Bacon Carbonara ( No Cream) - My Gorgeous Recipes (2024)

FAQs

Why is my carbonara not creamy enough? ›

If the sauce is too much liquid, the egg will cook and the result will be dry. Once drained the pasta, put in the same hot pot, add the sauce and stir energically until creamy. If happen to be too liquid because of some water left, I use to give a little heat to the pot. In the end I add guanciale and half of its fat.

Egg yolks and whole eggs – The egg combined with the guanciale fat is what makes the stunning creamy carbonara sauce that the world is obsessed with. There's no need for cream for a creamy sauce! See section above for why. We use a combination of whole eggs, plus egg yolks for richness.

Whisk Like You Mean It

You're using more egg yolks than whites here, which is what makes carbonara so rich and luxurious. But there's still two eggs-worth of whites in there. Whisking your eggs so that the whites are completely incorporated into the yolks will give your sauce a more uniform texture.

You can substitute half and half or light cream for the heavy cream to save on fat and cals, and you can also use bacon instead of the proscuitto as it's quite expensive."

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.

Cream is not used in most Italian recipes, with some exceptions. However, it is often employed in other countries. Similarly, garlic is found in some recipes, but mostly outside Italy.

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 is there no garlic in carbonara? Because it's an Italian dish, not an Italian-American dish, and Italian cooking does not use garlic as heavily as Italian-American cuisine. You can either make a carbonara, or the same dish with added garlic (just don't call *that* carbonara, it's not).

What distinguishes carbonara from other pasta dishes is its technique of combining eggs, hard cheese, cured pork, and black pepper into a rich, silky sauce. This recipe calls for raw eggs that are gently cooked by the hot sauce. If you prefer, you can use pasteurized eggs instead.

Like recipes for Sunday sauce, recipes and methods for making carbonara vary *wildly* in terms of the number of whole eggs, whites, and yolks used—ranging from as few as two eggs to as many as eight. There is only one thing on which they can all agree: the ratio of pasta to pork and cheese.

Should the egg in carbonara be cooked? ›

The use of thermal processing is the most effective method for Salmonella inactivation in preparations containing eggs. Consequently, according to regulatory agencies, it is generally mandatory that these preparations must be completely cooked to a temperature of at least 70 °C.

Traditional carbonara doesn't have any cream: it's thickened with fresh-grated cheese and raw egg. Any cream sauce can be thickened by simmering it for a while, if you're using actual cream. If you're using milk or sour cream, you'll need a starch stabilizer, like roux, beurre manie, cornstarch, potato starch, etc.

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 creaminess comes from the eggs and the rendered fat from the guanciale or pancetta. The key to making a creamy carbonara is to toss the spaghetti with the egg mixture and the rendered fat immediately after draining it. This helps to cook the eggs and thicken the sauce.

If the dish does get a little dry before serving, splash in some more hot pasta water and the glossy sauciness will be revived.

Traditional carbonara doesn't have any cream: it's thickened with fresh-grated cheese and raw egg. Any cream sauce can be thickened by simmering it for a while, if you're using actual cream. If you're using milk or sour cream, you'll need a starch stabilizer, like roux, beurre manie, cornstarch, potato starch, etc.

If the carbonara sauce isn't sticking to the pasta, this could mean either the sauce hasn't cooked properly, and therefore not thickened enough, or too much pasta water made its way into the sauce and it is too thin. Be sure to toss the pasta in the egg mixture until the sauce thickens slightly.