Pasta Carbonara

This is my favorite pasta carbonara recipe! We rely on a short list of ingredients to make an impossibly silky sauce that only takes about 15 minutes. You’ll love this one!

The real secret to why carbonara is so darn good is eggs. You’ll mix eggs and egg yolks with cheese, rendered fat from cured pork (like bacon, guanciale, or pancetta), and starchy pasta water. The combination turns into a rich and silky sauce.

Every time I make this pasta carbonara, I fall in love all over again. We’re leaning on classic carbonara techniques for this recipe. If you want to take this recipe to a whole new level, you have to try making it with homemade pasta. Or, for a different spin, try our shrimp carbonara.

Key Ingredients

• Pork: You want a form of cured, fatty pork like guanciale (most traditional), pancetta, or thick-cut bacon (easiest to find). We will render this in a skillet, which adds flavor to our dish, and since you’ll have some rendered fat, it makes our sauce much creamier after mixing it with the eggs and cheese.
• Pasta: Use your favorite long pasta noodles. My go-to is spaghetti, but bucatini, which looks like spaghetti with a hole down the middle, is also lovely. If you are up for it, carbonara made with homemade pasta is amazing!
• Room Temperature Eggs: There’s no cream in carbonara. Instead, we combine egg and egg yolk with the rendered fat and some starchy pasta water to make the sauce silky and creamy. The eggs heat up but likely don’t hit a temperature that makes them fully cooked (similar to when making homemade tiramisu). We are looking for a creamy, emulsified sauce, not a fully cooked scrambled egg texture. If you are concerned about raw eggs, use pasteurized eggs (common at most grocery stores). If you are still worried, try fettuccine alfredo instead, which has no eggs and uses butter and cheese for the sauce. Note: If your eggs are straight from the fridge, you can warm them up quickly by adding them (in their shells) to a bowl of warm water and leaving them for a few minutes.
• Cheese: I use Parmigiano-Reggiano AND Pecorino Romano and love the combination. If you need to choose one, go with Pecorino Romano. It’s saltier and tangier than Parmigiano-Reggiano, which works incredibly well in carbonara. For the best results, use a fine grater to grate the cheese, and skip the pre-grated parmesan, as it doesn’t melt down as well into a silky carbonara sauce.
• Salt and Black Pepper: For perfectly seasoned pasta, you want to season your pasta water, which will season the pasta itself, and since we use some of that starchy water to bring our sauce together, it will also season the sauce. Fresh black pepper is pretty common in carbonara, and for good reason. Its hint of spice really cuts through the sauce. I prefer finely ground black pepper for this.

Find the full recipe with measurements below.

Tips for Making the Best Pasta Carbonara

Tip 1: Season pasta in salted water. Start by bringing a large pot of salted water to a boil. If using dried pasta, add it to the boiling water now. Note that fresh or homemade pasta cooks much faster, so if you’re using fresh pasta, wait to add it to the water until just before the pork is almost finished rendering.

Tip 2: Render your pork. While the pasta cooks (or while you wait to add the fresh pasta), you can render the pork (bacon, guanciale, or pancetta). Add the pork to a skillet with a bit of olive oil and black pepper, then cook over medium-low heat. The pork should be sizzling gently, not browning too quickly. Cook until the fat renders and the pork is still slightly chewy in the center (not crunchy/crispy).

If your pork renders before the pasta is ready, simply turn off the heat and set it aside. When the pasta is just finishing up, reheat the pork and its rendered fat over low heat.

Tip 3: Toss on low heat. When the pasta is ready, use tongs to toss it into the skillet with the rendered pork and its fat. Toss well for 2 minutes. The heat should stay on low, and you’ll be tossing the pasta the whole time, which gives the spaghetti a chance to absorb the flavors from the bacon and rendered fat.

Tip 4: Turn off the heat. Now, turn off the heat and let the skillet sit for a minute before pouring in your egg and cheese mixture. Since the skillet sat for a minute, it won’t be so hot that it scrambles the eggs, but it will be hot enough to gently cook the eggs so they turn into that silky smooth sauce.

Tip 4: Don’t stop tossing. During this step, you want to continuously toss the pasta around the skillet since keeping things moving makes sure you create the sauce without scrambling the eggs. You’ll notice it’s a bit thick as you toss, so loosen it with some pasta water (a couple of tablespoons or more as needed). The same goes for other classic Roman pasta dishes, like cacio e pepe.

Tip 5: Serve hot. When you are happy with the sauce, serve immediately so it’s hot, topped with freshly grated cheese and more black pepper. Yum!