Ina Garten’s Green Spaghetti Carbonara Is All We Want to Eat This Spring

It’s already been spring for a month and the weather is finally starting to catch up, which means we’re ready to frolic through our pristinely manicured East Hampton garden wearing a chambray button-down while our husband makes business deals and brings home the big bucks. Oh wait, that’s Ina Garten’s life—we’ll have to settle for making her spring carbonara instead.

The cookbook author and Be My Guest recently shared a recipe for her vegetable-packed pasta on Instagram, and it’s been on our mind ever since. With two types of peas, asparagus, chives and lemon (plus plenty of pancetta), it’s a worthy excuse to make a beeline for the farmers market. Naturally, it also comes with a Contessa twist.

“Spring Green Spaghetti Carbonara is a great weeknight dinner that’s full of spring vegetables like asparagus and snow peas, a creamy sauce with Parmesan cheese, plus lots of crispy pancetta,” she wrote on Instagram. “It’s easy enough to make for a cozy night at home but special enough to serve to company. And it’s so delicious!”

Of course, we trust Ina implicitly, but we’ll still have to try it out ourselves to confirm her final statement. Luckily, she shared the full recipe on her Barefoot Contessa blog.

As for that aforementioned twist: The dish is categorized as an “intermediate” skill level—we’d guess that’s because carbonara traditionally involves tossing hot pasta in egg yolks and Parmesan to magically create a glossy sauce out of almost nothing. There’s definitely a chance for failure…but Ina being Ina already thought of that. She includes a bit of heavy cream in the recipe as a safeguard against a broken sauce.

What can we say? She’s just smart like that.

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