How to make Jamie Oliver’s easy carbonara

A five-ingredient dish straight from Jamie's Keep Cooking and Carry On series
Jamie Oliver
Jamie Oliver2 April 2020

This easy pasta sauce will cook in about the same time it takes to cook some dried pasta in boiling salted water – we’re talking about quick and easy options here.

These amounts serve two but are easy to scale up or down. Remember you want about 75g of dried pasta per person – use whatever shape you’ve got.

You can also find my super-simple method for fresh pasta here, using just flour and water.

Easy carbonara

Serves: 2

Calories: 454 per serving

Total time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

  • 2 rashers of higher-welfare smoked streaky bacon
  • 150g dried pasta or fresh pasta, which has been cooked
  • olive oil
  • 2 free-range eggs
  • 30g Parmesan cheese, plus extra for grating

Method

1. Slice the bacon and place in a non-stick frying pan on a medium heat with half a tablespoon of olive oil and a really good pinch of black pepper. Leave it to get super-golden and crispy, tossing occasionally, then turn off the heat.

2. Meanwhile, beat the eggs in a bowl, then finely grate in the Parmesan and mix well.

3. Use tongs to transfer your pasta straight into the pan and toss with the bacon.

4. Pour the Parmesan eggs into the pan, and keep everything moving, loosening with splashes of the pasta cooking water until you have a silky sauce. Make sure the pan isn’t too hot otherwise the eggs will scramble.

5. Plate up the pasta, and finish with an extra grating of Parmesan.

Easy swaps

1. Use Cheddar cheese instead of Parmesan

2. If you haven’t got any eggs – don’t worry – the starchy pasta water will be enough

For more healthy recipes, visit our WFH Healthy Eats page.

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