s also pretty east to find in the store. Many of the more obscure pastas with interesting shapes and textures can be hard to find these days.
This Pasta Carbonara recipe only contains four ingredients, along with some salt and pepper, and it can be made in about as long as it takes to boil the pasta, so it’s great for week night meals. Here is the recipe I use:
Pasta Carbonara
Ingredients
4 egg yolks and 2 whole eggs at room temperature
1 cup of grated parmesan cheese
1 tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
4 slices thick cut bacon or 6 slices regular cut bacon
1 lb pasta, such as farfalle (bow tie)
Instructions
Combine the egg yoks, whole eggs, parmesan cheese, salt and pepper in a bowl. Whisk until well combined.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil over high heat. Cook the pasta 2 minutes less than the package directions, about 10 minutes. Reserve some of the pasta water before you drain the noodles.
While the pasta is cooking, heat a large skillet over medium high heat and sauté the bacon for about 5 minutes, or util it is browned and crispy. Remove the bacon from the pan and put it on a paper towel-lined plate to drain. You should have about ¼ cup of bacon grease left in the pan. If you don’t have ¼ cup in the pan, you can add some olive oil to bring it up to ¼ cup, or remove some of the bacon grease if there is too much.
Pour the drained pasta into the pan with the bacon grease. Also add in ¼ cup of the pasta water over the pasta and toss the pasta so it coats completely. Adding the pasta water helps thicken the sauce and also helps the sauce stick to the pasta.
Slowly drizzle ½ cup of the hot pasta water into the egg mixture, whisking continuously so the egg mixture doesn’t curdle.
Turn off the burner under the pan with the pasta. Slowly pour the entire egg mixture into the pan while tossing the pasta so the pasta gets coated in the egg mixture. Keep tossing the pasta and egg mixture for another couple of minutes, until it looks creamy. Add the cooked bacon and toss some more to combine. If you want t looser sauce, add a little more of the pasta sauce to the dish.
