Dinner

Carbonara

At first, this is challenging. If you stick with it, you soon won't be more than 20 minutes away from a divine bowl of pasta

By Sebastian·5 August 2026
A bowl of carbonara topped with crispy guanciale and black pepper
Hands on
20 minutes
Total time
20 minutes
Makes
2 portions

This is not the average lunch carbonara, even how good that can be, this is the traditional way. The creaminess comes from a cheese, egg and water slurry. The problem is that you can't just pour it in and everything will be fine, you need to use your senses to nail the temperature control. To get the creamy sauce the cheese needs to be not too cold (not melted cheese) and not too hot (a ball of cheese). Ace this skill and a lot of the dishes in the Italian cuisine is at your grasp.

Ingredients

  • Pasta200 g
  • Whole egg1
  • Egg yolks2
  • Guanciale125g
  • Grana Padano50g
  • Pecorino100g
  • Salt & PepperTo taste

Method

  1. Boil a pot of water, contrary to what you might think, be sparse with the salt and amount of water. There is a lot of salt in both the pork and the cheese and the more starch in the water, the better. Add the pasta and cook al dente, save a good amount of the pasta water.
  2. Cut the guanciale into dice and fry on a low heat. While it cooks whisk together the cheese and eggs in a bowl, take a bigger one than you might think. When the guanciale looks delicious put it in a bowl on the side and pour the released fat into the egg mixture.
  3. Now the tricky part, start with adding some of the pasta water into the egg mixture. The goal is to get it pourable.
  4. Before we start, make sure you have everything close and that you're ready. The egg mixture is done and pourable, the pasta water is ready, the pasta is cooked. Now you have two choices, use a big pasta pan, or the pot you cooked the pasta in. Take your desired pot/pan make sure it is not hot (too hot and there is no going back), put the egg mixture in the pot and start heating at middle heat while stirring constantly. When it thickens add some pasta water and keep stirring, add the pasta and toss.
  5. Now the last step, add to a plate, put some coarse ground pepper on top and finish with the guanciale. Do not dare to let the plate sit, this must be eaten a la minute, it will be at its best for a really short period of time,
One thing that helps. There is so much feeling in this dish, but the reward is immaculate! I could give you 100 tips but this needs hands on practice. The one tip I can give is to do your mise en place, make sure that everything is prepared before you add the egg mixture to the pan. Hell you can do everything let it get cool, clean the kitchen and then do last step. If you're calm it will go great!