Creamy Chicken Carbonara Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What is chicken carbonara sauce made of? ›

The creamy sauce is made by tossing eggs and Parmesan with cooked pasta and its still piping hot cooking water. It's so simple but can be intimidating.

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.

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.

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.

Alfredo is made from butter, parsley, heavy cream and minced garlic, whereas carbonara is made from pecorino romano, eggs, black pepper and guanciale (ingredients seem to vary for the sauces depending on the recipe). In Italy carbonara is made without cream, adding cream to the sauce is an American thing it seems.

Alfredo is basic – pasta, cream, parmesan, parsley. Carbonara is a little more complicated – pasta, onion, pancetta, garlic, egg yolks, cream, parmesan, parsley. Because this is a gluten-free version we have to use spaghetti – if you're not gluten-free use anything from penne to linguini.

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.

Because in the traditional recipe there is no garlic, if you add it you will lower quality of a very good food. 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.

The only ingredients that will make your carbonara creamy are eggs. Rule number 2: do not turn on the stove while mixing the pasta with the eggs. If you do, the eggs will cook and your dish will turn into a kind of pasta with omelette. Also, after mixing, immediately serve your carbonara.

Why don t Italians use cream in carbonara? ›

In general, in Italy we have a bad opinion of cream. We prefer to use other ingredients, we consider the cream a "corrector" of culinary errors. If a restaurant puts cream in risotto or pasta, we Italians think it's a bad restaurant. However, there are dishes that contain cream and people who use it more than others.

Equally important is that the fat that melts out of the guanciale is required to thicken the carbonara sauce to make it creamy. Basically, what happens is that when the fat from the guanciale and in the egg yolks is mixed with starchy pasta cooking water, it thickens.

The Italian version doesn't use cream or ham. It is made with pancetta (pork belly meat that is salt cured, also referred to as Italian bacon), Parmigiano Reggiano or pecorino romano cheese, eggs, and black pepper—called the basics.

Why It Works. A sauce of mostly yolks has a richer, silkier, tighter texture than one made with only whole eggs. A mixture of Pecorino Romano and Parmigiano-Reggiano delivers that essential Roman flavor without making the pasta taste excessively salty or sharp.

While the spaghetti is cooking, fry the pancetta with the garlic. Drop 50g unsalted butter into a large frying pan or wok and, as soon as the butter has melted, tip in the pancetta and garlic. Leave to cook on a medium heat for about 5 minutes, stirring often, until the pancetta is golden and crisp.

Carbonara is made by rendering Guanciale or Pancetta (traditionally Guanciale) out in a pan, adding cooked pasta, and tossing with a mixture of egg, Parmesan, lots of black pepper so that the egg and fat emulsify to create a creamy sauce. Alfredo is butter and Parmesan cheese. That's it.

Does Pasta Carbonara taste like eggs? No, you do not have to worry about your Spaghetti Carbonara tasting like eggs! Although the sauce contains eggs, it also boasts an almost ridiculous amount of sharp, salty, tangy, and pungent Pecorino Romano cheese and rich, salty, savory pork.

Carbonara: History

Because the name comes from the word carbonaro, “coal burner,” some believe the dish was created as a hearty easy-to-make meal by men working outdoors for long periods.

Another kind of heavy white sauce is carbonara. The carbonara sauce incorporates eggs beaten with parmesan and tossed with freshly boiled, hot pasta.