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Home » Main Meals » Creamy spaghetti carbonara – quick and easy recipe

Creamy spaghetti carbonara – quick and easy recipe

Date : September 2020 VJ Be the first to comment!

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You only need a handful of ingredients and less than half an hour of your time to make this creamy spaghetti carbonara. It’s packed with bacon and smothered in a mouth-watering, cheesy cream and egg sauce. This is one of my favourite pasta dishes. I hope it becomes one of yours too!

A bowl of spaghetti carbonara
Table Of Contents
  • Cream spaghetti carbonara
  • Ingredients for spaghetti carbonara
  • How to make spaghetti carbonara
  • Variations
  • Can I freeze spaghetti carbonara?
  • Can I make this dish in advance?
  • Other pasta dishes
  • Pin for later
  • Recipe – Creamy Spaghetti Carbonara

Cream spaghetti carbonara

This creamy spaghetti carbonara is truly one of the quickest and easiest pasta dishes I know. And yet, for all its simplicity, it is one of the tastiest pasta recipes out there.

Carbonara is made with pieces of crispy bacon, mixed into perfectly cooked spaghetti, and smothered in a creamy sauce of eggs, parmesan cheese and cream.

It’s so easy, even a child could make it. All you need are the 4 main ingredients, which you probably already have in your pantry or fridge, and you can make this creamy carbonara dish in minutes. There’s no need to spend time stirring a sauce. The eggs and cheese are just stirred into the hot pasta, and the heat from the pasta cooks the eggs and forms a silky sauce which coats every strand of pasta with creamy deliciousness.

The fifth ingredient, which isn’t included in a traditional carbonara recipe, is cream. I make no apologies for the fact that I’ve included it in this recipe. I just like the extra creaminess that you get from using fresh cream, and you can substitute this with a little of the pasta cooking liquid if you prefer.

Overhead shot of a bowl of spaghetti carbonara next to the serving dish.

Ingredients for spaghetti carbonara

This recipe serves 4 people, but you can easily scale it up to cater for more. I’ve given guidelines for increasing the quantities below.

To make this dish you will need:

  • Pasta – you can use any long pasta such as fettuccine, linguine, or tagliatelle. I like to use spaghetti. The choice is yours. Depending on appetite, for this recipe, you should allow about 1 cup of cooked pasta per person. 8 ounces of dry long pasta equals 4 cups of cooked pasta.
  • Bacon – classic carbonara calls for guanciale or pancetta. For this recipe, I have substituted that for normal bacon, cut into dice. You could also use bacon lardons if you prefer. Don’t scrimp on the bacon – you will need half as much bacon by weight as pasta.
  • Eggs – You should allow 1 whole egg per person. In case you are worried about the eggs cooking sufficiently in this dish, I recommend using pasteurised eggs.
  • Grated Parmesan cheese – if you can get it, you could use pecorino cheese, but parmesan is a perfectly acceptable substitute.
  • Cream – you can use single cream or double cream. If you prefer you could substitute this with half and half, or even milk. If you don’t want to use and cream at all you can use some of the water that the pasta was cooked in.
  • Ground black pepper – this dish benefits from lots of ground black pepper. Add this according to your own taste.
  • Salt – this is optional. I always cook my pasta in salted water, but that is to my own taste. There should be sufficient saltiness from the bacon and cheese so that you won’t need to add any additional salt to the rest of the dish.
  • Chopped parsley – for garnishing

How to make spaghetti carbonara

Get the complete list of ingredients and full instructions for making this recipe on the printable recipe card at the end of this post.

Cook the pasta in boiling salted water for the length of time indicated on the packet.

Cut the bacon into 1cm dice and fry gently over a low heat until the fat has been released and the bacon is nicely crispy. If the bacon was very fatty, you may need to drain some of it off. Leave a little fat in the pan as this adds to the flavour of the finished dish.

While the bacon is frying, mix the eggs, cream, pepper, and parmesan cheese in a bowl.

Eggs, black pepper and cream being mixed in a dish.

Drain the pasta and add the hot pasta to the bacon in the frying pan. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water. Some of this will be added to the sauce to aid in thickening.

Close up of spaghetti mixed with bacon.

Mix in the eggs, cream and cheese

Pour the egg and cheese mixture over the hot pasta and mix it through. The heat from the pasta should cook the egg and coat each strand of pasta.

Stir in approxinately 1/4 cup of pasta water. The starch from the pasta cooking water will help thicken the sauce. Use more pasta water if necessary.

If you omit the cream altogether then use 1/2 to 1 cups of pasta water for the sauce.

Spaghetti carbonara covered with the egg mixture

Garnish with chopped parsley and serve.

Close up of the finished dish

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Variations

You can add other ingredients to this recipe to suit your own taste. Here are a few suggestions:

  • Fry 1 cup of chopped mushrooms with the bacon before adding the pasta.
  • Add frozen peas.
  • Chop some cherry tomatoes in half and add to the bacon about halfway through the cooking time.
  • Crush a clove of garlic, until it is just broken, then fry with the bacon. Remove the garlic clove once the bacon is cooked.
  • Stir 1 or 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh basil through when you add the eggs, and omit the parsley.

