The 5-Ingredient Andrew Zimmern Pasta I Make on Repeat

"If you love somebody, serve them rigatoni pasta carbonara.”

My 10-year-old son Phil is a foodie, and he loves pasta carbonara. I’m always on the lookout for new ways to impress him with my cooking skills while expanding my culinary repertoire.

One rainy Seattle Sunday while browsing for new pasta carbonara recipes on YouTube, I stumbled upon Andrew Zimmern’s channel. I’ve always been a big fan of Zimmern, especially after I read that he’s afraid to try chicken McNuggets. This little nugget of information makes him feel like a relatable uncle.

In one of his videos, Zimmern proclaims, “In my opinion, if you love somebody, serve them rigatoni pasta carbonara.” Well, I definitely love Phil, and so I put my trust in the celebrity chef and tested his recipe. And boy, was Zimmern right! Once you've tasted his simple yet elegant five-ingredient rigatoni pasta carbonara, you'll never go back to the spaghetti version.

Rigatoni's structure, with its large surface area and holes, makes it the perfect vessel to carry all the delicious carbonara sauce and crispy pancetta or guanciale. Each bite is hearty, deeply soul-satisfying, and never dry.

You may think you’d have to raid half your pantry to make this Italian restaurant-worthy dish at home, but you only need five ingredients: rigatoni, pancetta or guanciale, Pecorino Romano cheese (not parmesan cheese), olive oil, and eggs.

How To Make Andrew Zimmern’s Rigatoni Pasta Carbonara

First, cook a pound of rigatoni in, as Zimmern puts it, a large pot of “rapidly boiling salted water” until al dente. For the pasta cooking time, refer to the instructions on the packaging.

Al dente is how I cook all my pasta and noodles. It’s a matter of personal preference, but I love that extra bite and bounce of noodles cooked this way. Before you drain the pasta water, Zimmern says to reserve one cup and set it aside.

Dice six ounces pancetta or guanciale, or use a mix of both like Zimmern does, and cook the meat in a skillet over medium-low heat to render all the fat. Zimmern adds a teaspoon of olive oil to help the meat along. He also adds a scant teaspoon of chili flakes to the skillet to spice things up with a little heat, but I left that out. After about 10 minutes, the sizzling meat should be tender and golden brown.

If pancetta and guanciale are not accessible to you, use thick slabs of fatty bacon instead. Just never reveal this substitution to an Italian nonna, who might school you for not using guanciale to make authentic Roman carbonara. We’re just home cooks doing what we can with what we have and that’s OK!

Add the drained pasta and one cup of freshly grated Pecorino Romano cheese to the skillet and stir so the fat and cheese coat the rigatoni. Anyone walking into your kitchen now would salivate and think they’ve entered a Roman trattoria.

Turn off the heat and add the whisked eggs (a mix of five egg yolks and a whole egg) to the skillet. Stir and toss to thoroughly coat the rigatoni, and thicken the sauce by mixing in a quarter cup of the reserved pasta water. The sauce should be creamy and cling to the pasta by now; however, as needed, stir in more pasta water a little at a time until the sauce is the consistency you want it to be.

How To Serve Andrew Zimmern's Rigatoni Carbonara

Zimmern suggests you use a ladle or spoon to dish up all the sauce and rigatoni into shallow serving bowls. I recommend you eat this dish with a spoon to scoop extra sauce with each bite. Finally, season the pasta with salt and pepper to taste, and top with more grated Pecorino Romano. Spice lovers, try drizzling some chili crisp, like Lao Gan Ma, over the pasta.

The first time I made this dish, I watched as Phil’s eyes lit up when I placed a bowl before him. My kid likes to talk but this dish left him speechless. You can bet Zimmern’s rigatoni pasta carbonara is on rotation in my house, a new family favorite.

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Read the original article on Simply Recipes.