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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.
No the eggs cook in the hot pasta. Italians have been cooking it this way for generations. I have it the Italian way with just eggs and lardons, European way with cream, but much prefer this version pure comfort food.
Is it dangerous to eat the uncooked eggs like that as a sauce? I want to make this but am a little nervous about the eggs.
Simple but elegant I love this dish! I'm a teenager and just started cooking so I was adamant to make this dish, but it was easier then I thought and totally DELISH thanks Julia 🙂
Meg, thank you for your comment! I love the simplicity of this dish, too - it's got the perfect number of ingredients: not too few and not too many. 🙂 And the cooking process is very easy and straightforward. So glad you enjoyed it! 🙂
This was delicious. Very easy to prepare. I made it with bacon, and I think next time I will try the pancetta, I found the bacon to be a little overpowering for my taste. Thank you for sharing, this is PINNED.
Thank you for your comment - so happy you liked this dish! 🙂 I actually myself prefer to use pancetta or prosciutto for pasta carbonara, too. 🙂
Just made this for dinner tonight and it was fantastic. I didn't have parsley or Parmesan cheese on hand so I subbed with Italian seasonings and oregano, and mozerella cheese and it was delicious! Thanks for sharing
Megan, very glad you liked it! 🙂 I bet it would be so good with mozzarella cheese!
Love the pictures!
Thank you 🙂
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Nice recipe! I love carbonara here's another Fettuccine Carbonara Recipe you might like to try.
Thanks for sharing 🙂
Jess
Thanks for that link - I bookmarked it. The addition of bacon and mushrooms sounds absolutely delicious! Added to my ever growing to-do (or to-cook) list. 🙂
Definitely comfort food material, right there))
Julia, this looks really good. I would love to finally make a successful carbonara from scratch. Cheers
One of our favorite dishes! Beautifully done!!!
Definitely the perfect weeknight dinner! Can you believe I still haven't made pasta carbonara myself? I don't know why; it's got so many things I love.
I've always loved pasta carbonara. Really like your version. My mouth is watering!