Cupboard Carbonara

Carbonara feels fancy without requiring a ton of ingredients. If you’re willing to deviate from tradition, it means you can be really flexible, which is key right now in this time of limited grocery items. I’ll outline the ingredients I used, but in the end you can be extremely creative and the only really necessary ingredients to get a carbonara-feel (in my non-professional opinion) are the eggs/egg yolks, grated parmesan, pasta/pasta water, and some sort of fat, whether from traditional pork fat or otherwise. Everything else is just bonus deliciousness.

Necessary Carbonara Ingredients

• Pasta
• Eggs (2 whole eggs, 4 yolks)
• Guanciale/Pancetta/Bacon (see vegetarian suggestions below)
• Parmesan

Delicious Bonus Ingredients

• Garlic
• White beans
• Asparagus
• Black pepper/cayenne

Prep

First, prep any extras you’ll be adding. I cut my asparagus into medium/small pieces and drained a can of cannellini beans so that I would be ready to quickly assemble the carbonara. This dish is all about timing, especially at the end— once you have al dente pasta and a pot of hot pasta water, it’s a game of timing to incorporate your hot pasta water slowly into your egg yolks and then combine with your rendered bacon to emulsify a smooth and delicious sauce without ending up with either a) raw eggs, or b) scrambled eggs. Full disclosure, I forgot to turn my pan off at the end of my dish and got a tiny bit of scrambling before I realized my mistake. Luckily, I still got a creamy, smooth, delicious sauce regardless!

If you’re using pancetta, guanciale, or bacon, part of your prep includes cutting your meat into nice pieces prior to sautéing.

Cook your Bacon and Start your Pasta

Start your pasta in a pot (classic boiling water that’s “salty as the sea” instructions) and in a separate pan begin to cook your bacon. Adding garlic is wholly untraditional but I did it anyway because who doesn’t love some smashed garlic? Since I used turkey bacon, which has a much lower fat content than something like pancetta, I added a little olive oil here to prevent sticking.

If you go vegetarian with this recipe, you can make a flavorful fat base with butter, ghee, olive oil, avocado oil, etc. I definitely recommend incorporating flavor into your fat with something smoky (e.g. smoked paprika, chipotle powder) to give a similar feel to a cured pork product. Umami flavor from mushroom powder or nutritional yeast might also be a great addition.

If you’re adding extra ingredients, this is the stage where you will want to cook those as well. Once I had a good cook on my bacon and garlic, I tossed in my drained beans and asparagus pieces to cook a bit before we pasta-fy everything.

Time for the Eggs

As you cook your bacon and other fixins, prep your egg mixture. For this recipe, I used 4 yolks and 2 whole eggs. I’ll be saving the egg whites for a future strata (see Brunch Strata for details). Whisk your eggs until smooth and ribbony. At this point I also added a good amount of grated parmesan, black pepper, and cayenne.

Once your pasta is al dente, reserve 1/4-cup pasta water and drain your pasta. Add your cooked pasta to the pan with your bacon pan. Slowly pour your hot pasta water into your egg yolk mixture, whisking to evenly incorporate. You should have a nice, smooth mixture at this point.

The Final Assembly

I recommend that at this stage, you take your pan off the stove so that you avoid scrambling— or at least make sure your stove is off. Slowly pour your yolk/parmesan mixture into your pasta, stirring to incorporate.

If you don’t get the timing just right and your pasta water has cooled by the time you’re ready to make your sauce, just reheat your reserved water!

Continue stirring until you have a nice coating of silky carbonara sauce covering all your pasta. Finish with extra grated parm, parsley, and/or extra black or red pepper as desired.