Spaghetti Carbonara
This post may contain affiliate links. Please see our privacy policy for details.
The easiest pasta dish you will ever make with just 5 ingredients in 15 min, loaded with Parmesan and crisp bacon goodness!
I have yet another super easy pasta dish for you all today. And the best part about this dish is that you only need 5 ingredients to whip this up! No wait, the best part is the bacon. Yeah, the bacon.
No, but really, this is one of those dishes that comes together in 15 minutes or less with just 5 ingredients of spaghetti, bacon, garlic, Parmesan and eggs. And if you’re skeptical about the raw eggs, it actually gets cooked through completely from the residual heat. Just be sure to work quickly so you don’t end up with scrambled eggs. Plus, with the crisp bacon bits, you just can’t go wrong with this dish!
Spaghetti Carbonara
Ingredients
- 8 ounces spaghetti
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup freshly grated Parmesan
- 4 slices bacon, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
- 2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley leaves
Equipment
Instructions
- In a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta according to package instructions; reserve 1/2 cup water and drain well.
- In a small bowl, whisk together eggs and Parmesan; set aside.
- Heat a large cast iron skillet over medium high heat. Add bacon and cook until brown and crispy, about 6-8 minutes; reserve excess fat.
- Stir in garlic until fragrant, about 1 minute. Reduce heat to low.
- Working quickly, stir in pasta and egg mixture, and gently toss to combine; season with salt and pepper, to taste. Add reserved pasta water, one tablespoon at a time, until desired consistency is reached.
- Serve immediately, garnished with parsley, if desired.
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @damn_delicious on Instagram and hashtag it #damndelicious!
I lived in Italy for two years, this is a very traditional Italian dish, one of the first I learned while living there. The recipe you have here and the process you make it is exactly how they do, very authentic! Pasta all Carbonara, che buona!
**Pasta alla Carbonara (sorry auto correct)
I’m sorry, but this is a simil-carbonara recipe.
Yes, it’s a nice and good recipe (the better recipe i ever seen out of Italy), but we, in Italy, don’t use garlic.
Only pasta (spaghetti or maccheroni), eggs, guanciale (like bacon from head of pig) and pecorino romano (or parmigiano reggiano, not parmesan).
No other ingredients.
Bye
Yum! I’ve made this twice in as many weeks. I followed the suggestion to temper the eggs and it worked perfectly. I whisked in about a 1/4 cup of the pasta water with the eggs and parm, then added the other 1/4 cup to the entire dish. Amazing. Lots of black pepper is key. Do you remove the bacon before adding the garlic? I did both times, but now am wondering if that extra step is necessary.
I did not remove the bacon from the pan – there’s no need to! 🙂
Here’s the thing… my pan was too hot so I burnt the bacon, the garlic, and I’m sure you can imagine what happened when I added the egg/parmesan mixture… it was a mess. I’ve never cooked anything that looked so much like puke before… but I ate it. And it was amazing. So much yum! Thank you so much for the recipe! I didn’t have to add salt because the bacon and parmesan is salty as it, but I can’t wait to nail this recipe next time 🙂 it is simple and cost efficient.
Made this for tea tonight it worked perfectly! Definitely pinning this in the recipe success folder. My amazingly fussy sister ate it all with zero complaints…well, except that there were no left overs that is!
Quick, easy and tasty! Mine didn’t look as pretty as yours but it tasted wonderful and is a great weeknight dinner.
I added extra bacon and lots of pepper!
Thank you so much for this recipe.
well, there are some little imperfection (no garlic at all, and the parmesan+egg need A LOT of pepper), but i think that this is the most italian “foreign carbonara” that i have seen on the internet: well done!
Have you ever tried to use the egg yolk only instead of the whole egg? This is the way Carbonara is made here in Europe.
I actually haven’t!
Try it 🙂
I believe it makes a significant difference.
Greetings from Switzerland!
Amazing dish ! Followed all the directions , and tempered the egg dish before adding it to the pan! Perfect taste
You can add some chili flakes to kick it up a notch.
I don’t know what some of those mistakes, I mean gibberish words were in that post so please excuse that! I can really spell and write at the same time just maybe not always at the same time??? LOL
Tracey
Hi. damn-D!
Long time lurker first time poster! Pics are exquisite…as well as recipes. I make my Carbonara just like you (great minds and you know how the lines go haha).
Have question for ya before I proceed with said adventure. I always make just enough of the dish so all I have are a clean pan and dishes that looked like the Chinese Crested licked them clean. And oh, trust me he has! IF I wanted to make an extra serving for lunch the next day what would be the best way to reheat this? Possibly use just a tad of cream, maybe a little more bacon grease and a touch of butter with more cheese *gasp* HA?! :D. Any suggestions? I’ve just never had any left TO reheat and always thought of this recipe as a eat it hot, fast and NOW! I don’t even like to serve anything else with it so I can have JUST this. Okay, the fam likes a crusty bread with this. More for me HA you lld itsor eayloose. Serious any suggestions welcomed.
(I promise I’m not a stalker LOL just a 50 year old Italian who wants to continue to make simple fresh ingredient meals for my family like my grandparents
before me). It does seem the simpler and freshest ingredients win out hands down ALWAYS! 🙂
Yourbff in pasta hehe,
Tracey
Yes, all that sounds perfect, Tracey – a tad of cream, bacon and butter – what more do you need? 🙂
I was going to make a plain old pasta dish for dinner but this… I have to make this!!!
Let me just say I have never had this before, I came across this from Pinterest and let me tell you…. It does not disappoint!!!! I doubled the recipe because I have a large family and I added four cheese Italian sausage to make it a comple meal! I also used shredded Parmesan instead of grated!!! Ohhhh this will be on a regular rotation in my house!!!!
ohmygosh i love your blog! so easy and no fancy-shmancy 🙂 thanks for this!
Recipe says to save excess bacon grease. Is it to be used later in the recipe?
Yes, you are reserving the excess fat in the pan and then adding the garlic.
Made this tonight. It was fantastic! I added a pepper and Zucchini for some veggies(finely chopped). I did no temper my eggs and I did not have scrambled eggs. As you said, work fast on low heat and it worked like a charm. Thanks for the recipe.
Thank you for the lovely recipe which I used twice. I would probably just throw the pasta in with the cooked bacon/garlic and mix it and then take it off the heat and throw in the egg-parmasen and mix aggressively. Otherwise the eggs risk getting scrambled. Also not a big fan of the pasta water for this recipe as the semi dry sticky texture is quite nice.
Love this recipe but I can’t find nutrition information for this recipe. Does anyone have it to share?
Nutritional information is provided only for select and new recipes at this time. However, if it is not available for a specific recipe, I recommend using free online resources at your discretion (you can Google “nutritional calculator”) to obtain such information.
This recipe is really delicious. As someone who was not familiar with carbonara before making this, I really enjoyed it. However, you basically should just throw any leftovers away as it just does not taste right reheated (and I’m not picky about things like that). If you plan on having any leftovers or feeding a crowd, I’d definitely recommend going the cream route even if it’s not traditional.
Honestly both versions are very good. I would say the egg version is more silken than creamy and there is a definite egg taste that combines very well with the bacon. You miss this in the cream version, but you can also reheat it and it is less finicky.
When doubling pasta do I double all ingredients?
Yes.