How to make carbonara pasta sauce. Spaghetti carbonara, classic recipe. Carbonara

Creamy Carbonara sauce is one of the most delicious and youngest sauces in the world. For all its amazing taste, it is not difficult to prepare, and the number of ingredients is small.

The history of Carbonara dates back to the 50s of the last century; it appeared immediately after the Allied troops entered Italy. Some chefs claim that Carbonara was created arbitrarily by mixing unusual ingredients by charcoal miners.

Sooner or later, people who have visited Italy wonder how to prepare Carbonara sauce?

Creamy Carbonara sauce: variations

Traditional Carbonara sauce prepared for pasta, which bears the same name. Currently, its recipe has been perfected, having lost the primary ingredients. Modern sauce allows you to add richness and piquancy to the dish.

IN original recipe there are exotic components: guanciale (cured pork cheek) and pecorino Romano (aged sheep's milk cheese). Some recipes call for pancetta (fatty pork belly).

IN American version includes bacon, and Russian Carbonara add ham.

The good thing about the sauce is that you can choose the recipe to suit your taste. Even if you don’t like fatty and smoked dishes, you can use the traditional recipe.

Carbonara sauce recipes

Carbonara sauce for spaghetti

Traditionally, Carbonara is served with spaghetti. While you are preparing the sauce, you can start cooking the spaghetti.

Compound:

Guanciale or pancetta - 150 g
Eggs - 3 pcs.
Olive oil - 1 tbsp.
Pecorino Romano cheese - 100 g
Salt and pepper - to taste

Preparation:

Cut the smoked meats into cubes. Fry them in a heated frying pan, pre-greased with olive oil.
Fry smoked meats until crusty.
Grate the cheese on a coarse grater.
Break one egg into a separate bowl; you will only need the yolks of the other eggs. Beat the egg mixture with a fork or whisk.
Add grated cheese to the whipped mixture (save 2 tablespoons of cheese for sprinkling the pasta) and pepper. Mix everything.
While you were preparing Carbonara, the water in the saucepan should have boiled. Place the spaghetti in boiling water and cook it.
Drain the finished spaghetti in a colander, transfer to an empty pan, season with the egg mixture and fry. Place the finished pasta on plates and sprinkle with grated cheese.
The finished dish is served hot.

Carbonara pasta sauce with cream

This recipe has been adapted to American cuisine.

Compound:

Bacon - 350 g
Garlic - 2 teeth.
Cream or sour cream - 1 tbsp.
Eggs - 4 pcs.
Parmesan cheese - 100 g
Olive or corn oil - for frying
Salt - to taste

Preparation:

Fry the garlic in vegetable oil for no more than a minute.
Cut the bacon into strips and add to the garlic. Fry for another 3 minutes.
Separate the egg yolks from the whites. Add cream to the yolks and beat with a whisk.
Pour the mixture into a saucepan and add the fried bacon and garlic. Heat a saucepan over low heat.
At the end of cooking, add grated Parmesan.
Carbonara sauce is served immediately after cooking along with spaghetti.

How to make Carbonara sauce with mushrooms?

This dish will be more original with mushrooms.

Compound:

Fresh mushrooms - 200 g
Ham - 200 g
Parmesan cheese - 200 g
Cream or sour cream - 0.7 tbsp.
Basil - 50 g
Salt - to taste
Olive oil - for frying

Preparation:

Wash the mushrooms and cut them into cubes. Finely chop the ham.
Fry mushrooms and ham in a saucepan on olive oil. Fry for about 15 minutes, then add cream. Cook the sauce until thickened.
Finely chop the basil leaves and grate the Parmesan cheese. Add cheese and basil.
Season the spaghetti with the prepared Carbonara sauce and serve.

To give the sauce a cheesier, more savory flavor, add cubes of blue cheese. Before adding the cheese, cut it into cubes and melt over low heat.
To give Carbonara an Italian flavor, add 3 tbsp. Mascapone cheese.
To make the dish more meaty, add small pieces of chicken, pre-fried in olive oil with a clove of garlic.
You can add fresh tarragon, basil, oregano, etc. as spices to Carbonara.
Carbonara is cooked only over low heat because raw eggs can cook and spoil the taste of a wonderful dish.
The sauce is never overcooked; it is always prepared just before serving.

