Quick and Easy

Soft-Scrambled Eggs “Alla Gricia”

September 14, 2018
5
1 Ratings
Photo by Rocky Luten
  • Prep time 5 minutes
  • Cook time 10 minutes
  • Makes Enough for two, but you might want it for one!
Author Notes

These soft-scrambled eggs take everything I love about pasta alla gricia, and turn it up a notch. Or five. Think: Eggs so custardy and flavorful, you don’t know where the salty cheesiness ends, and the deeply bacon-y flavor begins. Oh, and a shower of freshly ground pepper and crispy guanciale shards, to top things off. My recipe makes enough for two—but if you know what’s good for you, you’ll make it for one, this coming Sunday, and eat it in your PJs. If you want to get technical about the ingredient list, you could call these “soft scrambled eggs alla carbonara,” but then you’d be missing the point: These are *super* easy to make. (You know what they say about Sunday morning, after all.) —Ella Quittner

Test Kitchen Notes

Featured in: Soft-Scrambled Eggs That Take a Cheesy, Bacon-y Cue From Pasta. —The Editors

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Ingredients
  • 1/2 tablespoon olive oil
  • 3 ounces guanciale (salt-cured pork jowl), sliced to about 1/8-inch thick and torn into bite sized pieces (you can substitute in bacon if you can’t find guanciale)
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 large pinch of salt
  • 1 tablespoon finely grated pecorino, plus more for serving
  • 1 tablespoon butter, cubed
  • 1 large pinch of freshly ground black pepper, for serving
Directions
  1. In a small non-stick skillet over medium heat, heat olive oil until glistening and then add the guanciale. Brown the guanciale without jostling it too much, so it crisps up on both sides. This will take about 3 to 5 minutes, and the meat will shrink as its fat renders into the oil. Using a slotted spoon, remove the crispy guanciale and set aside, reserving half the rendered fat and oil in the pan. Let the pan sit off heat to cool while you prepare the eggs.
  2. Crack eggs into a bowl and whisk together with salt and pecorino, just so they’re totally homogenous. Add the cubes of butter.
  3. Heat the skillet with the reserved guanciale fat over medium-low until the fat becomes translucent, then pour the egg mixture into the skillet. Using a spatula, stir the eggs every minute or so to encourage large curds to form, turning the heat down to low if they start to cook quickly. Continue this for about 4 minutes, until curds have formed but the eggs still have a custardy sheen. Move the eggs to a plate (they’ll continue to cook a bit), and top with guanciale crisps, a healthy sprinkling of pecorino, and a large pinch of freshly ground black pepper.

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1 Review

Hollis R. October 4, 2018
the only error i can see in this recipe is that it makes enough for one, not two. unless you've both had gastrectomies.