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This carbonara recipe has a Greek yogurt pasta sauce that is healthy, simple and delicious. The best thing about this recipe is that it uses ingredients that I tend to have on hand. Such a winner!
Ingredients
- 12 ounces of uncooked whole wheat linguine, fettuccine or spaghetti
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 6 ounces (170g) Canadian bacon, chopped
- ½ cup Stonyfield Greek yogurt
- ½ ounce (about ½ of a cup, unpacked) finely grated parmesan cheese, plus more to serve at the table
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp coarse black pepper
- 2 large egg
Instructions
- Cook the pasta according to package directions. However, just before you drain it scoop out at least 1 cup of the hot pasta water.
- While the pasta is cooking, fill a kettle with water and bring it to a boil. Empty the boiling water from the kettle into a large bowl.
- Also while the pasta is cooking, warm the olive oil over medium heat.
- Add the Canadian bacon and cook just until it starts to brown. Remove it from the heat and set it aside.
- A couple of minutes before your pasta has reached the desired doneness, dispose of the hot water from your large bowl by pouring it down the sink.
- To that large warmed bowl add the yogurt, parmesan cheese, salt, and black pepper.
- Stir it around and then crack in your eggs. Whisk it all together with a fork. Add the Canadian bacon.
- Don’t forget, before the pasta is cooked, scoop 1 cup of the pasta water out of your pasta pot. When the pasta is cooked, drain it and immediately add the hot noodles to your egg mixture.
- Stir to combine. You want all the noodles to be coated a bit with the sauce. If the sauce seems too thick, drizzle in some of your reserved pasta water, a couple of tablespoons at a time until you get the right consistency.
- Serve the carbonara at the table alongside a bowl of grated parmesan cheese and a pepper mill so that people can add more of these carbonara necessities to their liking.
Born, raised and lived in Canada all my life and to this day if somebody was to ask me what Canadian bacon was, I could not tell them. You walk into one of our grocery stores there is nothing labelled “Canadian” bacon. You’ll see “back” bacon and maybe even “peameal” bacon (unsmoked back bacon covered in cornmeal) if you’re in Ontario. If you were to go into a restaurant and order Canadian bacon, you would probably get some funny looks lol. We don’t own bacon LOL
That’s right, in Canada it’s often called back bacon, Whysper. We talk about it on our sister site here – https://thecookful.com/what-do-canadians-call-canadian-bacon/ – but we still sometimes get some debate on the topic!
Another recipe left me with blended together yogurt, eggs, and oil and I was not sure is actually find a recipe where I could use this up. But your recipe is perfect and sounds delicious! Thank you.
If you are still a brand representative for Stonyfield, I used to love their single serve plain yogurt. And not a single store around me (Philadelphia) still carries it. Only the Greek yogurt. And I’ve called and left them feedback, but I haven’t seen any change.
The comments motivated me to check wikipedia for the history of carbonara, and it seems it started with American bacon after all: Pasta alla Carbonara ‘is unrecorded before the Second World War… It was first described after the war as a Roman dish, when many Italians were eating eggs and bacon supplied by troops from the United States.[22]
How interesting! I love the way “classic” dishes came to be. It’s such a cool mixture of time, place, people and their needs at the time. I bet there’s a class at a university somewhere about history through the eyes of food. That would be an amazing class to take!
@Rara – A word of caution not take the ‘authenticity’ of cuisine so seriously. Despite the fact that we all consider tomato an essential part of Italian gastronomy, for example, it didn’t exist in Italy until the 16th or 17th century, or after Spanish colonization of Mexico/Central America and transatlantic trade. The same must apply to many other ingredients. So many Italian dishes were never ‘quintessential Roman dishes’. Thank god for trade, modern agriculture, and the evolution of gastronomy.
Thanks for the awesome recipe! It was delish.
Lori, So glad you liked the recipe. And I agree, it’s really tricky to know what is authentic when it comes to food. Our food and how we adapt it has so much to do with the culture in which we live.
May I add that, however delicious (I tried it, and it is!) this recipe, it does wrong in calling itself a carbonara adaptation?
You see… Pasta alla carbonara does not, can not, have any cream in it. There are bastardized versions of the recipe that include cream, but they derive from a fundamental misunderstanding of the original recipe’s nature. Pasta alla carbonara is revered as one of the quintessential Roman dishes, to the point that it has become part of the Roman identity. And it does NOT have any dairy other than the cheese (Pecorino Romano, mandatorily, or at most a mix of this and Parmigiano-Reggiano). And of course, the recipe does NOT “call for Canadian bacon.” The meat must be guanciale, or at worst, pancetta.
I suggest you call this recipe something else, and take credit for the quite original, and–as I said before–delicious mixture of flavors.
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I love u for this!! Not only are the ingredients readily available (it’s not that easy to get your hands on cream from where I am at) but it’s oh my goodness-ly yummy :D
★★★★★
This is one of my favorites. It requires so little ingredients. And I love the taste. Even though it is so simple, the flavor is awesome with the yogurt and the salty bacon. I found it pretty simple to make, and I love that it doesn’t require too many pots and pans and dishes. Another big bonus for me is that I don’t get that sickly heavy feeling after eating a large bowl of it – like other types of pasts with heavy, rich sauces, since it is light. Tastes good, easy to make, and feels good!!
★★★★★
P.S. Hubby likes it too!!!!!!!
this is one of the best dishes to be tried on the weekend….booked for this weekend!!
I always forget about carbonara, but will make it this week with my homemade noodles. Thanks.
★★★★★
Yumm! Pasta Carbonnara is one of my VERY favourite meals ever. Love the greek yoghurt idea.
★★★★
Ooooo! I love Carbonara. I’ve never made it with yogurt before. Interesting. I’m going to try that.
The yogurt adds a nice tang and lots of richness without a lot of fat. It’s a nice way to smooth out lots of pasta sauces. I just have to keep reminding myself to never add it to heating ingredients but to always add it after removing the sauce from the heat otherwise it curdles. With Pasta Carbonara this isn’t as much of an issue because the sauce never is heated. So happy you like the idea!
Congratulations Christine on the freelance job! Carbonara is my son and husband’s favorite! This one looks particularly scrumptious!
★★★★★
Thank you Katerina! The freelancing has been so fun and exciting!
Too funny. I just made spaghetti carbonara the other night (for the first time)! Super simple meal to make on busy nights. Congrats on the freelance projects and helping organize the Food & Wine conference. I just saw the info recently and if I’m in town I might go!
Isn’t Carbonara just too delicious? And the possibilities for changing it up are huge! Yes, come to the Food and Wine Conference. Did you see the line-up of speakers? It’s going to be amazing!
This is one of my husband’s favourite pasta dishes! Congratulations on the freelance work!
It’s one of my husband’s favorites too. It’s actually his go-to answer to “What should we have for dinner tonight?” If he doesn’t say steak, he says Carbonora (and then he adds, “With lots of bacon, please.” Thanks Paula!