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Creamy Bacon Carbonara

·3 mins
Food Cooking Recipes Carbonara Pasta Bacon
Chrisando Wagner
Author
Chrisando Wagner
25+ years across the full estate — Microsoft/VMware, OpenStack/Red Hat, cloud-native Kubernetes. These days that’s reference architectures, FinOps governance, and regulatory guardrails other teams build against. When I’m not debating gateway API controllers, I’m automating something in my homelab.

This is the creamy version — cream in the sauce, onion and garlic in the pan — not the Roman one with just egg, cheese and pasta water. Purists can look away. It’s a weeknight cook: the whole thing takes about as long as the pasta needs to boil, and the only real skill is getting the egg in off the heat so it turns into a sauce instead of scrambled egg.

Bowl of creamy bacon carbonara with black pepper and grated parmesan

Creamy Bacon Carbonara
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Servings: 4

Ingredients
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  • 400g spaghetti (or tagliatelle)
  • 250g streaky bacon, chopped
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, minced
  • 250ml cream
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 60g parmesan, finely grated, plus extra to serve
  • Salt and plenty of black pepper
  • Small handful fresh parsley, chopped (optional)

Method
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  1. Boil the pasta. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to the boil and cook the spaghetti until just al dente. Before draining, scoop out a mug of the pasta water and keep it — this is what saves the sauce later.

  2. Crisp the bacon. While the pasta cooks, heat the olive oil in a large, deep pan over medium heat. Add the bacon and fry until the fat has rendered and the edges are crisp, about 6–8 minutes.

  3. Soften the aromatics. Add the onion to the bacon and its fat, and cook until soft and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for another minute, until fragrant but not browned.

  4. Warm the cream. Pour in the cream, stir to lift everything off the base of the pan, and let it come to a gentle simmer for 2–3 minutes until slightly thickened. Turn the heat off.

  5. Mix the egg. In a bowl, whisk together the whole eggs, egg yolk, grated parmesan, and a generous amount of black pepper.

  6. Bring it together off the heat. Add the drained pasta to the pan and toss through the cream. With the pan off the heat, pour in the egg mixture and toss quickly and constantly — the residual warmth turns it into a glossy sauce, but direct heat will scramble it. Loosen with a splash of the reserved pasta water until it coats every strand.

  7. Season and serve. Taste and adjust salt and pepper — the bacon and parmesan do most of the seasoning, so it needs less salt than you’d think. Serve straight away with extra parmesan and parsley on top.

Notes
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  • The egg goes in off the heat. This is the whole recipe. If the pan is too hot you get scrambled egg through your pasta; if you’re nervous, pull the pan right off and count to ten before the egg goes in.
  • The cream makes this more forgiving than the classic version — it buys you time and won’t split as easily — but it’s not an excuse to put it back on the heat afterwards.
  • Reserved pasta water is the fix for everything: too thick, too claggy, sauce tightening as it sits — a splash at a time loosens it back to glossy.
  • Streaky (rindless) bacon renders down and crisps; back bacon just goes chewy. Use streaky.
  • Carbonara waits for no one. It stiffens within a few minutes of plating, so have everyone at the table before it comes off the stove.