Pasta Carbonara Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is real carbonara sauce made of? ›

The ingredients are the classic ones: aged guanciale, egg yolks, Pecorino cheese (with the addition of Grana Padano to balance the saltiness), and freshly ground black pepper. You'll discover the secret ingredient by reading and cooking! Check out other tasty versions of traditional carbonara: Seafood carbonara.

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.

“Carbonara is won or lost in the final 30 seconds. Too much heat and it scrambles; too little heat and the cheese doesn't melt enough and it's grainy. First, though, you want the sauce silky and unctuous, so grate the parmesan super fine. This allows it to melt without too much heat.

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.

Should carbonara have cream? Typically carbonara sauce is only made of eggs, bacon, parmesan, olive oil, seasoning, and sometimes, vegetables. As for cream, Italians will tell you that is a big no no.

Alfredo is basic – pasta, cream, parmesan, parsley. Carbonara is a little more complicated – pasta, onion, pancetta, garlic, egg yolks, cream, parmesan, parsley. Because this is a gluten-free version we have to use spaghetti – if you're not gluten-free use anything from penne to linguini.

No! Carbonara is effectively an egg yolk, cooked with the heat of the pasta. It's delicious but it's not “white sauce” . White sauce starts with a roux.

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.

Because in the traditional recipe there is no garlic, if you add it you will lower quality of a very good food. Why is there no garlic in carbonara? Because it's an Italian dish, not an Italian-American dish, and Italian cooking does not use garlic as heavily as Italian-American cuisine.

Do Italians put cream in pasta carbonara? ›

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.

What distinguishes carbonara from other pasta dishes is its technique of combining eggs, hard cheese, cured pork, and black pepper into a rich, silky sauce. This recipe calls for raw eggs that are gently cooked by the hot sauce. If you prefer, you can use pasteurized eggs instead.

Equally important is that the fat that melts out of the guanciale is required to thicken the carbonara sauce to make it creamy. Basically, what happens is that when the fat from the guanciale and in the egg yolks is mixed with starchy pasta cooking water, it thickens.

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.

Traditional carbonara sauce is made with whole eggs, not just the yolks. However, some recipes do call for just yolks. In the traditional recipe, the eggs are beaten together with grated Pecorino Romano cheese, black pepper, and sometimes a bit of Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.

The sauce is made with raw egg yolks and is cooked by using only the heat from the cooked pasta. Some people have concerns about the safety of this dish due to the possibility of egg yolks be contaminated with salmonella. In fact, the hot cooked pasta does fully cook the egg. I hope that this answers your question.

Spaghetti alla carbonara is a traditional Italian dish, which the sauce made of raw egg yolks is heated using only the heat of cooked pasta.

Pecorino Romano: This aged sheep's cheese is always traditionally used in the Roman pastas, and its salty, grassy, earthy flavor is absolutely delicious in carbonara. That said, if Pecorino is unavailable at your local grocery store, you can use Parmesan as a non-traditional substitute.