Garlic Pasta Carbonara Recipe with an interesting twist.
Pasta carbonara is one of my favorite dishes to cook on weeknights, because it's very easy to prepare and usually takes me only 25 minutes. I also like to make pasta carbonara when I am short on ingredients, since it requires such basic ones: bacon (or prosciutto for less fat), eggs, stock, pasta, and Parmesan cheese.
The other night I was looking for an easy pasta carbonara recipe that was a bit different from my usual way of preparing it, and I found an interesting recipe on Pioneer Woman that uses 3 additional ingredients: lots of garlic, onion, and quite a lot of fresh parsley. I happened to have several bunches (!) of fresh parsley (due to my recent obsession with the Chimichurri sauce), so I was especially excited to use up the parsley instead of throwing it away.
This recipe takes a little bit more time to prepare than the 25 minutes I usually spend on pasta carbonara - but still under an hour - due to all the chopping and incorporating of additional ingredients. I also halved the recipe because I do not like to reheat the egg-based pasta sauces the next day - the texture can really suffer. So I just cooked what I needed - half a pound of pasta, which makes perfect 4 servings.
What I really liked about this recipe is that it doesn't use heavy cream, and with the minor changes I incorporated (reducing the amount of butter and reducing the amount of grease from bacon), the dish comes out not even being that heavy on the fat. However, keep in mind that this pasta carbonara recipe is somewhat heavy on fresh parsley, so, if you don't like a lot of parsley in a single dish - you might want to limit it to a couple of tablespoons instead of using a bunch as Pioneer Woman recommends. I thought using a lot of parsley added a really nice fresh touch to this version of pasta carbonara.
Garlic Pasta Carbonara Recipe
Ingredients
- ½ pound bacon or pancetta
- 1 onion
- 5 cloves garlic
- ½ cup white wine or chicken or vegetable stock
- ½ cup chicken stock
- ½ bunch parsley fresh
- 2 eggs whole
- ½ cup Parmesan cheese
- ½ pound linguine pasta
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
Instructions
- Slice bacon into thin slices and cook on stove top until cooked. Drain bacon from grease on paper towels and set aside. Reserve some grease for cooking onions in step 2.
- Chop onion finely and cook diced onion in a reasonable amount of bacon grease (1 or 2 tablespoons) for 2-3 minutes over medium-high constant stirring to avoid burning.
- Slice the garlic and add it to the onions, after the onions have cooked for a couple of minutes. Cook garlic and onion together for 2 more minutes and remove them from the pan, using slotted spoon. Discard the grease.
- Place the same pan (where you cooked onion and garlic in bacon grease) back on high heat, pour in the white wine (or stock) to deglaze the pan. Stir, scraping the bits off the bottom of the pan. Add ½ cup chicken stock. Return bacon, onion and garlic back to the pan. Let simmer covered over low heat, do not let too much liquid (chicken stock) to evaporate.
- Chop the parsley. Crack eggs into a large bowl. Add Parmesan cheese and chopped parsley to the eggs. Leave a little Parmesan and parsley out for a garnish. Mix well with a fork.
- Cook pasta in a large pot of boiling water according to pasta instructions, al dente. Drain the pasta and add very hot pasta to the egg mixture and mix thoroughly. Then add bacon, onion, and garlic mixture to the pasta, mix again. Add 2 tablespoons of butter to mix. Salt and pepper to taste and garnish with grated Parmesan cheese and chopped parsley.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition Disclaimer:
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed. It should not be used as a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.
This meal has become a staple in our house. I absolutely love this recipe.
Thank you, Suzanne! So glad to hear that. 🙂
Hi do you use Parm cheese in green can or freshly grated parmesan
I usually buy a block of Parmesan cheese and then grate/shred it myself using a grater/shredder.
This looks so yummy! I love how creamy it looks, YUM!
The eggs curdled up like scrambled eggs when I made this. I'm not sure what went wrong.
You can try to temper the egg/cheese mix by slowly drizzling in a little pasta water as you are beating it into the egg mix-before adding the pasta-bringing the “sauce” to the temp of the pasta so that the hot pasta doesn’t cook the egg
Michelle, great tips - than you so much for sharing!
OMG! This was THE SINGLE MOST AMAZING MEAL I have ever made! Thank you!
Made this yesterday and even though this doen't produce a thick and/or creamy sauce (which is what I usually prefer), I was surprised by how tasty it still was! Love the taste of this pasta, maybe will try with shrimp for a healthier alternative. Thank you!
This may not be the real carbonara according to a few people, but it's absolutely delicious!!!! I doubled the recipe and added chicken and broccoli to it and it came out delicious!!! Thank you so much for this recipe
oh noooooooooooo!!!
the real carbonara is different!!!!
only egg yolk, pecorino romano cheese, pork jowl (alternately called jowl bacon or, especially in the Southern United States, hog jowl), black pepper.
and no butter but olive oil!!!
Bye bye from Rome 😀
Hello Maria! You're right - this is not your classic carbonara recipe, especially with all the greens in it. Would love to try a real Italian carbonara from Italy someday! 🙂 Interesting to know that there is no butter used but olive oil!
Pasta carbonara is scrumptious and excellent for health. I feel hungry. thanks for this post