Creamy Pasta Carbonara Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why is my carbonara not creamy enough? ›

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.

Preparing the Parmesan and Egg Mixture

I always use 1 egg yolk for every egg I add. This makes the carbonara perfectly creamy. The argument against using egg whites is that they cook quicker than egg yolks. I prefer it, but you have to maintain control over the heat of the pan.

The golden rule to silky carbonara is to whisk your egg whites so that they're completely incorporated with the egg yolks. This will create a smooth, velvety sauce. As like any pasta dish, including carbonara, cook the pasta perfectly al dente so that it's soft but still firm, with some bite.

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!

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.

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.

“The tips for the perfect carbonara are essentially: dried spaghetti not fresh; guanciale not pancetta; and a mixture of parmesan and pecorino. Guanciale is a much fattier pork than pancetta and it is not smoked.

I like to use a ratio of 1 whole egg to 3 egg yolks because it balances the richness. If you are looking to avoid using raw eggs, I would recommend making my Cacio e Pepe recipe – this is another one of the four classic Roman pastas but requires only three ingredients (cheese, pepper, and pasta).

Like recipes for Sunday sauce, recipes and methods for making carbonara vary *wildly* in terms of the number of whole eggs, whites, and yolks used—ranging from as few as two eggs to as many as eight. There is only one thing on which they can all agree: the ratio of pasta to pork and cheese.

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.

What cheese should I use for carbonara? ›

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.

Traditional carbonara doesn't have any cream: it's thickened with fresh-grated cheese and raw egg. Any cream sauce can be thickened by simmering it for a while, if you're using actual cream. If you're using milk or sour cream, you'll need a starch stabilizer, like roux, beurre manie, cornstarch, potato starch, etc.

Alfredo is made from butter, parsley, heavy cream and minced garlic, whereas carbonara is made from pecorino romano, eggs, black pepper and guanciale (ingredients seem to vary for the sauces depending on the recipe). In Italy carbonara is made without cream, adding cream to the sauce is an American thing it seems.

If the dish does get a little dry before serving, splash in some more hot pasta water and the glossy sauciness will be revived.

If the carbonara sauce isn't sticking to the pasta, this could mean either the sauce hasn't cooked properly, and therefore not thickened enough, or too much pasta water made its way into the sauce and it is too thin. Be sure to toss the pasta in the egg mixture until the sauce thickens slightly.

In a pot of salted boiling water, cook your spaghetti until al dente then immediately add to your mixing bowl and stir vigorously until sauce is emulsified and creamy. If too thick, add pasta water 1 tbsp at a time until the correct consistency is achieved, as the sauce will thicken as it sits.

What happens if you overcook carbonara? The pasta will break apart and get soggy but more importantly the egg yolks will get scrambled and make the sauce grainy – it wont have that velvet smooth, luscious, creamy pasta sauce.