Making this traditional carbonara sauce, you can leave out the cream, garlic peas or any other colorful additions! All you need is a few key ingredients that work so perfectly together that they’ve stood the test of time in Italian cuisine.
Traditional carbonara spaghetti does not have cream. Instead, a carbonara recipes calls for a sauce glaze that is made of egg yolks, starch water, pecorino cheese and black pepper. Some restaurants may include cream in their carbonara dishes, but this is not authentic carbonara.
You can make this carbonara sauce regularly because it’s so simple and delicious. And it’s a nice break from the more common tomato sauce-based pasta.
The bottom line is that you absolutely don’t need cream to make an authentic carbonara sauce. Instead, just rely on the combination of eggs, cream and grease from the pancetta (or guanciale if you can find it) to create the perfect creamy carbonara.
You don’t even need salt because the pancetta and the cheese add plenty of salt to the dish.
You can use pecorino Romano, which is the traditional cheese they use in Rome to make the dish. Pecorino Romano is actually easy to find at nearly any grocery store or small market.
Still, if you prefer parmesan, that’s a totally fine substitute! Get the block of parmesan and grate it yourself and definitely avoid those cans of powder. You’ll want fresh cheese for carbonara sauce!
The full traditional carbonara recipe here also calls for pancetta, which is salt-cured pork belly. However, if you can find guanciale, that would be even better. If you have a hard time finding the blocks of pancetta, you can use precut pancetta. Ideally, you’d slice pancetta into cubes yourself, though.
Finally, it’s important to take special care when it comes to adding the carbonara sauce to the pasta. You want to do this both quickly and without a lot of heat because you want the hot pasta and the hot pan (that’s off the burner) to gently cook the eggs into a creamy sauce without scrambling them. You want a creamy sauce, not thick eggs.
However, don’t keep the pan off the heat too long, because if you wait too long to add the egg and cheese sauce, you won’t get that nice creamy carbonara sauce — it will be more runny because it won’t have a chance to heat up well from the pasta.
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The Pasta
The best type of pasta to use for carbonara is the traditional pasta used for this dish – spaghetti. You use either thicker or thin spaghetti, both of which do a great job of holding the sauce on the noodle.
Some people also substitute fettucine, which is the flatter long noodle, or bucatini, which is similar to spaghetti but has a hole in the middle.
The Cheese
Pecorino is the ideal cheese to use for spaghetti carbonara, but you can substitute parmesan. They are not exactly same, although both are hard grating cheeses. The pecorino made in Italy is made from sheep’s milk, and parmesan is made from cow’s milk. Pecorino is a younger cheese, as parmesan is aged longer. Pecorino is also saltier than parmesan. Either will work for this dish!
How about a dessert to go with your pasta carbonara? Try our Chocolate Zucchini Cake!
Carbonara Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 box Spaghetti (1 lb)
- 3 Eggs
- 1/4 cup Pecorino Romano
- 2 tsp Black Pepper
- 6 ounces Pancetta
- Salt for Pasta Water
Instructions
- Boil water for pasta, adding salt.
- Cut pancetta into cubes or rectangular pieces.
- Grate Pecorino. Add grated cheese into a bowl with two eggs and one egg yolk.
- Mix eggs and cheese together, adding about 1 teaspoon of black pepper.
- Fry pancetta.
- When pancetta is nearly done, add the pasta to the boiling water and cook according to al dente instructions, about 6 minutes. When pancetta is done, remove the pan from heat.
- When pasta is al dente, quickly transfer it to the pancetta pan. Do not drain or rinse the pasta. Then, quickly pour in the egg and cheese mixture.
- Stir the pancetta, pasta and egg mixture continuously until it forms a creamy sauce. Be careful not to keep your pan on the heat because that could result in scrambled egg-type mixture. If you need a bit more creaminess for your pasta, add some of the pasta water, which has starch.
- Serve pasta carbonara immediately, topping with more black pepper.
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