Carbonara sauce, recipes for cooking at home

Pasta carbonara is a widely known Italian dish. The classic recipe uses pieces of dry-cured bacon with sauce. And not just bacon, but its varieties – guanciale or pancetta.

We want to adapt the recipe for you and me. So let’s find out how to make carbonara sauce at home, from familiar products.

Carbonara sauce with bacon and cream

So, let’s find out how to make carbonara sauce with bacon at home. And this carbonara sauce is made with cream and egg.

Let’s be honest, this recipe is not original; according to the classics, carbonara sauce is made without cream from dry-cured cheek. But that doesn’t make it any less delicious, let’s get started.

Carbonara sauce, composition for two servings:

• Bacon – 200 gr.
• Parmesan – 100 g.
• Yolks – 3 pcs.
• Cream – 150 ml
• Vegetable oil – 1 tsp.
• Ground pepper to taste 

How to make carbonara pasta sauce:

1. Cut the bacon in advance and start frying it in a frying pan with some oil.
2. We put the cream on the fire, at this time we separate the yolks from the whites and grate the cheese on a fine grater.
3. As soon as the cream has boiled, take some of it and add it to the yolks, stir quickly with a whisk, not allowing the yolks to curdle.
4. Pour the resulting egg sauce into the remaining cream and add cheese, stirring the sauce thoroughly all the time (you can periodically reheat it over the fire).
5. While hot, sprinkle the fried bacon with freshly ground pepper and add to the cream.
6. Carbonara sauce with cream is ready!

All that remains is to throw in the spaghetti and mix well. As you can see, the sauce for carbonara with cream is not a complicated recipe, but it requires you to do everything quickly. We included Parmesan in this recipe because it can be found on our store shelves.

The original uses pecorino romano cheese, but it’s hard to find these days. If you don’t have cream, you can make carbonara sauce with milk. The cooking process is the same, but it is advisable to take milk with a higher fat content.

Classic recipe

As we have already written, carbonara sauce, a classic recipe, is made without cream. And meat in Italy is not smoked, but dried. But mostly everything on our shelves is smoked, so we take what we have. So, how to make carbonara sauce at home without cream? Easier than you think.

Composition:

• Dried meat – 200 gr.
• Parmesan – 100 g.
• Egg – 2 pcs.
• Vegetable oil – 1 tsp.
• Pasta water – 100 ml
• Ground pepper to taste 

How to make carbonara sauce for spaghetti, recipe:

1. First of all, set the water for the spaghetti to boil, we will need water after cooking the spaghetti.
2. At this time, chop the meat into cubes and fry in oil until crusty, then sprinkle with ground black pepper.
3. Grind the cheese on a fine grater and mix with the egg and meat.
4. By this time, the spaghetti should be cooked, which we directly add hot to the sauce and add a little water in which it was boiled.
5. Mix everything well again and the carbonara pasta sauce is ready!

If you are worried that the egg will curl from the hot meat, then let it cool a little. By the way, you can only use the yolk, but then take two pieces. Once again about meat. Dry-cured bacon is fine, as is lightly smoked brisket or loin.

Sauce a la carbonara with chicken and mushrooms

Realizing that the egg and cheese add an interesting flavor to the sauce, this recipe was invented. After all, chicken and mushrooms are like brother and sister, and they also go very well with pasta. This is certainly not a classic carbonara sauce for spaghetti, but it has its place. And it is prepared by analogy with the classic carbonara recipe.

We will need:

• Parmesan – 100 g.
• Tuber fillet – 100 g.
• Champignons – 100 gr
• Chicken egg – 1 pc.
• Vegetable oil – 3 tbsp. l.
• Garlic – 1 clove
• Salt, pepper – to taste

How to make chicken and mushroom carbonara sauce:

1. As in the previous recipe, let the pasta cook.
2. Cut the champignons into slices and fry in oil until golden brown.
3. At this time, cut the fillet into thin strips and send it to the mushrooms, fry everything together until the chicken turns white, remove from the heat and let it cool slightly.
4. While it cools, mix the egg with grated cheese, then add to the chicken and mushrooms.
5. Next, add the pasta to them and begin to mix thoroughly, you can add a little pasta water.
6. Chicken carbonara with champignons is ready!

This pasta sauce recipe for carbonara with mushrooms and chicken will be less caloric than with bacon. You can also cook it with cream and get a very tasty pasta sauce.

We hope we were able to explain what carbonara sauce is and how to prepare it. And it’s up to you to decide whether to prepare the sauce for carbonara from cream or according to the classic recipe, or even with chicken. But be sure to try them all. Bon appetit!