Tag: Pasta & Noodles

As self-proclaimed food people, we have our celebrity chefs we love to follow for recipe inspiration: Ina Garten, Giada De Laurentiis, Gordon Ramsay, Bobby Flay … the usual suspects. And then there are the celebs who take you by surprise, like Jennifer Aniston. Jen’s favorite salad to eat on the set of Friends blew up on TikTok last year, so when we stumbled across her recipe for carbonara, we couldn’t help but give this hidden gem a try. Is her pasta recipe just as good? Is Jen a secret culinary star who has yet to truly be discovered and appreciated? Let’s find out.

Get the recipe: Jennifer Aniston’s Carbonara

Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. While you wait, cook slices of turkey bacon and a small red onion (both diced small) in a large skillet. Cook until the bacon and onions are crispy and caramelized, about 10-15 minutes. Add in minced garlic cloves and stir, cooking until the garlic is fragrant — another 1 to 2 minutes.

While you cook, whisk together a large egg, low-fat milk, and grated Parmesan cheese in a small bowl. Set aside.

When the water is boiling, cook 1 pound (16 ounces) of spaghetti. Boil according to the package instructions. Once cooked, reserve 3/4 cup of the pasta water before draining.

Pour 1/2 cup of the hot pasta water slowly into the bowl with the egg mixture, whisking continuously so you don’t scramble the egg.

Toss the hot pasta in the skillet with the cooked bacon and onion. Pour in the egg mixture, then turn the heat on low and toss the pasta until the sauce has thickened. If it seems too dry, add in the other 1/4 cup of pasta water.

Season with salt, pepper, and extra grated Parmesan cheese.

So is Jen a culinary star? For the average working adult who needs a quick, delicious pasta on a weeknight, I say yes. All in all, I did enjoy this recipe. Carbonara isn’t the easiest dish to make; it requires a careful hand and a lot of patience to get the sauce just right. Jen’s recipe turns a complicated dish into an easy weeknight meal, which I do appreciate.

However, it’s also clear from the ingredients that this recipe was meant to be a lighter version of the classic carbonara by using turkey bacon instead of guanciale, and lightening up the amount of egg yolk and cheese by adding in low-fat milk. While these swaps did work for this recipe, I knew instantly that this recipe was missing a key ingredient for the cooking process: olive oil.

Typically a fatty pork like guanciale, prosciutto, or bacon is used for a carbonara, so meat cooks in its own fat. However, turkey bacon doesn’t have as much fat to cook in, so cooking it by itself in the skillet without some kind of fat was not going to work. Plus, the onions need something to cook in, too! So I went ahead and added a tablespoon of olive oil to the skillet when cooking the bacon and the onion, which helped immensely.

After that small tweak, cooking this recipe was an absolute breeze, and I absolutely plan on making it again for dinner soon. Maybe tonight!

In my household, mac and cheese will always reign supreme. The go-to pasta dish for kids of all ages is literally still one of my favorite foods after 35 years on this planet. And I know I am not alone in sharing that sentiment. Mac and cheese is not only delicious, it’s wholesome because it reminds you of home. I believe that it will stand the test of time as being one of the all-time greatest foods. 

Being the super fan that I am, I can admit that not all mac and cheese is created equal, and some people really have no business whipping up a serving of my favorite dish. However, one person who truly knows her way around a cheesy helping of macaroni is TikTok influencer and author of Cooking for my Boyfriend, Tineke Younger. In a recent viral video, Younger shares with her audience the mac and cheese recipe she prefers to make for the holiday season, a tutorial that quickly racked up millions of views. 

Younger’s baked rendition uses a surprise ingredient that immediately caught my attention, which was truly all I needed to be convinced that I should just try this mac and cheese out for myself.

Younger recommends using corkscrew pasta due to its ability to trap all of that delicious and cheesy creaminess inside of each noodle. She also advises to shred your own cheese in lieu of using packaged shredded cheese, in which case you will need mozzarella, Colby Jack, and sharp cheddar. 

Boil the pasta until al dente and set aside for later. While the pasta is cooking, heat a pan over medium heat and drop in 3 tablespoons of butter. Once the butter is melted, add salt, pepper, paprika and garlic powder. Whisk until well combined, then add 3 tablespoons of flour, making sure to whisk even more until no clumps of flour remain.  

As the sauce begins to thicken, add 1 can of evaporated milk and continue to cook until the sauce thickens again. Add two cups of heavy cream and then season the sauce with additional pinches of seasoning and a tablespoon of Dijon mustard. 

Using half of your shredded cheese mix, stir a little bit of cheese at a time into the sauce, giving ample time between each addition to allow for the cheese to fully melt. At this point, the cheese sauce should be ready to incorporate with the pasta. Add the pasta to the cheese sauce and mix until well combined. 

In a prepared baking dish, pour a base layer of mac and cheese, then generously top with a layer of the shredded cheese mix. Pour the rest of the mac and cheese in next, making sure to distribute throughout the dish evenly, then top off with the final layer of shredded cheese mix. 

Pop the baking dish into an oven that has been preheated to 350°F and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until the top layer of cheese has fully melted. For a nice crispy top layer, you can broil the mac and cheese for the last couple minutes that you have it in the oven before pulling it out and letting the dish cool down. When ready, top with chopped chives and serve immediately. 

Younger keeps it simple, while still elevating the recipe. I love her standard of cheese choice and I especially loved the introduction of Dijon mustard to the cheese sauce. I’ve had a few times where an ingredient both surprised me and made sense at the same time, and this was exactly one of those occasions. You could taste the slight spice of Dijon mustard and paprika seasoning, both ingredients complimenting the natural creaminess of the recipe perfectly. 

I will admit, in an attempt to cut the recipe in half, I ended up adding a little too much pasta to my cheese sauce, resulting in a little less creaminess than I desired. However, after baking the dish and getting all of that freshly shredded cheese melted throughout, I still thoroughly enjoyed every bite. I will definitely be making mac and cheese like this again, and would totally recommend it to anyone who shares my love for this wonderfully cheesy meal.