Spaghetti Carbonara

What to Put on the Table With Spaghetti Carbonara

• A crisp Frascati or Verdicchio mirrors the Roman tradition
• Serve with nothing but bread — carbonara wants no competition
• Follow with sliced oranges in olive oil and sea salt

Sides from the same cuisine on this site: Ciabatta, Citrus Fennel Salad, Fave e Cicoria.

How to Cook Spaghetti Carbonara

Tap a step to highlight it, or turn on Cook Mode for large type and step-by-step focus.

1. Bring 4 litres of water to the boil and salt it — less heavily than usual, since Pecorino and guanciale both bring plenty of salt.

   Mark done

2. Put the guanciale in a cold, wide pan and set it over medium-low heat. Rendering slowly from cold gives you crisp cubes and a pool of clear fat instead of scorched edges. This takes 8 to 10 minutes.

   Mark done Start 8 min timer

3. Toast the cracked pepper in a dry corner of the pan for 30 seconds, until fragrant. Remove the pan from the heat.

   Mark done Start 30 sec timer

4. Whisk the yolks, whole egg and Pecorino in a bowl until it forms a thick, sandy paste with no lumps.

   Mark done

5. Cook the spaghetti until 1 minute short of al dente, then reserve 300 ml of the cloudy cooking water.

   Mark done

6. Temper the egg mixture by whisking in 60 ml of the hot pasta water in a thin stream — this warms the eggs gently so they will not seize later.

   Mark done

7. Drop the drained spaghetti into the pan of guanciale and fat, off the heat, and toss vigorously for 30 seconds to coat every strand.

   Mark done Start 30 sec timer

8. Pour in the egg mixture and toss continuously, adding splashes of pasta water until the sauce turns glossy and clings. If the pan has cooled too much, return it to the lowest heat for no more than 20 seconds at a time.

   Mark done

9. Serve at once in warmed bowls with more Pecorino and a heavy crack of pepper.

   Mark done

Related guides: Ingredient substitutions · Rescuing a split sauce.

Something wrong or unclear in this recipe? Report a problem with this recipe.

Worth Knowing Before You Cook

If the eggs start to scramble, lift the pan off the heat at once and toss in another splash of the reserved pasta water. It will not turn fully smooth again, but it stops the curds getting worse; the real cure is keeping the pan off the heat when the eggs go in.

Pancetta is an acceptable substitute; smoked bacon is not, as the smoke bulldozes the Pecorino.

Warm your serving bowls. Cold ceramic drops the sauce temperature fast enough to make it grainy.

Keeping What's Left

Carbonara is a strictly à la minute dish and does not keep well; the emulsion breaks and the eggs firm up on chilling. If you must, refrigerate for 1 day and reheat in a pan over very low heat with a splash of water, tossing constantly.

Spaghetti Carbonara: Your Questions Answered

Spaghetti Carbonara Nutrition

Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: part of the energy comes from foods, or weights per item, with no recorded source; sodium is not given, because the salt for the cooking water is in the ingredient list but most of it is poured away with the water, so no figure from the list would be honest. How the figures are worked out.

Your notes on this recipe

Cooked this? Keep a note for next time

Your own rating out of 5

5 stars★ 4 stars★ 3 stars★ 2 stars★ 1 star★

Your note

Save note

Private to you: notes and ratings are saved in this browser only, are never sent anywhere, and other readers cannot see them.