Carbonara is the perfect easy meal that tastes luxurious and is extremely versatile. This dish can be made in 20 minutes from start to finish, making it ideal on nights that you don’t have a lot of time but have a good appetite. This can also be paired with a nice light salad and a piece of good bread, making the perfect date night meal. I usually make it when I don’t have the motivation to go grocery shopping, as this dish has very limited ingredients that are staples in my house.
Servings: 2
Calories: 743kcal
Ingredients
- 4 oz angel hair pasta
- 4 oz bacon chopped
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 medium shallot chopped finely
- 1 tsp crushed red pepper
- 2 tsp fresh rosemary chopped
- 2 tsp fresh thyme
- 6 oz baby bella mushrooms sliced
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp pepper freshly ground
- 3 oz leeks finely chopped
- 2 oz fresh grated parmesan cheese divided
- 4 egg yolks
Instructions
- Cook angel hair according to boxed directions. Reserve pasta water.
- In large saute pan over medium high heat, cook bacon until it starts to render it’s fat and is half way cooked, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, shallots, crushed red pepper, thyme, and rosemary. Stir frequently to prevent garlic and bacon from burning.
- After 2-3 minutes, add mushrooms, salt, and pepper and cook until mushrooms are almost cooked all the way through, about 4-5 minutes. Add leeks and mix well. You just want the leeks to cook slightly otherwise they will become mushy in the dish.
- Add pasta and stir into vegetables. Add one small ladle (about 2 oz) of hot pasta water and combined well in pan with half the Parmesan cheese.
- For this step you have to make sure the pasta is hot to ensure the egg yolks are cooked. Remove pan from burner and immediately add yolks and whisk well. Add hot pasta water to get the consistency of the sauce how you like it, usually about 4 oz but start small and add. Make sure to move the pan off the heat, otherwise your sauce will have a consistency more like scrambled eggs than a smooth sauce.
- Top with freshly ground pepper and the rest of the Parmesan cheese. Enjoy!
Notes
For this recipe, I would not recommend making extra for leftovers as the sauce does not reheat well. For making this over multiple nights, I would prep all the ingredients, then make the pasta and sauce from scratch.
This recipe is extremely versatile, making it a great meal for cleaning out the pantry and fridge. The vegetables can be substituted with anything on hand and the angel hair can be exchanged for anything you have on hand. The herbs grow in my garden year round so I always include them in my recipes but you can just reduce the quantity of fresh herbs to a 1/3 to use dried herbs.
Nutrition
Calories: 743kcal | Carbohydrates: 60g | Protein: 34g | Fat: 40g | Saturated Fat: 15g | Cholesterol: 447mg | Sodium: 1464mg | Potassium: 846mg | Fiber: 4g | Sugar: 6g | Vitamin A: 1785IU | Vitamin C: 9.2mg | Calcium: 445mg | Iron: 4.1mg
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