Have you ever felt like one bunch of parsley is too much? This dish will use up more than the average recipe. Pasta carbonara is a traditional Italian dish made with bacon (or guanciale if you want to get technical) and eggs – great for when you’re low on dinner ingredients. One night my fridge was so low I didn’t have the traditional parmesan or pecorino and I used goat cheese. “Green Goat Carbonara” is now a household favorite. You can also up the green if you want to, toss in fresh or frozen peas, chives, spinach, or even blanched kale. We’ve stretched very from traditional with this dish!
The great thing about this easy dinner is it can be made with entirely local ingredients! We got the eggs, pasta, and bacon from The Good Life Farm’s CSA+ and they can all be ordered to most Early Morning farm pick-up sites! If you’ve never tried Wide Awake Bakery Pasta I highly recommend it. They have several varieties, we used the sourdough fettucine. Be extra careful not to overcook fresh pasta like this. 4 minutes is all you need!
The best thing about this dish is the ingredients are easy to assemble and prepare, but it’s still company worthy. Crisp the bacon and the work is almost done. The key to carbonara is tossing lightly beaten eggs with warm, but not hot pasta. You don’t want scrambled eggs. Keep pasta water on hand for tossing everything together. Our sauce turned out a pale yellow – thanks to the brilliant colors of the farm fresh yolks.
Green Goat Pasta Carbonara
1 lb fettucine or spaghetti, best quality you can find
1/2 lb bacon
4 eggs
4 oz goat cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup chopped parsley
salt and pepper to taste
Slice the bacon crosswise into lardons, then crisp in a large pot like a dutch oven. Remove the bacon from the pan, and pour off most of the bacon fat. A little bit left in the pan will add flavor to the pasta.
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. If using Wide Awake Bakery Pasta, cook for 4 minutes. Otherwise cook pasta al dente and reserve 1/2 cup pasta cooking water before draining.
While the pasta is cooking, lightly beat the eggs with the goat cheese until combined. Place the drained pasta in the pan you crisped the bacon in and toss vigorously with the egg and goat cheese mixture. Add a little pasta water if necessary and toss until the eggs thicken but don’t scramble. Mix in the bacon and parsley. Garnish with grated parmesan or crumbled goat cheese if desired.
*to make vegetarian skip the first step, drain the pasta and return to the pasta cooking pot, follow directions as written.
