Testing the Top Carbonara Recipes from the Internet's Most Popular Cooking Sites

Today we are testing the highest rated spaghetti carbonaras from the world's most popular recipe websites. We're going to do this proper as well. We're going to compare everything. We'll taste everything and we'll let you know our thoughts at the end. So, we have ourselves a chef in the building. As a home cook, I reckon I cook carbonara or my version of a carbonara the wrong way at least twice a month. You I think I cook it the right way twice a decade. Oh, okay. So, our first website is the world's most popular recipe website, which I had never heard of until today. Cookpad.com. So, cookpad.com has 101.6 million monthly viewers. That's a lot. And all their recipes are user generated, uploaded from around the

world, and we're viewing them here by the most highly ranked. This person is from Tuskanyany. I mean, that's cooking a recipe from an Italian. Right. First up, ingredients. There aren't many. Spaghetti, manali, eggs, olive oil, pepper and cheese, and it's pecarino Romano. Okay, which if I'm right saying is what is I always heard as the most traditional cheese, I think. Yeah, that's the right one. Well, step one, boil some water. Large pan of water to a boil. Yes. Step two, cut the granch into small slices. I'm going to take that as maybe like down the middle and then into like kind of almost julenne. In my head I thought you're making

panetta. You're making more of a thin slice like that. Yeah, that's what I have in my head when it asks me to do that. It's not cubes. It's not like cubed panetta cuz guanchali is when you look at it, it's mostly fat. Do you know what? There's a photo. No, you're right. Yeah, wrong. We're looking for 120 g of guanchali. This has been weighed out for us. So, this is the exact amount. And the pasta's also been weighed out for us. So, we just need to weigh out the cheese. Cut the gonchali into small

slices and cook in a skillet without oil. Add a little oil if you prefer. Cook until the fat turns translucent and slightly crispy, but do not let it dry out. Okay. Next step. Beat the eggs in a bowl. Then add black pepper and pecorino Romano cheese to taste. How many eggs, sir? Four eggs. Interesting that we don't have the pasta on yet. Yeah. I thought I'd usually get the pasta on and this would happen whilst it's cooking.

You can see why you don't need to add oil cuz look at the flour come apart. You can see it translucent as well. Yeah. So, it's probably almost there. So, it doesn't specify how much pecarino to add. What do you mean? No, it must to taste. To taste, which Oh, I don't know. That's a hard one. I would always specify a quantity there because if you add too much, it turns more into a gloop than a sauce. Yeah. So, if you're grating over the top of a dish, sure, do it to taste. If it's integral to the sauce of the dish, I'm not sure I'd go to taste.

How much are we going to go for? I think I'd be generous. I'd match it. I'd go 50/50 really in like volume, like weight. It's a lot of eggs. Uh, so then when the water boils, add salt. Not too much as guanchali is salty. And add the spaghetti. And the next one, once the pasta is cooked, drain it and add it to the skillet with the guanchchalo. So I need to work out when the gonchal when I think the guanchchal is done. Take it off the heat and wait for the pasta. So I've added less. I might take that usually be a little bit crispy. I think that's good. Yeah.

Well, I'm guessing that's going to go into here once passes in. Sometimes with carbonara, I will actually add this bit into here to temper it a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So, what's what's the way you do it at home then if you say you do it properly? To be fair, pretty similar to this. Yeah. Not much difference. Well, I think I do I make this, but if I haven't got the ingredient in, I'll just use something similar.

Yeah, I actually I use panchetta. Yeah, I'll use panetta. And I probably use more yolk. We're pretty much at the end of the recipe in that all we have to do now is toss everything together for a minute. Then add your two generous tablespoons of pasta cooking water, which it didn't tell you to reserve. Oh, it doesn't tell you to do that bit. So, you have to reading ahead is key here. So, a little problem that I have is that I'd have the pasta cooking and then I'd be doing this bit. Yeah. You want to add the pasta while it's hot and then you want to take it off the heat so it cools slightly, but you still need that residual heat to cook the eggs through. Whereas, now you've taken that off. it's going to have to go back on

the heat to like there's just an extra couple of steps and it doesn't tell you to put it back on the heat and also the ingredients list is not in the right order cuz the ingredients list should be in the order of what you use the ingredients in. It's a distinct difference from chefs and recipe writers. Yes. Where do you sit recipe writer? Once the pasta has cooked, drain it and add it to the skillet with the guanchelli. So, toss everything together for a minute. Then add two generous tablespoons of pasta cooking water. Turn off the heat to avoid scrambling the eggs. And add the beaten eggs. Also, the water gives you more security, more safety a safety net. Slightly it is scrambling, James. It's too soon. It was Toss.