Creamy Carbonara is an all-time great sauce. Its taste cannot be expressed in words. You will understand all the charm of the sauce when you try it with pasta. Have fun making the sauce by improvising and adding different ingredients to it. Improvisation will help you find your carbonara sauce recipe and surprise your guests with it.

Pasta carbonara is perhaps one of the most famous Italian dishes. If you haven’t yet learned how to cook pasta in a delicate creamy sauce, with bacon and cheese, then it’s time to correct this annoying misunderstanding! Especially for you - classic recipe with photos of how to cook spaghetti carbonara at home.

In modern cooking, there are dozens of variations of carbonara. Even in Italy there is no single standard; pasta is prepared with or without cream, they are used different types pasta, add the whole egg or use only the yolks. In some restaurants, for example, an egg is added to the plate when serving, which results in homemade carbonara pasta, when the guest must stir the pasta himself and thus bring it to readiness. But all these variations have something in common. All recipes, without exception, include: pasta (most often thin spaghetti), as well as bacon, egg and cheese.

Main Products

For carbonara, take high-quality durum wheat spaghetti. The thinner the pasta, the better the sauce will spread over it. They need to be cooked in a large amount of salted water, until they are “al dente”, that is, “to the bite”, slightly undercooked.
It is ideal to use pancetta, a traditional Italian bacon. It's essentially a fatty cut of pork belly cured in salt, sage and rosemary. Guanciale - salted, unsmoked pork cheek - is also suitable. Well, if you couldn’t find them, feel free to take a piece of cured bacon or smoked brisket.
Pecorino Romano cheese is suitable. If you don't like its harsh taste, you can replace it with Parmesan, which goes great with this dish.
Cream can be added to pasta or carbonara can be prepared without it. Fresh will do dairy product, fat content 10-15%.
The eggs form the base of the sauce, bringing all the ingredients together and being cooked through by the heat of the freshly cooked pasta. They must be fresh! For the perfect sauce, for every 0.5 kg of spaghetti, take 3 eggs and 1 cup of cheese.

Cooking technique

The most important thing in preparing pasta carbonara is to incorporate the sauce in such a way that it does not curdle when it comes into contact with the hot pasta. To prevent the egg from curdling, cooks use various tricks: let the pasta cool for a few seconds, combine the pasta and slightly cooled sauce, etc. But in general, the technique remains the same:

You need to fry the bacon;
- prepare a raw filling from cheese and eggs;
- boil the pasta;
- add filling and bacon to spaghetti;
- Sprinkle with grated cheese and season with freshly ground black pepper.

If you properly prepare all the products and add the sauce, then there should not be any difficulties with the even distribution of the egg-cheese mixture. Strictly follow all the recommendations in the recipe with photos, and you will probably succeed!

Ingredients

spaghetti 150-170 g
bacon 100 g
15% cream 150 ml
pecorino or parmesan 50 g
egg yolk 1 pc.
salt to taste
black peppercorns 5 pcs.

How to cook spaghetti carbonara

First I put water on the spaghetti. While it was boiling, I cut the bacon into thin slices (without the skin).
I put it in a heated frying pan and fried it for 5-7 minutes over medium heat so that the fat was rendered and the bacon itself acquired a beautiful blush.
Then I poured the cream into the pan. Warmed it up, but didn't boil it.
I prepared the dressing. To do this, I combined raw egg yolk and grated cheese in a small bowl (reserving a little for serving). Mixed with a fork.
I crushed several black peppercorns in a mortar.
Meanwhile, the water had already boiled. I salted it and boiled the spaghetti - 1 minute less than indicated on the package. I combined the slightly undercooked pasta with bacon and cream (at that point it will still be warm, but will have time to cool to room temperature). Mixed with a spatula.
And immediately, without hesitating for a minute, she put the egg-cheese mixture into the frying pan. Mixed quickly. Due to the heat of the spaghetti, the cheese will melt, the egg will reach the desired degree of readiness without curdling - firstly, a lot of cheese is used, and secondly, only the yolk, and cream and bacon will slightly lower the temperature of too hot spaghetti.
As a result, the sauce will completely envelop the pasta, soak it and saturate it with the taste of bacon and cheese.

