Low Carb Black Bean Spaghetti Carbonara tastes wickedly indulgent but it’s only 7g carbs per serving.
Don’t you just love classics that you can turn into keto-friendly dishes? Spaghetti Carbonara was one of my favourite Italian recipes. With fatty pancetta, cream and Parmesan as the core ingredients, it was always going to be a good one for LCHF lovers. Except that wheat spaghetti had to go and something low carb had to come in. The obvious first choice was zoodles, but the carbs count was pretty high and the result was far from impressive. Shirataki noodles weren’t up to scratch either.
Enter healthy black bean spaghetti. They are simply amazing! I’ve been cooking with these for a while now and they never let me down. They cook like pasta, feel like pasta and taste like pasta, but unlike pasta they are nutritionally rich. At 15g carbs per 100g weight, you might feel like they are still too high in carbs. However, black bean spaghetti are extremely filling, so a 40g portion is plenty. Once you add a substantial sauce, you’ll feel very easily full on what seems like a meagre portion of ‘spaghetti’.
Just one thing: you might hate the taste of black bean pasta. If that is the case, no problem. Simply replace it with konjac noodles or zoodles, depending on what you prefer, and carry on with the rest of the recipe. For me, black bean spaghetti is the closest to real pasta in texture and flavour. The trick is to use a lot of sauce to mask its earthy taste. Works for me, anyway.
Difference between classic Italian Carbonara and Low Carb Black Bean Spaghetti Carbonara
Purist Italian foodies abhor seeing ‘cream’ added to Carbonara recipes. They insist that a genuine Carbonara should consist of only pancetta and eggs. Well, get over it! Cooks all over the world add cream to their Carbonara and it tastes great. My Low Carb Black Bean Spaghetti Carbonara departs even further from the genuine article because it is actually made with whole eggs. I did this intentionally, as I wanted to have a substantial sauce to go with my black bean ‘pasta’, which would otherwise be too dry. Anyway, cream adds extra fat and extra, well, creaminess, so it’s all good from a keto perspective!
I may well cause outraged amongst Italian foodies because of the way I make my Low Carb Black Bean Spaghetti Carbonara. But I don’t care. It’s healthy. It tastes authentic. It’s delicious, filling and very keto. Happy days.
Enjoy!
- Yield: 2
- Serving: 1
- Calories: 578
- Fat: 38.5g
- Net Carbs: 7g
- Protein: 41g
- 80g black bean spaghetti (for U.S. option, click HERE)
- 130g smoked pancetta cubes
- 2 large eggs
- 30g double cream
- 30g freshly grated Parmesan (I use Parmigiano Reggiano)
- 1 tbsp fresh or frozen parsley
- 1 tbsp coarse Himalayan pink salt
- pinch of fine Himalayan pink salt
- a generous sprinkle of freshly ground black pepper
- fry or bake pancetta until cooked to your liking (I cook it in the halogen oven at 200C on high rack).
- meanwhile, bring a small pan of water to the boil with coarse salt, add black bean spaghetti and cook for 5 mins.
- crack whole eggs into a bowl and whisk lightly.
- add cream, salt, pepper, parmesan and parsley, reserving a little of the last 2 ingredients for final decoration.
- drain the spaghetti (save a little cooking water) and return them to the same cooking pot.
- add cooked pancetta, egg mix and 2 tbsp of the cooking water to the spaghetti and turn heat to high.
- stir for 1 min (don't overdo it or you'll end up with scrambled eggs instead of a creamy sauce).
- transfer to a serving plate and decorate with remaining Parmesan and parsley.
- serve immediately.
Metric kitchen scales are an inexpensive yet invaluable gadget to enable accurate measurement of ingredients. Store them upright in a cupboard or over your worktop and they'll only take up a tiny bit of space. Click HERE for the ones I use (UK Link). For U.S. option click HERE.
Does the 40g of black bean spaghetti serve one person, I.e. Is the recipe quantities for one?
Hi Ron, by coincidence, I cooked this last night for the first time in ages, and made some adjustments. The revised recipe is now for 2 portions, with macros given for individual portions. And yes, 40g of black bean spaghetti is one serving – it may seem a bit meagre, but it’s more filling than wheat pasta.