Pasta With Bacon, Cheese, Lemon and Pine Nuts Recipe (2024)

Consider using diced pancetta instead of bacon. Use half butter and half olive oil. Dry toast the pine nuts in a skillet. Add grated lemon zest to add texture, brightness and freshness when tossing with the other ingredients before serving.

also added frozen peas.

This is a great concept, and was a big hit with my family. The one thing I would note after making this recipe is that 4 tbs of butter is WAAAAAAY too much for 1/3 cup of pine nuts. I had to pour off at least 3 tbs to avoid braising the nuts.

Getting the sauce done a bit ahead is essential, given that it is a fairly fast sauce and one does not want already cooked pasta waiting and getting dry and sticky...in addition, the photo shows the pasta to be dried egg pasta like fettucine...definitely not the correct pasta for this dish...I would do farfalle or penne, obviously semola di grano duro from Italy...

Making this for a family of boys (who I knew would pick out the bacon), I doubled it to a pound and did whole strips, laid on a foil-covered baking sheet and set in a cold oven. Once put inside, turn the oven on to 400F and close the door, setting timer for 20 min. Do not open the oven until the timer rings. Drain on paper towel. This yields crispy bacon which can be chopped for use in the pasta.
I find this easier than trying to get small cuts of bacon to stay separate.

We loved it. Prepared it with bucatini, followed directions exactly (I try to do that first time around), and everyone loaded everything onto the hot, lemony pasta. Delicious, easy, fun. No one eschewed any of the ingredients, and there was nothing left over.

Excellent! Used a good bit less of the butter, angel hair pasta, salt, scallions, and pecorino cheese. I put the red pepper flakes in with the buttered pasta with the pasta water. The spicy flavor was incorporated into the lemony sauce.

I added chopped peeled fresh tomato and sliced kalamata olives. Excellent.

As ever, recipes such as this always spawn seemingly endless variations..great inspirational reading fellow cooks! Thank you!Never mind silly arguing over names/ingredients of what is & is not carbonara...try this : whatever variation you decide upon, try adding right at the end when tossing EVERYTHING together(forget bowls on table other than just maybe the cheese) a really goodly wack of either baby spinach (sweats to nothing easily, so use a lot) .. baby arugula a good alternative!

I live by the credo, "too much butter is never enough." ditto, garlic.

Also offered toasted panko as a topping option (toast in olive oil with salt, pepper, and some of the lemon zest). Added diced head of cauliflower to the water with 16 oz trofie colore pasta (Trader Joe's). I just mixed the pine nuts/butter/juice and zest all in with the pasta since they are all house favorites, and then offered bacon, panko, and herbs to top. Fed 1 adult + 3 hungry kids.

made these changes....love sauteed onions,,,add one onion....browned pine nuts in the bacon grease....was very good... followed everything else...legit....

I thought I could get parsley from my garden, but the monarch caterpillars had stripped my plants. The parsley would have been nice for color, but the dish was delicious without it. Mint did not appeal to me with this combination, but I would try parsley or green onion next time.

Simple and delicious. I browned the butter and cooked diced pancetta and pinenuts in it, added lemon juice. Tossed with cooked fetuccine, sprinkled lemon zest on top, mixed in some fresh English peas I had on hand and voila...yummy. My spouse added parm, but I did not.

Used mint. Only option I offered my guests was the red pepper. Used the pasta water, cheese and the lemon/butter to sauce the pappardelle. Splendid.

Cook everything in the bacon grease and you don’t even need all that butter. I used 5 pieces of bacon, 1 pound of pasta, and kept the lemon juice, zest, and herbs the same. Cheese to taste. Added garlic.

Fixed this last eve for my husband and I with a few changes taken from others hints and what I has on hand. I used prosciutto, pistachios, and asparagus cut into 3” pieces, spaghetti and fresh grated parmesano reggianno cheese. I crossed my fingers that it would taste as good to my hubby as it did when I tasted it before serving. He first said, “Interesting mix here” and later, :I think you can keep this one.”. Yay!

Made 1/16/23 Used neuskes peppered bacon - don’t overcookUse dry spaghetti pasta Use additional cheese Add more water / butter to get it glossy Bacon on top at end Scallions good on top

Fantastic, but I did modify in a couple places as others mentioned. I used the same pan as the cooked bacon, with the remaining bacon grease and 2 tblspns butter to toast pecans (no pine nuts on hand). I also added 3 cloves chopped garlic (could take more IMO) & red pepper flakes here. I threw the cooked pasta in the same pan, added the pasta water, another tblspn butter, parsley, chopped spinach & chard, finished by tossing with parm. No need to dirty another pan or a bunch of serving bowls.

Try 3/4 lb pasta. More greens. Parsley, scallions. Try spinach. More parm.

Not my cup of tea but ok. I added spinach to up the veggie content but found it a bit salty and acidic for my taste. Kids loved the butter noodles w only bacon though.

Agree with previous that walnuts are an excellent substitution for pine nuts, which are overharvested, and toasting in butter in advance. Also that penne or similar works better than a long pasta.

Following the advice of others, I put everything in one pan. Added a bunch of spinach. Delicious, quick and easy.

Solid basic pasta dish. Easy and takes minutes. Served with just a side salad for an easy weeknight meal. I ended up adding sauteed garlic as suggested by another user and mixed in the cheese and parsley in the pot. I didn't have pine nuts and it was still delicious. The notes below are super helpful!

This recipe has a “choose your own adventure” vibe. I halved the butter in the pine nuts. I ended up combining everything into the bacon cooking pan- the pine nut/lemon mixture, the drained bacon bits, Parmesan, pasta and pasta liquid. I also sprinkled in chile flakes. I used 1.25 C of the pasta water so don’t forget to save that. It was silky and so flavorful. I love the suggestion to mix in peas - that would be perfect and I’ll try that next time.

Superb as written! One suggestion from a guest would be to serve the extra pasta water on the table for those who want a saucier dish. Will make again. Everyone at the table was in awe!

What a great clean out your refrigerator pasta—few strips of bacon, peppers, onions, herbs, chili crisp, etc. Used just enough lemon to brighten. Like the addition of arugula. Had a bit of grilled salmon I added to the top of my serving bowl.

Delicious! Did make a few modifications: - half a bag of linguine - 6 slices of thick cut bacon- juice of one lemon and zest - clove of chopped garlic- red pepper flakes to taste- grated Parmesan - 1/3 cup of pine nuts 1. Cook bacon until done but not crisp2. Toast pine nuts and garlic in bacon grease 3. Deglaze pan with lemon juice4. Add pasta with some pasta water5. Add zest, pepper flakes, bacon, and GENEROUS handful of cheese*note: timing is everything.