Pasta Carbonara is a classic Italian dish where the heat from cooked pasta turns an egg and cheese mixture into a sauce. This version uses Greek yogurt for extra protein and health. It’s ready quickly and uses ingredients that you probably already have on hand!
Video: How To Make Greek Yogurt Pasta Carbonara:
Pasta Carbonara is a dish that I tried making years ago simply because I was intrigued by how the sauce was made. To make a Classic Carbonara, you whisk together some eggs and Parmesan cheese. Then you cook pasta, and when the pasta is done, you drain it (reserving a bit of pasta water), and then add the hot pasta to the egg mixture. The heat from the pasta (and the bit of reserved water, if needed) cooks the egg into a silky sauce that coats the noodles.
If you have trouble imagining what I mean, note that hollandaise sauce is made mostly out of eggs that are cooked slowly so that they turn into a sauce instead of clumping up into scrambled eggs. So hollandaise is a sauce made by thickening eggs with heat. The same concept applies here. Cool, right?
Carbonara with Greek Yogurt
One of the things that scares people about making carbonara is that they worry that their pasta will be too hot and it will scramble the eggs. It was because of this that I started experimenting with adding things to the egg mixture. My thinking was that if it wasn’t straight eggs in there, maybe the heat wouldn’t hit it so intensely. Then you’d have a quick carbonara recipe with less risk.
When I tried using Greek yogurt for this, I found that the flavor was really delicious, and I loved that it added some protein to the meal. I now make this version of carbonara all the time!
Bacon or Ham?
As to the bacon in the recipe, traditional versions of carbonara often have pancetta in them. Since I never have pancetta at home, and I don’t always have bacon (nor want to have to cook it till crisp), I wanted to use something else.
I’ve gone with ham in the recipe below, because I usually have a package of ham in the fridge. By using ham, this recipe ends up containing ingredients that I almost always on hand (ham, pasta, eggs, Parmesan, Greek yogurt). So, this has become one of those meals that I can whip up in under 30 minutes using ingredients that I already have. That, combined with how delicious it is, has made this recipe a staple in our house. I hope you love it as much as we do!
More Tasty Pasta Recipes
If you love a good pasta dinner as much as I do, be sure to try my favorite pasta recipes, linked to below. And, when in search of just the right thing to make for dinner on a weeknight, go over and browse all of my Weeknight Dinner Recipes – there are over 300 of them!
- Sun-Dried Tomato Chicken Pasta
- Caprese Pasta Salad
- Pasta With Sausage And Greens
- Shrimp Scampi Pasta Bake
Enjoy! -Christine xo
Podcast Episode About Making Carbonara With Yogurt
Listen to me explain briefly about how to make this meal, with some great tips along the way, by clicking the play button below:
PrintPasta Carbonara with Greek Yogurt
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 20 minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Entree
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
DESCRIPTION
Pasta Carbonara is a classic Italian dish where the heat from cooked pasta turns an egg and cheese mixture into a sauce. This version uses Greek yogurt for extra protein and health. It’s ready quickly and uses ingredients that you probably already have on hand!
Ingredients
- 12 oz. of uncooked whole wheat linguine, fettuccine or spaghetti
- 1/2 cup Greek yogurt
- 6 oz. (170g) ham, chopped*
- 1/2 oz. (about 1/2 of a cup, unpacked) finely grated Parmesan cheese, plus more to serve at the table
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. coarse black pepper
- 2 large eggs
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.
- 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. (It was only there to warm up the bowl, so you don’t need that water anymore).
- To that large warmed bowl, add the yogurt, ham, Parmesan cheese, salt, and black pepper.
- Stir it around and then crack in your eggs. Whisk it all together with a fork.
- 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 then immediately add the hot noodles to your egg mixture.
- Stir the pasta into the yogurt sauce. 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.
- Divide the pasta among plates and sprinkle with more Parmesan, if desired.
Notes
*Note: This recipe originally called for 6 ounces of Canadian bacon, chopped. I changed it to ham in 2021 because it works just as well and we’re all more likely to have ham in our fridge than Canadian bacon. However, you can use Canadian bacon, or crisped up bacon (4 slices) if you’d like. Make sure that you check your package to see if your ham or Canadian bacon requires heating before eating.
This post was originally published in 2013 and has been revised for republication March 2021.