We often talk about food pairings—PB & J, ham & cheese, rum & coke, McD’s sundae cone & McD’s fries (yes, had together). But how about food threesomes? They don’t get nearly as much of the limelight, but they can be just as crucial and comforting as their monogamous counterparts.

Here are a few good ones:

• The classic Italian tricolore of tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella (bufala, of course)
• Soy sauce, Shaoxing wine, and sesame oil—the building blocks of any Chinese stir-fry.
• Onion, thyme, and butter. Just imagine them all sautéing in a pan, the sweet, buttery aroma wafting all through the kitchen.
• Vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry—the Neapolitan ice cream classic.

But here’s my issue with these classic threesomes—none of them are paradigm shifting in the way that PB&J or soft serve & fries are.

Enter kimchi, bacon, and cheese. Yes, while this might seem a bit left-field, looking closer, each pairing in this three-way (kimchi & bacon, kimchi & cheese, and bacon & cheese) are proven combinations. The virtues of kimchi and bacon has been extolled by chefs like Deuki Hong and David Chang, kimchi & cheese are well-acquainted buddies at Korean restaurants the world over (think cheese dakgalbi and jjimdaks), and bacon & cheese, well, I don’t think there’s any need to explain their long-term culinary marriage.

Naturally then, kimchi, bacon, & cheese would make for one of the biggest, baddest, three-way flavour blasts in the food world. And it does. So, what better way to combine these flavours than in… a carbonara! Yes, Italians rejoice! Here’s yet another Asian making carbonara weird (after the Japanese with their cream-based carbs, using bacon in place of guanciale, and the Chinese throwing in mushrooms and olives and still calling it a carbonara).

But at least in this case, like Irene Yoo (of whom this recipe is based on), I stuck true to the Italian method of stirring together eggs, parmesan, and black pepper, before adding in the pasta to partially cook and bind the sauce, giving it that rich, salaciously clingy, classic carbonara coating. And perhaps most importantly, there’s not a drop of cream or a sliver of fungi in sight.

So, while I’m not one to advocate for polygamy, I gotta admit, this here’s a threesome I’d be down for.

Adapted from Irene Yoo’s recipe on Food52