Pasta carbonara with ricotta sauce

This is not a classic carbonara sauce with eggs. We make the ricotta sauce with the berloumi ricotta from our Zuivelarij. Besides delicious, this ricotta sauce is also very easy to make. Because there are a lot of stable proteins in our Ricotta, the sauce will not break easily. We use neither flour nor butter (roux) in this white sauce. This will make the sauce taste much cheesier. We fry the bacon together with onion and a little bit of garlic. We use the rendered aromatic bacon fat in our cheese sauce. Nothing is lost and even with this small amount of meat you get the maximum meat taste. Start with the bacon.

Ricotta sauce

ricotta sauce, ricotta, white sauce, béchamel
Due to the high content of stable proteins of our ricotta, the sauce won’t break easy.

Stir 250 grams ricotta and 150 grams whole milk over low heat. Add the aromatic, rendered bacon fat (next to it) while stirring. Add 50 grams (or more) shaved Parmesan while stirring and keeping the sauce warm. Season with pepper and a little salt. The sauce is ready. Keep warm.

If you want your sauce a little leaner. Then use skimmed milk or even the cooking liquid of the pasta to add to the ricotta sauce.

Bacon

By frying chopped bacon with onion and garlic you get a maximum meat sensation without using a lot of meat.

Chop 200 grams of bacon and fry it slowly in 3 dl oil. After ten minutes while the bacon is browning, add one finely chopped onion. Cook for at least 15 minutes until the onion has turned brown. Add one finely sliced garlic and fry for about one more minute. Watch out because it’s browning fast now.

Fried bacon is always tasty but with this technique you can also get the taste of vegetables and herbs in the fat. And then with the fat, in the sauce.

Cook 250 grams of pasta until al dente. Mix the cooked pasta with the ricotta sauce and the bacon. Finish with herbs and eat with lots of vegetables.

Preferably use a slightly wider, heavier and/or ribbed pasta. This will hold the sauce better. For a smaller pasta you can make the sauce a little thinner with more milk or other fluids.