Beautiful courgette carbonara | Jamie Oliver pasta recipes (2024)

FAQs

What are the biggest carbonara mistakes? ›

What not to put in Spaghetti Carbonara? Don't put garlic, cream, milk or butter. It is not needed. It is fine if you want to make a dish with those ingredients, but if you want to learn how to make this dish correctly, use only pecorino, eggs/egg yolks, black pepper, guanciale, and pasta water.

The golden rule to silky carbonara is to whisk your egg whites so that they're completely incorporated with the egg yolks. This will create a smooth, velvety sauce. As like any pasta dish, including carbonara, cook the pasta perfectly al dente so that it's soft but still firm, with some bite.

The addition to guanciale in carbonara sauce is the main reason the flavor of Alfredo and carbonara sauce differs to such a degree. Guanciale gives carbonara an earthy, funkier edge whereas Alfredo sauce relies solely upon its buttery virtues to seduce its way into your mouth.

Using a large mixing bowl and setting it over the boiling pasta water to create a makeshift double boiler helps prevent you from accidentally scrambling the eggs.

Creamy sauces like carbonara sauce are usually made from butter, cheese, and heavy cream, all of which pile on the saturated fat and calories. A healthier option would be a lighter sauce such as the olive oil-based one in aglio olio, which is rich in good fat and cooked with fresh ingredients like garlic and chilli.

Traditional Carbonara is a pasta sauce that gets its famously smooth, silky texture from the special way eggs (with extra egg yolks added) are cooked in the hot pasta itself. There is also the addition of hard Italian cheeses like Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano that add to the smoothness.

There's no weeknight dinner more comforting than creamy, cheesy carbonara. We've added fresh mint, peas and broccoli to give this Italian classic a summery twist.

Must-have ingredients

that there are only five ingredients: pasta, pork cheek, eggs, cheese and pepper. That's it. A real carbonara does not contain onion, garlic, or cream.

Should carbonara have cream? Typically carbonara sauce is only made of eggs, bacon, parmesan, olive oil, seasoning, and sometimes, vegetables. As for cream, Italians will tell you that is a big no no.

Why do people put cream in carbonara? ›

While adding cream dilutes the flavor and the richness of an actual carbonara it does offer two benefits to the english pasta eating community that are important to them, and not important to Italians. It makes the dish easy to make. Carbonara is a very technique driven dish.

Carbonara is made with guanciale (cured pork), eggs, Pecorino Romano cheese, spaghetti pasta, and lots of black pepper. Italians don't add extra ingredients like cream, milk, garlic, or onions.

If you want your carbonara to be as authentic as possible, you should be using guanciale, not bacon or pancetta. Guanciale is cured pork cheek. It looks a little like bacon, but isn't smoked, so its flavor leans more towards pancetta. Rich, unctuous and packed with umami, guanciale is what real carbonara is made from.

“The tips for the perfect carbonara are essentially: dried spaghetti not fresh; guanciale not pancetta; and a mixture of parmesan and pecorino. Guanciale is a much fattier pork than pancetta and it is not smoked.

Now the the trickiest step is adding the egg and cheese mixture to the pasta to create the famous carbonara sauce. I personally find it works best if I add the beaten eggs while the pasta is taken off the burner. This way you get gentle heat that will cook the egg but not curdle it.