9 Favorite Pasta Dinner Recipes | Alexandra's Kitchen (2024)

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Notes:

To clean leeks: Place the sliced leeks in a large bowl filled with cold water. Do this as the bacon cooks. After about 10 minutes, lift the leeks out of the bowl with your hands and transfer to a colander—this allows the dirt that has settled to the bottom of the bowl to stay settled. When transferring the leeks to the sauté pan, be sure the bacon fat isn’t super hot—remove the pan from the heat. It’s OK if the leeks are still wet—a little water clinging to the leeks is a good thing.

Ingredients

• Coarse salt and ground pepper
• 6 slices bacon, cut crosswise into 1-inch pieces
• 4 leeks, white and light-green parts only, halved lengthwise, thinly sliced, and rinsed (see notes above)
• 1/2 pound bucatini or short pasta, such as campanelle, orecchiette, or gemelli
• 2 large eggs
• ¼ cup (heaping) grated Parmigiano Reggiano, plus more for serving (optional)
• 1 tablespoon finely grated lemon zest, plus 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• ½ cup fresh parsley leaves, coarsely chopped (optional)

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1. Set a large pot of salted water (I use about a tablespoon of kosher salt) to boil. In a large skillet, cook bacon over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until crisp, 8 to 10 minutes. With a slotted spoon, transfer bacon to paper towels to drain, leaving excess fat in pan—you should have about 2 tablespoons. Add leeks (see notes above), season with salt and pepper to taste, and cook, stirring often, until leeks are golden brown, about 10 minutes.
2. Add pasta to boiling water and cook according to package instructions.Reserve ½ cup of the pasta cooking liquid.In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, parmesan, lemon zest and juice. Whisk ¼ cup pasta water into egg mixture.
3. Drain pasta and immediately add to egg mixture, along with bacon, leeks, and parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste and toss to combine. If necessary, add more of the reserved pasta cooking liquid to taste. Sprinkle pasta with more cheese if desired and serve immediately.