Pasta Carbonara

If I had to eat only one food for the rest of my life, I think I would choose pasta.  It would be hard to narrow it down from there to only one specific pasta dish, but this carbonara would definitely be a top contender – especially if the one thing I got to eat still had to be cooked by me, because this is quick and easy to make too!

When it’s cold outside, I feel like curling up on the couch with a blanket and a bowl of hot pasta carbonara.

When I haven’t planned ahead for dinner and am looking for something I can make quickly that will be filling and delicious, I make pasta carbonara.

When we want to make dinner for a crowd without breaking the bank, we make pasta carbonara.

When Joe wants to make dinner, one of his top picks is pasta carbonara.

Are you picking up what I’m laying down?  Basically, we make pasta carbonara a lot.

You should make it too.  Let me show you how.

You’ll need:

• 1 pound of pasta (spaghetti is what we use)
• 6 slices of thick-cut bacon* (see note at the end of this post)
• 3 eggs
• parmesan cheese
• salt & pepper

Cut your bacon into 1/4 inch strips

Toss them into a skillet set on medium-low heat, and let them slowly cook while you prepare your other ingredients

Add your pasta to a pot of boiling, salted water

Give it a stir to prevent the noodles from sticking together

While the bacon and pasta are cooking, crack the eggs into a bowl

Break them up with a whisk or fork

And season with salt and pepper

The final ingredient to prep is the cheese – finely grate some of the parmesan, about 1 cup

Once the bacon has finished cooking, set it aside off the heat until the rest of the ingredients are ready to assemble

If your bacon didn’t yield very much melted fat, you can add a little olive oil to help form the sauce

When the pasta is cooked (al dente!), drain off the water…but don’t rinse

Put the pasta back into the pot you just cooked it in

Add the cooked bacon, along with all the fat from the pan

Toss to combine (at this point you also want the pasta and bacon to have had a chance to cool slightly, otherwise you might end up with scrambled eggs in the next step)

Slowly add the beaten eggs, stirring between additions

It should look something like this…shiny and coated in egg, but not scrambled

Add the parmesan cheese

And salt & pepper to taste

It’s time to eat!

As a finishing touch, grate a little extra parmesan on top

 

*If you have guanciale, definitely use it in place of the bacon!  We cured some pork jowls into guanciale this winter and it was amazing.  It didn’t stick around for long because it was so good that we practically wanted to use it as a part of every meal!  Your pasta carbonara will be taken to a whole other level if you make it with guanciale.