An easy pasta dish you’ll make again and again: Lemony Linguine Carbonara

Lemon brightens up this summery take on rich, creamy carbonara sauce. Recipe below.

TURNS OUT WE DON’T HAVE ALL THE IDEAS. I know! I’m as surprised as you are! In our quest to find new recipe ideas—and keep our inbox as stuffed as possible—we subscribe to Mark Bittman’s weekly emails. The other day, he talked about “What Some Really Fascinating People Like to Eat.”

To me, the most interesting part of that day’s mail was a casual, rambling interview by Sam Hill of Heated with food writer Nikita Richardson about what she’s been eating lately—“my quarantine diet looks like a few choice dishes that I’ve come to be obsessed with and are in my steady rotation.” One of these dishes, it happens, is a lemony carbonara from Bon Appétit. Richardson took part in creating that recipe when she was on staff there. When I clicked over to Bon Appétit to look at the recipe, I knew I had to try it—immediately, as in I needed to be eating it that very night. And so it was.

The original recipe uses bucatini pasta and guanciale, which is salt-cured pork jowl. We went with what we had on hand—linguine and thick-cut bacon—and it was very simple, very fast, very rich, and very wonderful. This recipe is delightful.

I recommend serving this with a green salad dressed just with olive oil and a bit of lighter vinegar, and a modest crisp white wine. An Italian chardonnay or a Muscadet would be great.

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Lemony Linguine Carbonara

Lemon brightens up this summery take on rich, creamy carbonara sauce.

Course Main Course, Pasta

Cuisine Italian

Servings 3 to 4 as a main course

Ingredients

• 4 or 5 strips of thick-cut bacon, or 5 or 6 ounces of guanciale or pancetta
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1/4 cup minced shallots
• 2 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced thin
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 3+ ounces of freshly grated Parmesan
• 2 large egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 12 ounces uncooked dry linguine
• 1 to 1-1/2 cups of the pasta cooking water
• salt

Instructions

• Start a pot of salted water for the pasta. Cut the bacon into 1-inch sections and sauté in a big heavy bottomed pan until crisp.
• Remove the bacon pieces from the pan and pour off almost all the fat, then add in the olive oil. Sauté the shallots and garlic until they become translucent—just a couple of minutes. Add in the black pepper and stir for a few seconds, then return the bacon to the pan.
• Meanwhile, cook the linguine until al dente. Drain it, reserving at least 1-1/2 cups of the cooking water. You will need it for the sauce.
• Add the cooked pasta to the skillet, ladle in 1/4 to 1/2 cup of the cooking water, add some of the Parmesan, and toss everything together so it is all coated. Turn off the heat.
• Quickly add in the egg yolks and toss everything again, adding in more of the cooking water very gradually. Your goal is to create a glossy, smooth, even sauce that handsomely coats everything. This should happen pretty fast!
• Add in the lemon juice and zest and more Parmesan until it tastes the way you want it to. Season with salt, if needed. If the sauce seems too thick or things are sticking together too much, lace in a little more of the cooking water.
• I suggest plating this individually, rather than family style in a big bowl. Eat it right away.