You toss. I You toss. Yeah. Good. It's good. Oh, it didn't say toss though, did it? Didn't say toss. No. Okay. Good. We got a few catchy bits, but that's okay. It says without too many lumps, not without. So I'm assuming maybe the person who wrote the recipe also gets some lumps. Serve immediately. Get a plate. EXTRA PLATE. PEPPER AND CHEESE. More cheese. That is a good looking spaghetti carbonara. Between us. We didn't have too many issues with the recipe. But if you have no idea how to cook a caronara that might prove an issue and we had an issue at the end because I think you know you were stirring but it needed like that.

I feel like specify it. It's one of those recipes you it's good to practice. Yeah. Like anything you won't get right first time but once you done it once you'll know how to fill in the gaps. Right. Dive in. Turn. It's going to taste delicious. But don't share too much information cuz we need your notes and rating later on as we compare all of them. Oh, it's going to be a reveal. That's all about the guanchal. Yeah, it really is. Everything I feel like everything on that plate is to help compliment the meat and make that sing and soak up all that flavor. And it's cling to the pasta. Like the s it's saucy, but it's really clinging to the pasta. It's nice.

We'll both take notes. We'll reveal our ratings later on. Don't eat all of that cuz we got another two more dishes to make now. One was okay. Another carbonara. A new website. This time, All Recipes, the second most popular recipe website in the world with 86 million views a month. I've heard of this one. And the one we're doing has over 2,000 ratings. This looks very different. Oh, it's definitely America. And they're using stupid measurements. Pound. Who has a pound of spaghetti? Okay, so ingredients wise, what have we got? Right, it's a long list this time. Spaghetti. A pound of olive oil, bacon, onion, garlic, white wine, eggs, parmesan, black pepper, parsley, and more parmesan.

Hey, it all sounds delicious, but I'm pretty certain that's not been written by an Italian. I kind of wondered if there was like a regional difference and maybe some regions use garlic. Straight away, these steps come with photos. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. We've done that. Cook spaghetti in boiling water, stirring occasionally until tender yet firm to the bite. About 12 minutes, so it gives a time. This is what we wanted though. We did want to get the spaghetti on early so we can crackle everything else.

We did. However, I would like a meanwhile. Yes. Yeah. Meanwhile be useful. It's why it's psychic. We also encourage people to clear down as they're cooking cuz that's never mentioned in recipes. Or meanwhile. Meanwhile timer check. I'm going to time 12 minutes and we've got something ready for it to go on. Oh, so that's on a baking that's on a plastic tray. That's That's getting with olive oil. Place diced bacon in a large skillet over a medium heat. Cook and stir until evenly browned for about 10 minutes. Drain the bacon on paper towels, reserving 2 tbsp of the fat. So, this is already quite a lot more complicated, I think.

Yeah. Big difference from the last recipe. All the prep is in the ingredient list. Y. So, it's assuming that you've diced the bacon already. It's assuming that you've chopped the onion, minced the garlic. So, we can probably do that now. So, I'm going to chop some garlic and onion. That's pretty much Now that's gone in. That's pretty much the same time as when the pasta is going to be ready. As in, that's in for 12 minutes. This is in for 10 minutes. Yep. Well, we are cooking the onion until translucent. No time on that. So, that's going to be 10 minutes. That's really in until translucent. Another minute. And then we add wine, which is another minute. And then we add the bacon back

with the spaghetti. And then we do the car. Oo, I'm okay with the idea of doing one thing at a time, doing that thing well, holding it back, adding at the end. I don't mind that. I'm going to beat the eggs cuz again, that's specified in the ingredients list. It's not in the method. As a recipe developer, how often do you look at these types of websites? I take a lot of inspiration from websites as opposed to books just cuz it's slightly easier to search for exactly what you're looking for. You're basing up with ideas. You're never actually cooking from them.

No, it's similar to this actually. Taking the best ideas I see from those different websites, trying to come up with something new and different and hopefully better. Pasta has had 10 minutes, mate. The past the pasta has had 12 minutes. Oh, sorry. Bacon has had 10 minutes. Pasta has had 12 minutes. Then it says throw this onto a tray or somewhere. It actually doesn't. It just says toss in olive oil. But it photo of a tray. You know what the photo says? We've got that. And then you should have some olive oil. And now they're translucent in the garlic for a minute. Plenty of color on them.

Add 1 tbsp olive oil to bacon fat in the skillet. Add chopped onion and cook over medium heat until the onion is translucent. Add minced garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add wine and cook for a minute. I can go in with the uh the wine. 1/4 of a cup, so 60 milish. Return cooked bacon to the skillet. Add cooked spaghetti. Toss to coat and heat through. So this is replacing the guanchali fat. It's not at all, but it's the wet bit so far, I think. Well, you're adding flavor. You're adding some sweetness. You're bit more flavor. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Still need a bigger pan. That's a lot of pasta. And then cheese.

