Well, this was a massive hit. This is one of the most popular things I’ve ever made for dinner; everyone wanted seconds and were sad I hadn’t made more. Pasta all carbonara is really delicious, but often full of sodium and saturated fat.
Could it be lightened-up with turkey bacon and fewer egg yolks? Could it be done with less added salt and cheese? (I want to start a YouTube channel called “Will it AHA?” to see if I can make rich comfort foods heart-healthy.) This still probably has more saturated fat and sodium than I’d ideally like, but I’m happy with it.
The turkey bacon and the Parmesan cheese obviously have a lot of salt in them, so it isn’t necessary to add any more salt to this recipe.
Spaghetti alla Carbonara
Servings: 4
Calories: 368kcal
Ingredients
- 8 ounces uncooked spaghetti
- 2 ounces turkey bacon (chopped)
- ½ cup frozen green peas (thawed, optional)
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves (minced)
- ¼ cup dry white wine
- 2 eggs
- 1 ounce Parmesan cheese
- 2 tablespoon fresh parsley (chopped, optional)
Instructions
- Boil a pot of water and cook the spaghetti according to package instructions.
- Beat together 2 eggs in a bowl. Grate or shred 1 ounce of Parmesan cheese and beat it into the eggs. Set aside until the pasta is done cooking.
- While the spaghetti is cooking, lightly spray a skillet with nonstick and heat the skillet over medium heat.
- Cook the chopped turkey bacon in the skillet until lightly browned, then transfer it to a plate.
- The best, easiest way to cook the green peas is to put the frozen peas in the microwave with 1 teaspoon of water, covered with plastic wrap, on high power for 2 minutes. This should get the peas cooked to the point where you can just throw them into the sauce (peas are optional)
- Heat the olive oil in the skillet, and cook the garlic for about 1 minute over medium heat.
- Add the turkey bacon, peas and white wine to the skillet. Cook for another minute as the alcohol burns off.
- Remove the bacon, garlic and pea mixture from the heat and set aside until the pasta is done cooking.
- When the pasta is just about done and ready to drain, reserve about ½ cup of the pasta cooking water (in case you need to loosen up the sauce a little.)
- Drain the pasta and work very quickly to stir the egg-and-cheese mixture from step #2 into the hot noodles. You might need to add several tablespoons of the reserved pasta cooking water to loosen up the sauce.
- Add the bacon-garlic-pea mixture to the spaghetti and give it a good stir.
- Stir in the fresh parsley.