Can I freeze spaghetti carbonara?

The unfortunate answer is ‘no’. This dish will not reheat well as the sauce will split and become runny when defrosted.

Can I make this dish in advance?

Fry the bacon ahead of time, and also cook the pasta. Store the bacon and pasta separately in covered containers in the fridge. Also, store some of the pasta water in a screw-top jar.

When you are ready to assemble the dish, place the bacon and spaghetti in a frying pan (or large saucepan) and heat gently until piping hot. Then mix up the eggs, cheese and cream follow the recipe instructions for adding these to the dish.

Overhead shot of a bowl of spaghetti carbonara next to the serving dish.

Other pasta dishes

If you like this dish, you may also like to try these other pasta dishes:

  • Seafood stuffed pasta shells
  • Pasta Pescatore
  • Turkey and ham lasagna bake
  • Cheesy garlic bread pasta bake
  • Cheesy chicken and vegetable pasta bake
  • Ham and mushroom tagliatelle with black pepper sauce

Or why not just have a browse through my section on main meals for a bit of inspiration for your next supper.

Convert grams to cups

To help you convert your recipe measurements, I have created a handy Cookery Conversion Calculator which will convert ingredients between grams, ounces, tablespoons, cups and millilitres. I hope you will find it useful.

If you live at a high altitude you may find you need to adjust your baking recipes to compensate for this. You can read about how to do this in this post on baking at high altitudes.

Pin for later

Why not pin this recipe for spaghetti carbonara to your pinterest board so you can make it later. Just click the image below.

Recipe – Creamy Spaghetti Carbonara

A bowl of spaghetti carbonara

Creamy spaghetti carbonara

You only need a handful of ingredients and less than half an hour of your time to make this creamy spaghetti carbonara. It's packed with bacon and smothered in a mouth-watering, cheesy cream and egg sauce.
Recipe by: Veronica

(Click the stars to rate this recipe)

5 from 1 vote
Main Course
Italian
Calories 788
Prep 5 minutes
Cook 25 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Print recipe Leave a comment
Adjustable servings – hover to scale: 4 people

Equipment

  • Saucepan
  • Frying Pan
  • Small mixing bowl
  • Spatula

Ingredients

  • 8 oz (450g) uncooked spaghetti
  • 4 oz (225g) bacon diced
  • 4 large eggs
  • 1/2 cup parmesan cheese grated
  • 1/2 cup single cream or half and half
  • 1 teaspoon ground black pepper or to taste
  • chopped parsley for garnish

Instructions

  • Cook the pasta in boiling salted water, for the time indicated on the packet.
  • Cut the bacon into 1cm dice and fry on a low heat until the bacon turns crispy. If the bacon releases a lot of fat, drain most of it away, leaving just a small amount of bacon fat for added flavour.
  • Mix the eggs, cream, black pepper, and parmesan cheese in a small mixing bowl.
  • Drain the pasta, reserving a cup of pasta water. Keep the pasta water hot.
  • Add the hot pasta to the bacon and mix to combine.
  • Remove the bacon and pasta from the heat and mix in the egg and cream mixture.
  • Stir approximately ¼ cup of pasta water into the spaghetti mixture to create more sauce.
  • Garnish with chopped parsley and extra parmesan cheese (optional) and serve.

Notes

If preferred, you can omit the cream and use only pasta water for the sauce.  You will need approximately 3/4 cup pasta water.
This dish benefits from plenty of ground black pepper.  Adjust the quantities in the recipe to your own taste.
Variations
  • Add one cup of raw chopped mushrooms and fry with the bacon before adding the pasta.
  • Add approximately 1/2 cup frozen peas to the bacon before adding the pasta, and heat to allow them to defrost.
  • Add halved cherry tomatoes to the bacon halfway through the cooking time.
  • Crush a clove of garlic, until it is just broken, then fry with the bacon. Remove the garlic clove once the bacon is cooked.
  • Stir 1 or 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh basil through when you add the eggs, and omit the parsley.

Nutrition

Calories – 788kcal | Carbohydrates – 65.6g | Protein – 45.4g | Fat – 37.6g | Saturated Fat – 13.8g | Cholesterol – 351mg | Sodium – 1542mg | Potassium – 646mg | Fiber – 0.4g | Sugar – 5g | Calcium – 213mg | Iron – 6mg

I am not a nutritionist. The nutrition information has been calculated using an on-line calculator, and is intended for information and guidance purposes only. If the nutrition information is important to you, you should consider calculating it yourself, using your preferred tool.

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Filed Under: All Recipes, Main Meals

About VJ

In my previous life, I was an IT Consultant. Now that I've swapped an office for a kitchen I have a lot more time to spend on things that interest me such as trying out new recipes. Most of my cooking is based around quick and easy meals, and you'll probably find a little South African influence creeping in due to the many years I spent there.

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