SaveCreamy Vegan Mushroom Risotto
Ever been to one of those fancy restaurants where they serve multiple tiny portions and call that a meal? Risotto is one of those fancy pants meals that you will most likely find on their menus. Not that we go out much to restaurants like that. Actually, I think we never really went to one of those. At least not on purpose. But this is exactly the kind of restaurant Dawud worked for during some of his time as a chef.
Rather than going out for food, we (well, Dawud) obviously like to make our food at home. At least that way we can fill that plate up all the way to the top! 😊
So if you are planning to impress someone, or yourself, with an amazing and super delicious meal, you want to try this risotto! Our risotto is super creamy and of course 100% plant-based. It's actually quite hard to find a really good plant-based version of it because the creaminess is mostly achieved by using butter and parmesan cheese. The classic risotto recipe also uses dry white wine, which directly makes it unsuitable for everyone who chooses to (or should) stay away from alcohol.
Since our mission is to make awesome plant-based foods accessible to as many people as possible, we ruled all these three ingredients out. And it turns out to be just as delicious and creamy as the classical version!
So, what is risotto anyway? It's basically a rice dish from Italy using a round, medium to short-grain rice that is high in starch. Also, it uses a different cooking method from the one making regular rice. The risotto rice is not pre-rinsed. If you rinse it, you would actually flush away the starches on the outside. The rice is briefly added to hot oil on medium heat for a minute to coat each grain in a layer of oil. This layer prevents the kernel from popping open during the cooking process and leaving you with a too mushy risotto. Additionally, to maximize the starch content in the rice, the broth is added bit by bit under constant stirring. That means no starches are flushed away in excess water and will allow the rice to cook evenly. In our recipe, the amazing creamy experience and cheesy, tangy flavor comes from a thick bechamel like sauce, which contains both nutritional yeast and white miso. As a nice side effect, our plant-based risotto becomes a bit healthier than its cheesy, buttery equivalent.
So the perfect risotto is creamy, and the grain is well defined and cooked al-dente.
We hope you enjoy our creamy vegan risotto! Let us know how you liked it in the comments below. We would love to hear from you! 💚
SaveCreamy Vegan Mushroom Risotto Recipe
Ingredients
Vegetables
Creamy Sauce
Risotto
Both arborio and roma rice are great risotto rice types. We used roma rice for this recipe.
If you can't find vegetable broth as a liquid in your local grocery store, you can also use vegetable bouillon powder and quickly stir up one liter using the instructions on the package.
Garnish
Instructions
Vegetables
Step 1:
Coarsely chop the onion, cut the mushrooms into quarters, and cut the zucchini and eggplant into small dices.
Step 2:
Heat up some olive oil in a skillet on medium heat and add the onion. Once the onion starts to brown, add mushrooms, zucchini and eggplant. Sauté everything until browned. Add the leaves of the fresh thyme and set aside.
Creamy Sauce
Step 3:
Add olive oil to a saucepan on medium heat. Once hot, add flour and continuously whisk for 1 - 2 minutes.
Step 4:
Add plant-based milk, nutritional yeast and white miso while continuously whisking. Let it simmer for about 5 minutes until the sauce thickens. Remove from heat and set aside.
Risotto
Step 5:
In a sauté pan or skillet add the olive oil on medium heat. Once hot add the risotto rice and let it sauté for 1 - 2 minutes.
If you don't have a sauté pan or skillet, any other pan with a large flat bottom should work as well.
Step 6:
Add just enough vegetable broth to the sauté pan to cover the bottom. Give the risotto a good stir every 30 seconds to make sure the grains are cooked evenly.
Once the vegetable broth has been absorbed by the risotto rice, add about the same amount of broth again as before. Repeat this process until the rice is al-dente.
For 300 g of risotto rice, this process needs about 1 liter of vegetable broth.
Putting it together
Step 7:
Add the vegetables and creamy sauce to the risotto and mix well. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Step 8:
Plate the risotto and add garnish to your liking. We like to add fresh thyme, parsley, capers and some lime on the side.
das war sehr sehr lecker und freue mich mit andere sache.