Creamy Dairy-free Carbonara
Confession: I had never made carbonara before I started experimenting with this recipe. Even before my coeliac, dairy free diagnosis, carbonara was saved for special occasions in restaurants. WHY?!!! Mental!!! It’s actually mega quick & easy, and not as disgracefully full of cream as I’d imagined so it has become a firm fav in my weekly menu.
Takes as long as it tastes boil & drain pasta…
Creamy Dairy-Free Carbonara
My gluten free carbonara is super quick & easy but also deliciously indulgent – you’d never know it was dairy free!!
Servings: 2 people
Ingredients
- 45 grams parmesan-style cheese - I use Violife
- 170 grams pasta
- 4 tbsp Alpro single cream - fresh or long life – or even regular cream if you can tolerate dairy!
- 2 whole eggs
- 1 yolk
- Few leaves of parsley or basil
Optional
- 4 mushrooms - any type
- 1-2 servings of pancetta/bacon lardons
Instructions
- Boil a pan of water & add the pasta once it is boiling>Top tip: use double the amount of water for gluten free pasta as you would for "normal pasta"
- Whilst that’s cooking, fry the bacon for 5 mins and then add the mushrooms. Once cooked, turn the pan to a very low heat.
- In a bowl/mug, beat the eggs, cream & parsley together until fully mixed. Season well with salt and loads of pepper – even if you don’t usually like pepper – trust me!!
- Once the pasta is cooked, drain the pasta – sounds strange but don’t drain it thoroughly, leave a little bit of water sitting in the sieve with your pasta. Also, save the drained water for later. >I just sieve my pasta over another saucepan to collect the water.
- Tip the contents of the pasta and its little bit of water into the bacon/mushroom pan.
- Quickly add the cheese and stir stir stir until it’s completely melted. >If its struggling to melt, add a few tbsp of the pasta water you've set aside and keep stirring!
- Take it completely off the heat and add the egg mix. Stir continually until the sauce has thickened to your desired consistency.
>too thick? add a spoonful or two of pasta water>too thin? return to a very very low heat for 20-30 seconds, stirring continually. It must be a very low heat to stop the eggs scrambling. >too yellow/orange? nothing wrong with this (it just depends on the brightness of your yolks) but I like my carbonara to be quite white in colour – add a little more cream if you do too! - Serve with extra pepper (do it, trust me) and eat!!
Notes
*This makes two generous bowls – if you want to cook a smaller portion size of pasta, just pour in slightly less of the egg mix in step 7
*Pasta cooking tips: (1) With gf pasta, always use twice the amount of water of “normal” pasta to stop it going gloopy (2) When you first put the pasta into the boiling water, wait 20-30 seconds until its just starting to soften and then stir it round with a fork – this will stop the bits clumping together
**Want some more pasta recipes? 5 pasta tips and 5 of my favourite recipes here!**