Spaghetti carbonara should be served immediately after cooking, sprinkled with grated cheese and freshly ground black pepper (no need to spare it).

Agree, it is not at all necessary to visit expensive restaurants, even at home it is quite possible to prepare carbonara - very tasty, tender and aromatic. The main thing is to buy a piece of bacon, good spaghetti and the right cheese. Bon appetit!

Do you want to plunge into the atmosphere of sunny Italy and try the incredibly tasty and aromatic dish of this country? Then hurry to the kitchen, let's prepare spaghetti carbonara - a recipe with cream. The main ingredients are cheese (ideally Parmesan), bacon or pancetta, and, of course, durum wheat spaghetti. My recipe for spaghetti carbonara with bacon is quite simple, and you can easily repeat everything below in your kitchen.

Ingredients:

400 g spaghetti
200 g bacon
2 cloves garlic
3 eggs
200 ml cream 20% fat
100 g cheese
salt to taste
a pinch of ground black pepper

How to cook spaghetti carbonara:

First of all, let's pour in large saucepan water and put it on the fire. When the water boils, add salt and a tablespoon vegetable oil. Place the spaghetti in boiling water and cook until half cooked, following the instructions on the package.

Cut the bacon into thin strips, following the recipe for spaghetti carbonara with bacon. Place it in a frying pan with non-stick coating and fry until golden brown over low heat.

Meanwhile, peel two cloves of garlic and chop them with a knife. Wash and chop the parsley. When the bacon is golden, add chopped garlic and herbs, as required by the recipe for carbonara with bacon and cream.

Stir and continue cooking the ingredients together for a few more minutes. Then remove the pan from the heat.

Prepare the spaghetti carbonara sauce:

Separate the yolks from the whites (they can be used to prepare another dish).

Beat the yolks in a deep bowl. Pour in heavy cream and mix. Add finely grated hard cheese.

Salt and season the sauce with black pepper. Mix everything until smooth.

Salt the water from the finished spaghetti. Return the pan with the bacon to the heat. Place spaghetti carbonara with cream into it.

Pour sauce over spaghetti and stir quickly. Remove the pan from the heat. The heat from the pasta will cook the yolk in the sauce completely.

Carbonara is a delicious Italian sauce, slightly spicy in taste, but at the same time very pleasant and delicate. In Italy, this sauce is traditionally used to season pasta and spaghetti.
There are a lot of recipes for making Carbonara, because every cook strives to add something new and unusual to the sauce. Sometimes they succeed and the new version of the sauce gains the right to exist. And sometimes attempts to change an Italian dish fail. But you can always use time-tested Carbonara sauce recipes.

Classic Carbonara sauce recipe

The most common Italian dish is pasta or spaghetti with classic carbonara sauce. To prepare it you will need:

ham - 350 g;
cream - 200 g;
egg yolks - 4 pcs. ;
Parmesan cheese - 70 g;
garlic - 2 cloves;
salt;
olive oil.

The sauce is prepared like this:

Garlic must be peeled and passed through a press.
Heat olive oil in a frying pan and fry garlic in it.
Cut the ham into thin and small slices and fry in a frying pan for 5 minutes.
In a separate bowl, beat the yolks and combine them with the cream. Send the mixture to low heat.
Add ham and garlic to the hot, but not boiling, mixture and after 2-3 minutes remove the sauce from the heat. Add salt and Parmesan cheese, previously grated on a fine grater.
Serve the sauce hot with spaghetti or pasta.

