What to use instead of guanciale
It depends entirely on what it's doing in the dish. Here's the job, what else does it, and what to skip.
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Rendered fat that becomes the sauce in a Roman pasta
Guanciale is roughly 70 percent fat with a soft melting point, so it gives up enough to coat the pasta and emulsify with the cooking water. That fat is the sauce.
PancettaRan out
1:1 by weight, plus 1 tbsp olive oil
Renders less fat, which is what the extra oil covers. Cleaner and less funky, closer to plain roast pork.
Salt pork, rinsedRan out
1:1 by weight
Renders similarly and brings a lot of salt, so hold back on the pecorino. No cured depth, so the sauce tastes flatter.
Thick-cut baconRan out
1:1 by weight
Smoke runs through the whole dish and the sugar in the cure browns the pieces darker and harder. Carbonara ends up tasting American.
Prosciutto ends or coppa in batonsRan out
1:1 by weight, cut 1/4 inch thick, plus 2 tbsp olive oil
Lean, so it crisps to a chew rather than melting, and there is little fat to build on without the added oil.
What doesn't work: Paper-thin prosciutto from the deli counter. Over a hot pan the slices seize into brittle shards and give up almost no fat, so there is nothing to emulsify the sauce with.
Cured pork depth in a long-simmered sauce
Curing concentrates the savoury compounds in the meat, so a small amount seasons a whole pot of tomato or oxtail in a way fresh pork cannot.
PancettaRan out
1:1 by weight
Very close. The seasoning leans towards black pepper and away from the sweet jowl fat, so the pot reads a shade sharper.
A parmesan or pecorino rindRan out
1 rind about 2 inches long per 100 g guanciale
Savoury weight with no pork at all. Nothing renders, so start the sofritto in 2 tbsp olive oil and pull the rind at the end.
Dried porcini with their soaking liquidPlant-based
15 g dried porcini + 1/2 cup of the soaking water per 100 g guanciale
Gets the savoury weight and adds a woody smell pork does not have. No fat whatsoever, so the sofritto needs oil.
What doesn't work: Smoked ham hock in an amatriciana. The smoke buries the tomato and chilli, and the gelatine from the hock turns the sauce sticky where it should stay loose.