Quick and Easy Vegan Carbonara | Italian food made vegan

This quick and easy vegan carbonara is ready 15 minutes. It’s creamy, comforting and the perfect alternative to the traditional carbonara. Vegan bacon and chickpea flour are the secrets behind this creamy and flavourful sauce.

I used to love carbonara as a non-vegan so I decided to recreate it and I was very satisfied with the result. Traditional carbonara is probably the least vegan pasta dish that can exist. It is only made with animal products: eggs, parmesan, pecorino cheese and bacon or guanciale.

Therefore, it might seem hard to veganise but nowadays there are so many alternatives it is actually pretty straightforward. In this recipe, I used black salt aka “Kala Namak” to give it its typical egg taste and vegan bacon for the meat. To recreate the creaminess of the egg I use chickpea flour mixed with water and cooked in a pot.

This will not taste exactly like a traditional carbonara, it is similar in my opinion, but not the same. Although this is as close as it gets! It’s an easy and healthy vegan alternative.

This Quick and Easy Vegan Carbonara is:

• Creamy
• Hearty
• Nut-free
• Gluten-free
• Rich
• Flavourful
• Comfort food
• Ready in 15 minutes

For this quick and easy vegan carbonara, you will need:

• Spaghetti. Although the traditional recipe includes but you can use another shape of pasta and they will work just fine
• Chickpea Flour This ensures the creaminess of the sauce. I haven’t tried it with another flour.
• Black salt This is a salt that is not actually black but it creates the egg flavour. The powder smells like hard-boiled egg yolks, because of its sulfurous aroma. It is also called Kala Namak** and it tastes like egg and you don’t need a lot of it to get the flavour. You could use regular salt but it is highly recommended. It is not expensive and it will last a long time.
• Turmeric powder This is just to give it the yellow colour. You can skip this if you don’t like it (you can’t actually taste it) or use saffron instead.
• Vegan bacon This can be substituted with smoked tofu or normal tofu
• Black pepper This is the one ingredient that remains the same as the traditional recipe. Lots and lots of black pepper!
• Water This mixed with chickpea flour, creates the egg-like sauce.

That’s all, only 7 ingredients. Let’s see the steps now!

How to make this quick and easy vegan carbonara

• 

• 

1. In a bowl, combine chickpea flour, turmeric, black pepper and black salt and mix to combine
2. Gradually add water, until the consistency is almost liquid, like eggs would be
3. Pour the mixture in a small pot and mix on medium/high heat until it starts to become dense. When it does remove from the heat and mix well to create a smooth cream ( If there are lumps, you can add some pasta water while the pasta cooks), then set aside.

• 

• 

4. In the meantime cook the pasta according to the package instructions al dente.

• 

• 

5. In a pan heat up some olive oil, then fry the bacon, cut into vertical strips, until crispy.

6. When the pasta is done, keep aside some pasta water, add to the pan with the bacon, mix well then add the chickpea flour cream adding some pasta water to make it smoother.

• 

• 

7. Serve and season with black pepper. Enjoy!

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Other pasta creamy pasta recipes:

• Creamy cauliflower and lemon pasta

Did you make this recipe? 

Please let me know how it turned out! Leave a comment below, give it a rating or share your recreation on Instagram and tag me at  @recipesandplaces or use the hashtag #recipesandplaces

I love to see recreations and share them!