Recipe for Carbonara sauce with mushrooms

No less common is Carbonara sauce with mushrooms. To prepare it you need to take the following products:

ham - 200 g;
fresh mushrooms - 150 g;
cream - 150 g;
Parmesan cheese - 200 g;
oregano;
basil greens;
salt and olive oil.

The process for making the sauce is as follows:

Ham and mushrooms should be cut into small slices.
Heat olive oil in a frying pan and fry the ham and mushrooms in it.
After 12-15 minutes, pour the cream into the pan and reduce the heat to low. The ingredients should be simmered until the mass thickens.
At the final stage, add chopped herbs to the sauce.

Carbonara pasta

Since Carbonara sauce is used as pasta, it would be fair to consider another recipe that indicates how to prepare Carbonara sauce with Italian pasta. For this dish you will need:

250 g pancetta (bacon);
2 eggs and 2 yolks;
olive oil;
a cup of grated Parmesan;
spices, salt and freshly ground pepper;
Italian pasta.

The dish is prepared like this:

In a separate pan, boil the pasta in salted water at the rate of 100 g of pasta per 1 liter of water. Cooking time - no more than 10 minutes - the pasta should not be overcooked, it is better if it remains slightly damp.
While the pasta is cooking, you need to prepare the sauce. To do this, add thinly sliced bacon or pancetta to heated olive oil and fry thoroughly (to release excess fat).
Next, beat the eggs, adding some of the cheese and pepper.
Place the finished pancetta in a separate pan and pour 100 ml of pasta broth into it.
Place the finished pasta over the pancetta and sprinkle the remaining cheese there. Mix everything well.
Finally, pour the egg-cheese mixture into the pasta and quickly stir the dish. If desired, the dish can be decorated with herbs.

The taste and quality of pasta with Carbonara sauce depends on many factors. For example:

eggs for the dish must be taken only fresh;
pasta or spaghetti should remain slightly undercooked;
in order for a dish to be truly Italian, it is necessary to take the appropriate products: Italian cheese and pasta, pancetta, etc.;
the sauce should be added to hot spaghetti;
Salting carbonara is not recommended. It is enough that the water for the spaghetti was salted;
To give the sauce a piquant taste, you can use several types of cheese.

Pasta carbonara is a classic of Roman cuisine. This is spaghetti combined with thin slices of bacon, and topped with cheese and egg sauce. It comes to readiness from the heat of spaghetti that has just been cooked.

If you follow all the rules and know the subtleties, the consistency of the sauce is the most delicate velvet. Italian bacon accentuates the taste so exquisitely that even the most fastidious gourmet will not find anything to complain about. The hot garlic note makes the pasta perfect. The dish is very nutritious, so it will relieve you of hunger for a long time.

Cooking technique

Some careless cooks serve spaghetti drenched in a rich, heavy sauce, covered with a thick layer of cheese that does not want to melt at all, and call it carbonara. But even if everything is prepared correctly, the dish will spoil if it is not served immediately after cooking. Remember, spaghetti carbonara doesn’t like to wait. After a while they will become sticky and tasteless.

Italian chefs assure that their cooking techniques are the same everywhere, the differences can only be in the ingredients:

you need to prepare a raw filling from cheese and eggs;
render bacon fat;
boil the pasta;
Add the filling to the spaghetti and stir until the dish achieves the desired unity.

The quantitative ratio of ingredients can be adjusted depending on personal taste preferences. To make carbonara that you think is perfect, you will have to experiment.

Secrets and subtleties

The basis of the most delicate sauce is eggs. They are the ones who glue all the ingredients and thin spaghetti together. The heat of freshly cooked pasta is quite strong and will easily bring the eggs to the required degree of doneness.

Therefore, it is very important not to make a mistake with their quantity. The sauce will be ideal if you take one glass of cheese and three eggs for 0.5 kg of spaghetti.

In Rome, cheese is used to make pasta with carbonara sauce. Pecorino Romano. It is made from sheep's milk and has a distinctive taste. But many people find it too harsh.

In this case, you can use the following combination: three quarters of a glass "Parmigiano Reggiano" and a quarter - “percorino”. If you simply reduce the amount of cheese, the taste will not be rich enough.

