Penne With Asparagus Carbonara Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What should not be added to carbonara? ›

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.

If the sauce is too much liquid, the egg will cook and the result will be dry. Once drained the pasta, put in the same hot pot, add the sauce and stir energically until creamy. If happen to be too liquid because of some water left, I use to give a little heat to the pot. In the end I add guanciale and half of its fat.

Egg yolks and whole eggs – The egg combined with the guanciale fat is what makes the stunning creamy carbonara sauce that the world is obsessed with. There's no need for cream for a creamy sauce! See section above for why. We use a combination of whole eggs, plus egg yolks for richness.

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.

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.

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.

Creamy sauces like carbonara sauce are usually made from butter, cheese, and heavy cream, all of which pile on the saturated fat and calories. A healthier option would be a lighter sauce such as the olive oil-based one in aglio olio, which is rich in good fat and cooked with fresh ingredients like garlic and chilli.

Add 2 bunches broccolini, trimmed, cut into 4cm and 1 bunch asparagus, trimmed, halved. Cook, stirring, for 3 minutes or until starting to soften. Add sweet potato noodles250g packet fresh sweet potato noodles, 250g packet zucchini noodles and 1 cup frozen baby peas.

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. You can either make a carbonara, or the same dish with added garlic (just don't call *that* carbonara, it's not).

You can substitute half and half or light cream for the heavy cream to save on fat and cals, and you can also use bacon instead of the proscuitto as it's quite expensive."

What is the best meat for carbonara? ›

Carbonara is traditionally made with guanciale, or cured pork jowl, though pancetta is often substituted, and both are fatty, salty and deeply savoury.

Guanciale is the most commonly used meat for the dish in Italy, but pancetta and pancetta affumicata are also used and, in English-speaking countries, bacon is often used as a substitute. The usual cheese is pecorino romano; occasionally Parmesan, Grana Padano, or a combination of hard cheeses are used.

Carbonara is almost always served with spaghetti or linguine, but you can use whatever pasta you prefer. For a more unusual take on carbonara, try spinach fettuccine tossed with warm pasta and fresh baby spinach; you'll get a vibrant, beautiful dish with some additional health benefits.

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.

Before adding the eggs and cheese to the pasta, you MUST turn off the heat. If you don't, you could overcook your sauce and turn it into scrambled eggs. The residual heat from the hot noodles and pasta water will cook the egg yolks without scrambling them.

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.