We're getting cheese in as well. Quickly add half a cup. Save a little bit for the garnish. If you're cooking this much carbonara, you've either got to have a huge pan. Willing to make a bit of mess because you really need to agitate it a lot. Beautifully done. And again, no scramble. We're good. That's probably like a 30 to 40minute carbonara recipe. And then we want to serve warm with some chopped parsley and sprinkle on some extra parmesan. Lovely. Right, dive in. Are we judging whether it's a carbonara or how much we like the recipe?

These are all carbonaras according to the internet. Thoughts? I'm not sure I want to share them yet. It's more tangy than I was expecting. I guess that's really tangy. Yeah. Kind of plays well with the cheese. It's a little less creamy than I expected. Let me show you. I do like it. It's maybe not necessarily what we think of as a carbonara. that set of ingredients. It's never going to taste bad, right? Wine, onion, garlic, egg, cheese, bacon. I think I've made ones at home like this, similar, but I think I've got there in a much more efficient way. It felt long.

Yeah, felt really long. I thought I could done all of that in the same pan at the same time. Okay. Really interesting, but say no more. Say no more. Let's move on to the next recipe. Now, moving on to the final website and the final recipe. This is from sirius eatats.com which is a very wellrespected cheffy food website. In fact, they've won multiple awards. The International Association of Culinary Professionals best website, James Beard Foundations. Oh. Oh, twice. Also Kush's favorite food website. It's a very good food website.

Do you use it? Yeah. If you want to understand how a recipe works or like get the basis of a recipe, yeah, it's a great website to start with cuz they really go in depth in the articles and the recipes are pretty good. I've seen a website but never use it cuz the first thing you see when you scroll down to a recipe is a story, a full-blown article. I'm like, I just want a recipe. But this is why we like it because it explains the difference between using a whole egg and egg yolk. I've only got 20 minutes left to make a recipe. explains the difference between what cheese to use, whether to use parmesan or pecarino. I think they use a mix of both. But we need to at the very bottom there is a recipe which we're going to follow.

Now it is a recipe. Total time 30 minutes. We started with a 20inut recipe. We went to a 40-minute recipe. This is a 30inut Should we go for it? Let's do it. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil. Happening. Add pasta and cook, stirring until al dente. No timings. And just say this says stirring. So this is just me. You stir the entire time. No, right. This is another one where all the prep happens in the ingredients. So we need dicedal. We need two large eggs plus six yolks. Oh, interesting. Yeah, this is going to be a creamy one. And then we need grated pecorino/4 cup. grated parmesano quarter cup and then

we're prepped. So while this is cooking we can get prepped. This is written by Daniel Gritzer who is the editorial director of series 8. First one written by a chef and as a chef who writes recipes that's important, right? There's a lot to be said for crowd sourcing cuz the best recipes rise to the top. But it is nice to trust the source. He's a former food editor for food and wine and is cooked in New York restaurants. We've got a meanwhile. We have a meanwhile. Combine guanchali or petta for 2 tbsps. Yeah. After the pasta. Guanchali and 2 tbsps of oil. Yeah. And lastly, stirring frequently over a medium heat, which is about 7 minutes. It says 2 tbsp of oil. This feels like a lot.

This is a lot. Try it. Eggs in here. I don't know why yet, but I feel like this is an important thing to use. This specifies metal heat proof mixing bowl. I'm guessing there's going to be heat involved later on. 25 g of pecarino. It's not even a gram yet. 25 g of both. All right. Oh my goodness. This is a serious recipe from Serious Eats. So, we've got 50 g of cheese. We've got 2 Tbsp of olive oil in addition to all the fat coming off the eight yolks. And eight yolks. How many people? I'm scared for four people. Yeah. Why are the two cheeses important? You think?

I think there's there's a big difference between what is called Italian hard cheese and something like parmesano reaniano or pecarino, right? I think pecarino is creamier and maybe parmesan is nuttier. As a chef who is kind of like between a chef and a home cook, I wouldn't necessarily differ between the two. For carbonara, pecorino is the tradition because it's slightly creamier. Pecarino you know creamy really salty not too funky. Oh parmesan so much more rounded and almost next to it's almost sweeter. It's not sweet. Also both cheeses do so. So we know the quality is right up there. And these are the cheeses the do cheese we've been using across all the recipes

but here we're using so much of it. It's where it needs to be the star of show. Egg cheese black pepper. Right. I have cooked the granchali until crisp about 7 minutes. Okay, that's sitting there. You have done the pecarino, parmesano, black pepper, and egg yolks. Yep. Using tongs, transfer the pasta to the skillet. Be sure not to drain the boiling pasta water. I drained it, but I saved it all. So, we're good. You're good. No, no, no. You screwed that up. You didn't read it. I did not screw up. You did. You're chef. You know, you know better. You know better than that. That was Shame on you.