Do you need cream and garlic?

Many carbonara pasta recipes call for heavy cream. But Italian chefs reject such variations. They insist that cream leaves a greasy taste in the mouth and, worst of all, kills the flavor of the cheese.

But they welcome garlic in recipes. You need to crush a few slices, fry them a little in olive oil and add to the sauce. You can add raw chopped garlic to make its aroma richer.

Typically in Rome, this dish is prepared with guanciale, raw pork belly. But finding it outside of Italy is very problematic. American bacon or Italian pancetta would be a good alternative. Both of these products are made from peritoneum.

Bacon has a slightly sweet taste because sugar is added when it is cured. Once fried, it retains a crispy texture and smoky flavor, unlike pancetta. That's why many cooks prefer to use American bacon when preparing pasta carbonara.

On final stage Inexperienced cooks may have difficulty distributing the egg-cheese mixture evenly.

First of all, the spaghetti must be mixed with the mixture, and only then carefully add the bacon. Then it will be evenly distributed throughout the dish and you will be able to cook the pasta correctly.

Should I add wine?

Famous Italian chefs are still arguing about this. Vermouth gives a rich herbal flavor that overwhelms the taste of other products. Red wine and smoked bacon - the “blow” is not very good.

If you want to add wine, then give preference to dry white. For it to show its taste, it must be at least half a glass. It should be added while the bacon is frying.

Traditional recipe

Preparation:

High-quality spaghetti is suitable for carbonara - the thinner the long “threads”, the better the sauce is distributed over them. They need to be boiled in plenty of salted water. When they are ready, drain them in a colander, but do not rinse them. Be sure to have a glass of water in which you cooked the pasta. This “broth” will come in handy if there is not enough moisture to mix with the sauce;
If the pasta sticks together, do not add oil under any circumstances. This will only make them fatter. You can do something smarter - add a little pasta water. The pasta will become shiny and slippery;
While the pasta is cooking, you need to chop the bacon or pancetta. Fry over low heat so that the fat has time to render out and the pieces to brown. Break eggs into prepared dishes, grate cheese;
When combining the pasta with the sauce, make sure that it covers every millimeter. If the pasta is sticky, add the broth a little at a time until it starts to slip. The sauce should shine like silk. It is better to place in heated plates so that the dish does not have time to cool down.

Carbonara with wine

Preparation:

Boil 4 quarts of water in a large saucepan;
While it is boiling, heat 0.25 cup olive oil;
Cut the bacon into thin strips and fry until crispy;
The fat should be completely rendered. Pour in half a glass of dry white wine and keep on the fire until the smell of alcohol evaporates;
Cover with a lid to keep the heat in. In a small bowl, beat three eggs with a glass of grated cheese, add garlic;
When the water boils, salt the water and carefully add 0.5 kg of pasta. They must be stirred immediately to prevent them from sticking together. When they are cooked, drain them in a colander, do not rinse. Don't forget to leave the "broth";
Pour sauce over hot spaghetti, add bacon and a pinch of black pepper. Once you have mixed them, serve immediately.

Pasta with cream

This recipe has a lot of fans.

Preparation:

You can use regular spaghetti or flat long noodles (500 grams). Boil it in salted water. While it's cooking, make the filling;
Cut bacon (300 grams) into cubes or strips, fry in a well-heated frying pan, without oil. Chop the garlic and add to the bacon;
When almost all the fat has melted, pour in 70 ml of dry white wine. Simmer over low heat for about 7-8 minutes;
For the sauce you will need six yolks. They need to be whisked together with 100 ml of cream, and then added 200 g. hard cheese. Stir until the mixture becomes homogeneous;
Pour the sauce over the pasta, add bacon, pepper and salt to taste. Simmer the dish for a couple of minutes so that all the flavors blend.

The highlight of this recipe is the topping. There are two options: you can fry small pieces of black bread or finely chop black olives. Sprinkle the dish on top, garnishing it with basil leaves.