Garlic Pasta Carbonara

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.

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Garlic Pasta Carbonara Recipe

Prep Time

20 mins

Cook Time

20 mins

Total Time

40 mins

 

Pasta Carbonara with an interesting twist.  In this recipe, we use lots of garlic, onions, and parsley.  Great weeknight dinner recipe! 

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Italian

Servings: 4 people

Calories: 630 kcal

Ingredients

• 1/2 pound bacon or pancetta
• 1 onion
• 5 cloves garlic
• 1/2 cup white wine or chicken or vegetable stock
• 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 1/2 bunch parsley fresh
• 2 eggs whole
• 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
• 1/2 pound linguine pasta
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

Instructions

1. 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.

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.

3. 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.

4. 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 1/2 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

Recipe Notes

Recipe adapted from The Pioneer Woman.

Nutrition Facts

Garlic Pasta Carbonara Recipe

Amount Per Serving

Calories 630 Calories from Fat 306

% Daily Value*

Fat 34g52%

Saturated Fat 14g88%

Cholesterol 143mg48%

Sodium 706mg31%

Potassium 388mg11%

Carbohydrates 49g16%

Fiber 2g8%

Sugar 3g3%

Protein 23g46%

Vitamin A 455IU9%

Vitamin C 3.9mg5%

Calcium 191mg19%

Iron 1.8mg10%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.