Carbone Spicy Rigatoni Copycat Recipe

💭 What is Carbone Spicy Rigatoni

Carbone spicy rigatoni is a beloved dish that the renowned New York City restaurant, Carbone, and is famed for it's delicious tangy tomato sauce paired with chewy al dente pasta.

Thankfully, you don’t have to travel to NYC or snag one of those rare reservations to enjoy it. Similar to my Healthy Shrimp Scampi recipe, I use a number of key recipe tweaks while making this recipe at home, making this recipe healthy and delicious.

✅ Why This Recipe Works

Super easy to make – All it takes is a couple of common pantry ingredients.

Flavorful and delicious – By utilizing the key cooking techniques used to make this Carbone spicy rigatoni recipe, you can make a restaurant quality dish from the comfort of home.

Healthy and nutritious – This recipe is based with tomato sauce, which is known to be healthy and nutritious. And it was developed by yours truly to be protein-packed and low calorie.

🍎 Calories and Nutrition Facts – How To Make It Healthy

While spicy rigatoni is delicious, it’s not always the healthiest dish. A serving of the Carbone spicy rigatoni can be up to 952 calories with a whopping 59 grams of fat and 89 grams of carbs and only 16 grams of protein.

Classic recipes for the dish will utilize a high amount of olive oil, butter, and heavy cream to make the dish. Some recipes call for vodka as well. 

Let’s take a look at the nutrition content for these ingredients: 

• Heavy Cream – 50 calories per tablespoon with 0g protein, 6g fat, 0g carbs
• Butter – 100 calories per tablespoon with 0g protein, 11g fat, 0g carbs
• Olive Oil – 120 calories per tablespoon with 0g protein, 14g fat, 0g carbs
• Vodka – 98 calories per serving with 0g protein, 0g fat, 0g carbs

As you can see, each of these ingredients are extremely calorie dense largely from its high fat content – and we haven’t even gotten to the pasta or tomato sauce yet.

To make this recipe low calorie and healthier, I’d recommend the following tips:

• Substitute Heavy Cream – You can use half and half, milk, or plain greek yogurt. Check out this article for more heavy cream substitute ideas.
• Limit usage of butter and olive oil – I used ¼ tablespoon of butter to give the aromatics a nice flavor and used olive oil cooking spray, which is theoretically 0 calories. 
• Omit the vodka – Save the shots for a night out instead – you can just utilize pasta water which has no additional calories. Check out Ethan's video "Does Vodka actually make Pasta taste better" for more info, but tldr; the pasta tastes pretty good without the vodka.
• Portion the pasta to be exactly 1 serving – While there’s nothing wrong with carbs, they can easily add up in calories. 

For a detailed breakdown of each ingredients, their portioning, and how they make up the nutrition profile of the Carbone spicy rigatoni, you may refer to the table below:

To learn more about tomato sauce and if its healthy, check out my article about healthy tomato sauce.

📋 Ingredients Notes

Pasta – I used Rummo Rigatoni, which is personally my favorite brand. It’s very affordable and one of the highest quality past brands I’ve encountered. 

Chili – Most recipes call for Calabrian chilis, but you can also opt to use red pepper flaks or dried Thai chilis instead since they are not usually sold in a jar of oil. You can also opt to use red pepper flakes. 

Tomato Paste – An essential part of the rigatoni sauce. 

Pasta Water – This refers to the water used to cook the pasta. Do NOT forget to save some after the pasta is done cooking to help create the perfect sauce texture.

Half and Half – A creamy and lower fat alternative to heavy cream. You can also use greek yogurt or milk. 

Basil – A great garnish to bring some freshness to the dish. You can also opt to use parsley or omit.

See my recipe card below for a complete list of the ingredients with measurements.

📖 Substitutions and Variations

With Chicken – Add in some chicken for a delicious, protein-packed meal. Check out my Chicken Arrabiata to see a similar recipe.

With Shrimp – Add in some shrimps to make a delicious creamy shrimp and tomato sauce pasta. Check out this Creamy Spicy Shrimp Pasta recipe to see how to make it.

Buy the sauce from Carbone themselves – If you don't want to make the sauce yourself, you can try using Carbone's pre-made pasta sauce. I personally like the fresh sauce better, but this is a great shortcut.

Sauté the aromatics and tomato paste –  In a skillet, use ¼ tablespoon of butter and cooking spray if needed and sauté the aromatics. Also add in the tomato paste and sauté until it caramelizes, about 5-6 minutes. Be sure to continue to stir the aromatics so that they don’t burn. [Photo 1 and 2]

Mix in the pasta – Add the pasta into the sauce and mix thoroughly, adding pasta water in as needed. Mix in part of the cheese as well, saving some for the garnish. [Photo 4]

💡Expert Tips

Don’t forget the pasta water – The tomato paste and half and half alone might be too thick  to make a proper sauce. Add in pasta water as needed to achieve the desired sauce consistency.

Lower heat before adding the dairy – High head will make the dairy curdle and evaporate.

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