How to Make Classic Pasta Carbonara | Kenji's Cooking Show

Here's the last (and most popular!) of the four classic Roman pasta dishes, carbonara. It's made with eggs, pecorino Romano cheese, black pepper, and guanciale. It's super simple but also relatively easy to mess up (though it's still tasty even when messed up). For instance, I almost always make too much sauce (or too little pasta), as I did in this video. Oops!

PLEASE READ!

The coronavirus has hit many folks hard, including first responders and hospital workers, individuals and families who were already food insecure, and service industry employees who are, for the large part, currently out of a job.

My goal is to help fix both these problems in the best way I know how to contribute: organizing people, and cooking food.

[JKenjiLopezAlt]

Because I KNOW the "well actually blah blah blah" crowd is gonna jump on it, let's just nip that in the bud, shall twe? Salt *raises* not lowers the boiling point of water. It's still irrelevant, the same point stands. It's not noticeable and it makes no difference culinarily-speaking, whether you add the salt before or after it comes to a boil.

[hakonbjrgo]

Adam: seasons his board
Kenji: seasons his beer

[Flatunello]

Hi, Kenji! I've been following you since I saw you making a hamburger on Youtube. I happen to be a structural engineer, a former Fatman (340#, now 180#) that took control of my food and quality of preparation by learning to cook well.

I know the sauces and can make them from scratch. I learned all your umami tricks and used them in other ways outside the box.

I learned to bake and, because I work from home now at age sixty-six, I prepare all the meals. My wife of 40 years finally gets to enjoy relatively great cooking then what she was able to do in her limited time. This allows me to experiment with glutamate augmentation.
Finding an online professional molecular gastronomy course was another thing based on your inspiration.
I, along with others, make meals for folks in our apartment building who are unable to prepare for themselves. Service is the key to humility, and that is what lets us always learn.
Thanks for letting me share my "fawning" testimonial. You are indeed a wonderful husband, father, and chef; in that order, the three highest honors a man can have.

[adij]

Start of video: "We're gonna make pasta"

Later in video: "... and that's also how the universe and galaxy first formed!"

I am an engineer w/ love for cooking and loves your videos Kenji, thank you!!

[tallscreengabbo]

I love how the dog always shows up waiting for food to fall on the floor.

[Joep]

Kenji: Uploads the same video multiple times.
Me: Watches the same video multiple times.

[HydroSnips]

OMG, the sheer joy & relief on watching a carbonara video and hearing the words, “I don’t really care what other people say, as long as it tastes good”. Yesss, that’s how it should be.

[ogfdnbvjkfdn]

Kenji's losing it, we're gonna get a carbonara video every 2 weeks!

[Dr-Med]

Can we get something like a pantry/equipment tour? I could listen to you ramble about hot sauces, spices, pans etc for ages :)

[joeyclemenza]

kenji, if you see this... you're one of my favorite chefs in the world. like seriously, you're like one of the first names I start dropping when people ask me who my favorite chefs are. world renowned chefs like hesten blumthal, gordon ramsey, dominique crenn and marco pierre white... but also the street guys like roy choi, matty matheson and alvin cailan. i'm a culinary fanboy, no doubt... and you're seriously one of my biggest influences. never stop making videos!! i always feel like I'm getting a free education into something that shouldn't be free.... thank you for that, by the way. many blessings and good vibes you way, man!!!

[cheftekard]

I absolutely love Kenji. He does everything perfect and authentic yet also is like “add cream or peas. I don’t care” I love it. Food is meant for enjoying. I’m all for tradition. But I’m more for enjoying food

[paulcantshutup]

My fiancee loves carbonara. Like, it's literally her favorite pasta. She saw this video, watching it with me, and said: "So you're gonna make this tonight, right?" I did, it was lovely, and she alleges (probably because she loves me) that it's better than what we had at an Italian restaurant in New York. Thank you, Kenji, this recipe is wonderful and simple. I'm going to make it a lot more in the future, I think!

[gerrypower]

I love how Shabu often patiently hangs around hoping for a bite of the delicious smelling things you're cooking. Some day you'll drop a plate, and she'll think she's gone to heaven!

[AIIu_]

I love how it goes from adding salt in water to how galaxies formed billions of years ago really quickly 😂 This is why I love this channel

[MassiveReactive]

You know, I've watched so many videos on making carbonara. Hell, I've made the dish a hundred times. But this headcam view is just genius. It reinforces what I'm doing right and chips off my mistakes. Thank you very much, Kenji, for these excellent tutorials!

[Matthewandhisguns]

Long time fan. I am an engineering student with a deep passion for cooking. I love how you interject science into your daily cooking. It is what made me first fall in love with the Food Lab and I enjoy it to this day. Thanks for everything!

[ndookie]

Making carbonara always ruffles feathers. I’m looking forward to the comments asking about different styles. Thanks for the videos Kenji!

[HOORAHD]

I swear every Kenji video, I learn something new. I especially love how in depth you get with the history of whatever it is you're cooking, the authenticity of it, and the changes you make to it at any given time.

[Underdogbassist]

"Carbonari" refers to the workers who made charcoal, as carbone can translate into either coal (carbone fosille) or charcoal (carbone vegetale).

That being said, I love how you are incredibly knowledgable of such a wide variety of international cuisines. Today I made some carbonara in homage to the original upload :)

[david_cummings]

My oldest sister taught me how to make Carbonara when I was 14 years old. Her's was the American bacon, scrambled egg variety and I have since refined mine to the classic version though I still often use American bacon. For 46 years I've kept this dish in my back pocket and still make it on a regular basis.
When you said it's also a late night, after drinking dish I laughed. In my 20's, I used to pre-cook bacon and par-cook some pasta in case there might be a date or some couch-crashing buds
A non-trad twist I do is to serve it with a dish of finely chopped green olives. Purely optional, but the brininess of the olives can counterpoint the richness of the sauce