the ultimate classic mushroom risotto [for stovetop, oven, or Instant Pot]
So, you’re in a kitchen in Italy with tea lights in glass cups and a painted brick fireplace. You live in the year 2020 but your stove is from 1956. You’re barefoot on the wood plank floors wearing black stretch flares, ankle length; you just poured some wine into a water cup while you gear up for this marathon of 20+ minutes of continuous stirring. There’s scratchy, boozy jazz playing from a vinyl while you stir with your left hand and drink with your right. Your intuition is now speaking in the voice of someone else’s grandmother. It says: add some more broth. It looks like pale sludge porridge, which is how you know that tonight you’re making risotto The Right Way.™
Or maybe you’re in an American kitchen with a 2020 Viking range and just can’t be bothered, and if that’s the case, you’re also in the right place. I’m not here to judge.
As someone who’s spent several Fridays experimenting and watching old episodes of Lidia’s Kitchen on PBS, you learn the reason risotto has this reputation of difficulty in the first place is because risotto is a finicky pain in the ass. You’re playing with starch extraction over heat, so the margin for error is pretty thin. If risotto doesn’t like the temperature of the broth, it will simply refuse to absorb it. If risotto thinks the pan is too hot, it’ll turn into concrete on the bottom. If risotto doesn’t have every second of your attention, it’ll seize into hot, sticky porridge. Risotto can be an asshole.
For the stovetop, there’s an easy way to make this a lot less daunting: get squeezable, microwave-safe silicone measuring cups. Risotto typically requires a hot broth sidecar on the stove, and a ladle to spoon it in with. This is messy. With the measuring cups, you can heat it in the microwave and pour in as much as you need, bit by bit, without accidentally flooding your burner coil with hot chicken juice. You can also keep your other hand on your stirring spoon.
Then there is also the oven shortcut, and the Instant Pot shortest cut. Both sets of directions are below.
It’s a great tool to remind someone that you are The One Who Cooks in This Relationship, or to make a Friday night feel like a proper Friday night instead of yet another continuation in the one long blob of un-demarcated time we now live in.
RECIPE
If you memorize any dish, make it this one. Earthy sauteed mushrooms join a classic risotto base that can be made one of three ways: the traditional way stirred on the stovetop, the no-stir way in the oven, or the ultra-fast hands-off way using the Instant Pot.
Effortful time: 40 minutes (stovetop), 5 minutes (oven), 5 minutes (Instant Pot)
Total time: 40 minutes for stovetop or oven; 20 minutes for Instant Pot
Serves: 4 as a main, 6 with a protein
YOU NEED
For the risotto:
1 shallot, minced
2 tbsp. butter
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
1/2 cup dry white wine
HOT chicken, mushroom, or vegetable broth, amount varies by cooking method
For stovetop: 5 cups
For oven: 3 1/2 cups
For Instant Pot: 3 cups
1/2 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 cup parmigiano reggiano, grated
Salt, to taste
For the mushrooms:
2 tbsp. butter
1 tsp. olive oil
1 lb. crimini mushrooms
8 oz. shiitake mushrooms
8 oz. oyster mushrooms
3 cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1/2 tsp salt
MAKE IT
Choose your risotto method:
Stovetop method, the classic
Sauté the shallots. Heat 2 tbsp butter over a wide, round-bottomed pan on medium heat: a saucier or rounded sauté both work well for this. Sauté the shallots until translucent and fragrant, about 2 minutes.
Heat the broth. I like to make hot broth by putting a large silicone squeezable measuring cup full of water into the microwave for 2 minutes, and then stir in a tbsp of Chicken Better than Bouillon. You can also use an electric kettle.
Toast the rice. Add the rice to the pan and stir to coat in butter. Toast the rice like this for two minutes or until it starts to look lightly caramelized. Add the thyme and salt and stir.
Deglaze the risotto. Pour in the white wine and stir, scraping all the rice around. It’ll all pull back to the center. Once you really smell the wine cooking off, about 2 minutes, it’s time. Lower the heat to just under medium.
Cook the risotto, stirring the entire time. You know how I said squeezable measuring cups are the best? This is where they’ll prove it to you. Bit by bit, you add broth and stir until the rice has absorbed it, then add more. With the cups, you can do this in a nice steady stream vs. dumping it with a ladle. To quote Ina G: how easy is that?!!
Repeat until the broth is gone or the risotto is done. You may not need as much as I did, but in both tests, I needed all five cups. You can tell it’s done when a) you can easily smash it under a spoon, b) it tastes soft, and/or c) it “pools” into the center when you stir it, indicating the starches are now outside the rice as intended. When the risotto is done, remove from heat.
No-stir oven method, the shortcut
Get prepped. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Heat your broth: I just microwave hot water for 2 minutes in one of these silicone measuring cups and mix in the Better than Bouillon for easy pour-age.
Assemble the risotto. In a 9-10” wide, shallow, oven-safe pan, combine all the ingredients on the risotto list. Stir to combine.
Cook the risotto. Cover and bake for 35 minutes. You don’t need to stir it or disturb it in any way! It’s doing its magical thing all by itself. If you don’t heat your broth, it will take 10-15 minutes more.
Check for doneness. Take out your risotto. It should still look pretty “runny”—this is what you want—but the rice should be tender and fully cooked. If it’s not, recover and bake up to 15 minutes more, checking every five minutes. I’ve made this dish 5 times in the last 2 months, and the only time 35 minutes wasn’t enough is when I didn’t heat the broth in advance. The cheese will finish the thickening process.
Instant Pot method, the shortest cut
Sauté the aromatics. Set the Instant Pot to Sauté-medium and melt 2 tbsp. butter. Add the shallots and sauté for 2 minutes. Add the dried arborio rice to this mix and toast it alongside the shallots, about 2 minutes. Add the thyme.
Deglaze the pot. Pour in the white wine and scrape up, cooking about 2 minutes or until the wine smell starts to cook off. Once you pressure cook, it won’t evaporate anymore, so this is your finished amount of wine flavor.
Heat your stock. This helps the rice become nicely starchy and helps the instant pot work less hard. Add this to the Instant Pot.
Cook the risotto. Put the lid on the pressure cooker and seal. Set to high pressure, 6 minutes. Let the pressure release naturally after cooking for at least 5 minutes.
For the mushrooms, all methods:
In a sauté pan, melt the 2 tbsp of butter over medium heat. Add the garlic and sauté for 30 seconds, until fragrant but not brown.
Add the mushrooms (which will look way too crowded) and thyme. Stir to coat in butter. Sauté until they’re browned and soft, about ten minutes.
Add salt; adding it late like this prevents premature shrinkage. Stir, then cover and turn the heat down very low until ready to use. I prefer to do the mushrooms at the same time as the stovetop risotto, alternating spoons; in the last 10 minutes of cook time for the oven risotto and as soon as I hit start on the Instant Pot for the pressure cooker directions.
To finish, all methods:
Toss in the parmesan cheese to the finished risotto, whichever pot you cooked it in, and stir until thick and glossy but still pooling when you stir (add a splash more warm water if it isn’t). Fold the cooked warm mushrooms together with the risotto; it’s easier to add shrooms to risotto than vice versa. Serve with more cheese and cracked black pepper.
Note: if you save any leftover, from any of these techniques, remember to add plenty of water or even a splash more wine for reheating—the rice will keep absorbing, and it’ll burn without more liquid!