Okay. So, you're going in from the water and you're bringing some of that water over into the pan. You are. So, add your tablespoon of the remaining water. Add some olive oil to the pasta. More olive oil. This isn't too dissimilar from the first recipe. It's just more. It's more. It's turning everything up to 100. Let it cool slightly. scrape the pasta, pork, and all the fat into the egg mixture. Hence why I've got a heat proof bowl, not into there. So therefore, safe zone. So this is what I would usually do.

Yeah. Then measure 120 mil of pasta cooking water. Still got that. And add it to the mixture. Okay, cool. It's generally quite involved. So they are looking for the best possible version of a recipe. Yeah. So although it's maybe not the simplest, hopefully it gives the best result. Yeah. Shaking. So, more water straight in now or is it as I cook it out? Yeah, it's all of it straight in. Is that starchy water? You need, don't you? The sound only carbonara could make more. This should be giving more heat to it than just using the residual heat in a pan. So, that water should actually

probably cook out, but it's it's kind of preventing the egg from scrambling. I It's almost a foolproof way of doing it. Doesn't say a time. It says, "Set a mixing bowl over the pot of boiling pasta water. Make sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water and cook, stirring quickly with tongs until the sauce thickens to a creamy, silky consistency and leaves trails as you stir." It is doing that. I'd say we're there. Remove from the heat. Season with salt if needed. Divide into bowls. Oh, look how glossy it is. It does look good. Oh my god. There's a reason why carbonara is one of the world's most popular recipes, isn't it? I don't think there's any other recipe that is so simple and so

satisfying when done right. when For me, it's the consistency of that sauce that makes that one so special in that it's coating every strand of pasta. It's silky, it's luxurious, and it's packed full of fat, therefore flavor. The cheese is doing so much work there. Like you were commenting on how much cheese there is in there, but you can taste the cheese. Mhm. You taste the I feel like it's it's really rounded. Like there's enough salt and pepper in every bite. I was saying though, the more fat you've got in a dish, the more that can carry the flavor from the gujali as well.

I guess that's like coating your palette. Yeah. All right, write some notes up on this. Put our ratings together and see what we think of all three. Recipe number one, the cookpad carbonara. For me, it was my favorite written recipe of the three. I wish it had a few more instructions on the equipment to use. For me, it felt really traditional, but not ne necessarily the most luxurious, which is what I'm looking for. As a rating, I think I'd give it a four out of five. Pretty fair. I thought it was a really nice recipe to follow, but I think that's because we're both really quite experienced cooks.

I'm taking it. Great. And I think a less experienced cook might have a few issues with it, particularly around the end bit where you don't have any room for error when it comes to making that sauce with the eggs. Tasted lovely, but I'm going to give it a three out of five. Quite getting proper recipe for James. I feel a little bit cuz it was a tasty recipe. It's great and it was so simple. So combining the two, seven out of 10. All recipes absolutely delicious. Actually, as a final result, really liked it. I just I'm not sure it was worth the hassle. If we follow them too closely, there'd be a lot of waiting around and using too much equipment and making too much mess. As a rating, oh, I'm giving it a two.

Two out of five. Oh, I liked it though. It tastes good. Just not worth the faf. Like you said, I think it's delicious. Is it a carbonara? I don't know. And you're right. It's like a 40inute recipe and there's a lot of waiting around and I think recipe writing wise it could have been slightly cleaner. Can I give a 2.5? I don't think it's as good as the first one, but I think two is quite harsh cuz we did get a very tasty plate of food out of it. Four and a half out of 10 ain't bad. And finally, serious eats.

The recipe itself was, I think, as easy as the first one we did with a few more steps, a few more tips and tricks. Having made it and now tasted it and now fall in love a little bit. I want to go back to the site and read the blooming article. Oh my goodness. To work out why it tastes so good. It was delicious. I can't fault it. I think that's the perfect carbonara. Five out of five. I'm going five out of five cuz I'm going to make that at home. I think putting my normal hat on. You immediately said there's too much stuff going on before the recipe. Although the recipe is very clear if you're looking for a really simple

authentic carbonara recipe, they go into a lot of detail. So, I'm I'm going to give it a four and a half out of five. 4.5 out of five. Oh, nearly. Okay. 9.5. But therefore, we have a standout winner. What do you guys think? What makes a perfect carbonara in your eyes? Also, make sure you like this video. We're trying to get 15,000 likes on every single video. We're calling it a streak. Join in and we'll see you in the next one.