The One Addition That Turns Carbonara Into A Hearty Breakfast Pasta Dish

If your morning meals are stuck in the same old rotation of toast and yogurt, it's time to switch them up. There's no good reason you have to strictly eat breakfast foods in the a.m., and pasta is here to prove it. We already know that scrambled eggs and noodles can be a match made in heaven, but that's not the only way you can enjoy these carbs first thing in the morning. If you're a carbonara fan but want to make this dish feel a little more like breakfast, you just need to add one key ingredient: sausage.

As you probably know, guanciale is the traditional meat normally used in spaghetti carbonara (although you can also substitute it out for pancetta). But when you deploy sausage instead, you instantly transition this meal from a classic dinner dish to something that can be eaten first thing in the morning. Despite the fact that it may appear drastically different from guanciale, sausage can fulfill many of the same requirements — namely, it's typically still salty, pretty high in fat (which gives it delicious flavor), and has a decent bite to it. Plus, if you don't want to lose the Italian feel of the pasta, you can use a tasty Italian sausage here.

Choosing an Italian sausage will retain some of this carbonara's original Italian flavor, and you can choose from either spicy or sweet options here. But if you want to veer in more of a classic American direction, feel free to opt for breakfast sausage instead, which is typically made of pork, black pepper (which goes great with carbonara), and sage. Either way, make sure to get ground meat or a tube where you can squeeze out the protein inside.

When cooking your sausage, break it up as you go — the way you normally would with ground meat. Feel free to add in any other flavorings that will jazz up this meal, such as green onions, more black pepper, red pepper flakes, herbs like bay leaves and parsley, or garlic. If you want an even more untraditional (but still delicious) preparation method, however, roll scoops of your meat into balls, then saute them for a few minutes until they've fully cooked into little meatballs.

Whichever direction you go in, once your sausage is done, add it into your carbonara at the same step where you'd normally incorporate guanciale: After the noodles are cooked, stir them with your meat before you toss everything with the eggs and parmesan.