Pasta Carbonara – A Fast Dinner That Tastes Anything But Fast
Before two weeks ago, neither of us had heard of pasta carbonara. We don’t make a lot of pasta here; we can never decide on what pasta to make, and one of us always ends up disappointed with the choice. Spaghetti? The Tart won’t eat more than a few bites of it. Anything other than spaghetti or angel hair and the Beard could not care less about it. However, both of us were intrigued by the little 60-second gif showing how to easily make a basic pasta carbonara, and we decided to give it a go.
Your basic pasta carbonara consists of pasta, egg, bacon, and cheese. Now, these seem like just ordinary ingredients, but they combine to make an incredibly indulgent dish for the amount of time that it will take you to cook.
We were wanting to make a meal out of it while not eating an entire box of pasta between the two of us, so we opted for using some sweet Italian sausage instead of the bacon. Both of us were worried about the raw egg involved. We were going to get sick because it wasn’t cooked through? Am I going to get salmonella and die, like my mother always warned me was going to happen if I kept eating cookie dough and cake batter (or the occasional raw ground beef)?
We needn’t have worried, because the heat from the pasta and meat, combined with that of a hot mixing bowl, is enough to cook the eggs without scrambling them. The result is a silky, creamy sauce that coats the pasta and sausage with all the tasty egginess of a Sunday brunch.
Helpful Hints
Some recipes will tell you to add the cooked and strained pasta to the pan that you cooked the meat in. I recommend using a mixing bowl that has been heated up, because the hot pan will overcook the egg and it won’t be saucy.
Save your egg whites! My next post will be a cookie recipe that will use them!
Pasta Carbonara
The quickest, tastiest pasta meal you can dream of.
Ingredients
- 2 eggs large
- 2 egg yolks
- 1/3 cup grated parmesan
- 1/4 cup shredded parmesan plus extra for topping (optional)
- 12 oz fettucine
- 1/2 tsp dried parsley
- 2 links sweet Italian turkey sausage
- 1 tbsp minced garlic
- red chili flakes to taste
- pepper to taste
Instructions
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Remove the sausage from its casing, crumbling it into small chunks. Brown the sausage and minced garlic over medium-high heat. While the sausage cooks, season to taste with the pepper and chili flakes, and prepare the fettucine according to package directions.
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In small mixing bowl, beat the eggs and the egg yolks together. Add the grated parmesan and parsley and whisk the egg mixture well.
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Prepare your mixing bowl for the final steps: you can fill a large mixing bowl with very hot water while you cook the pasta and sausage. You can also strain the finished pasta over the large mixing bowl so that the boiling pasta water quickly heats the bowl for you, just remember to empty the bowl of the hot water before transferring the cooked pasta to it.
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Transfer your cooked pasta to the warm mixing bowl. Add the egg mixture and quickly toss together to coat the pasta with the egg, then add the sausage and shredded cheese. Serve immediately.
Recipe Notes
Don't want to waste those two egg whites? Use them for Nanny's No-Bake Overnight Cookies.
The Tart likes to eat, cook, and bake things. She eats to work out, and she works out to be able to eat.
