one-pot mushroom orzo carbonara

carbonara-ish

Click here for the full categorized WTC recipe index, and for a printable PDF of this recipe, scroll all the way down!

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As most of you know, What To Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking was originally a cookbook concept which… no publisher bought. A year and a half after my final rejection letter, I had the wild idea to turn it into a paid newsletter instead to prove those mofos wrong (amongst other, more virtuous reasons), and the rest is history.

One of the chapters in the original book proposal was going to be dedicated to one-pot pasta. Italians scorn one-pot pastas for being *improper technique*, but they are a quick and delicious way to feed the fam so… who cares?!

Orzo is my favorite pasta to use for one-pot pastas because it cooks really quickly, and the noodles don’t get gummy. Here, we are borrowing the egg yolk and Parmesan sauce from carbonara but adding lemon juice to really brighten it up. I actually first developed this recipe when I had COVID and couldn’t taste much, so I just kept adding lemon juice until it tasted like something.

Now that my tastebuds have returned, I just love the bright flavors of this dish. I know you will, too!

P.S. Mushroom haters… of course there’s a swap for you! Scroll down to the notes and substitutions section.

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why is there soy sauce in my carbonara…?

Traditional carbonara is very close to this recipe, but uses bacon instead of mushrooms (scroll down to the subs section if you’d rather use bacon!). Bacon has a rich, salty, umami flavor that mushrooms lack, so we use just a tablespoon of soy sauce to add that salty depth back into the dish. Soy sauce is a wonderful ingredient for adding savory richness to any dish, not just Asian food!

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didn’t you share a mushroom orzo recipe a few weeks ago?

Yes, but this one is better. If you’ve never made a pasta sauce with egg yolks before, prepare to be amazed by the creamy goodness.

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one-pot mushroom orzo kinda-carbonara