This mushroom carbonara with crispy bacon is a twist on a classic and is ready in just 30 minutes. It makes the perfect easy Italian dinner for busy weeknights or for a fancy date night at home!
Why This Recipe Works
- Family favorite: Carbonara is always a crowd pleaser because of its creamy sauce and salty bacon flavor, not to mention the pasta!
- Quick to cook: This mushroom carbonara is so quick to cook (perfect for during the week) and it is a complete meal thanks to the mushrooms (so no extra veggies have to be prepared.
- Customizable: Much like how I have added mushrooms to this carbonara, you can add or take away as you prefer. When time is short, my spaghetti alla carbonara with peas, or rigatoni carbonara, are great options.
Ingredients and Substitutions
- Pasta: I like to use rigatoni or bucatini pasta.
- Mushrooms: I try to use cremini mushrooms for this recipe (just like I do with my Italian mushrooms) since they have a little more flavor than button mushrooms and are easily available.
- Bacon: A nice thick-cut bacon works great.
- Olive oil: always extra virgin for pasta.
- Parmesan cheese: This gets mixed into the creamy sauce and tops the pasta.
- Egg yolks: The egg yolks help make the pasta sauce creamy.
- Kosher salt and black pepper: For flavor.
How to Make A Mushroom Bacon Carbonara
- Add Egg Yolks To A Large Bowl: This will be where you add the hot pasta water slowly into the egg yolks to temper them. Your egg mixture.
- Saute Bacon: In a large saute pan, add the olive oil and bacon and cook until crispy then remove and allow to cool completely.
- Saute mushrooms: Now you cook the mushrooms in the bacon fat until they are cooked all the way through and lightly brown.
- Cook the pasta: Cook the pasta until al dente.
- Temper eggs: Before draining the pasta, go ahead and scoop out a cup of pasta water and very slowly drizzle this into the egg yolks while whisking. This is called tempering.
- Assemble: Now add the drained pasta, parmesan, mushrooms and bacon to the bowl with egg yolks and toss well.
Top Tips
- Reserve a little extra pasta water: In addition to using this to temper the eggs, the pasta water is great to add to the carbonara after tossing it all together so it does not dry out.
- Have all of your ingredients, bowls, pots, and pans ready before cooking: This meal comes together very quickly and timing is everything when making a carbonara. Having everything ready for you will help you be successful in making carbonara.
Storing
Carbonara is best eaten right away and carbonara generally does not re-heat well. With that said, when I am at home in the U.S. I do store my leftover pasta. For this just allow it to mostly cool then store it in an air-tight container in the fridge for no more than 24 hours.
To re-heat the pasta, place a dampened paper towel over the top and microwave on medium for 1 minute. The carbonara will not be super creamy like it was when it was freshly made but it will still be delicious.
More Delicious Pasta Recipes
If you love this mushroom and bacon carbonara, you may also like these:
Mushroom Carbonara Recipe (Ready In 30 Minutes)
This mushroom carbonara with crispy bacon is a twist on a classic and is ready in just 30 minutes. It makes the perfect easy Italian dinner for busy weeknights or for a fancy date night in!
Ingredients
- 1 lb rigatoni
- 16 ounces Baby Bella mushrooms sliced
- 6 ounces bacon diced
- 5 egg yolks
- 1 cup Parmesan cheese finely grated
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
- Fill a pasta pot with water and bring to a boil for your pasta.
- In a large saute pan, add your olive oil and your bacon and cook until crispy.1 tablespoon olive oil, 6 ounces bacon
- With a slotted spoon, remove the bacon onto a plate and set aside.
- In the same pan you cooked the bacon add the mushrooms and cook until lightly golden brown then remove from the heat.16 ounces Baby Bella mushrooms
- In a large bowl, add your egg yolks along with salt, half of the cheese, and freshly ground black pepper and mix well.5 egg yolks , ½ teaspoon kosher salt , Freshly ground black pepper, 1 cup Parmesan cheese
- Set aside for now.
- Cook pasta until al dente according to the instructions on your pasta box.1 lb rigatoni
- Half way through the pasta cooking, take about ¼ cup of that water out and bring it over to your egg yolk mixture.
- Slowly whisk in that hot pasta water to lightly temper your egg yolks so they do not curdle later when added to your hot pasta.
- Now, scoop out another ¼ of your pasta water (in case you need it later) and drain your pasta.
- Pour your hot pasta into your large bowl with the egg yolks and quickly pour your pancetta mixture over the pasta and toss well.
- Toss for a few seconds letting the pasta drink up the sauce.
- If the pasta seems too dry, add a little of that reserved pasta water and toss it again.
- Plate into individual bowls with your pasta and add a sprinkle of Parmesan and freshly ground black pepper.
- Enjoy!
Nutrition
Calories: 824kcalCarbohydrates: 92gProtein: 36gFat: 35gSaturated Fat: 13gPolyunsaturated Fat: 5gMonounsaturated Fat: 15gTrans Fat: 0.1gCholesterol: 288mgSodium: 997mgPotassium: 893mgFiber: 4gSugar: 5gVitamin A: 535IUCalcium: 372mgIron: 3mg
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
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