Ah, risotto! Who doesn’t love a bowl of luscious, creamy risotto?

Of all the things I make, this is the recipe I am asked for the most. I learned long ago that risotto is not so much a recipe as it is a process. And once you understand the process you can let your imagination take over and create your own delicious risottos.

To be sure, there are a few essentials you need to know about the process but ultimately making risotto is just a matter of slowly adding a hot liquid to rice until the rice is cooked. For flavorings you are limited only by your imagination, from a simple cheese risotto to something more sophisticated and elegant with ingredients like truffles or saffron and the like. Keeping in mind that the fewer the ingredients the more they need to be the very best you can find.

OK, so let’s talk about the main ingredients.

The Rice:

Since it is the star of the show it makes sense to start here.

It probably won’t come as any surprise that the word Risotto comes from the Italian word, Riso, which translates to rice.

There are several types of rice used to make risotto but perhaps the most common and widely available (outside of Italy, at least) is Arborio. It is not the only one though. Many aficionados prefer Carnaroli rice which, they say, is better for risotto because throughout cooking it retains its “heart”. Properly cooked risotto should be ever so slightly al dente – that is, the rice should offer a little resistance as you bite on it. Arborio will cook to very soft but Carnaroli will always have that little resistance at its heart. There are a few other risotto rices but they not generally available to us.

I haven’t tried it myself but I am told that the Spanish Bomba rice (used for paella) makes a decent risotto. But what does not work is regular old long grain rice, Basmati, Jasmine, Japanese sushi rice or any of the other kinds you may see on the grocery store shelf. Not to get too deep in the weeds here but it all comes down to the kinds of starches in the rice – Amylose and Amylopectin – that give risotto its characteristic creamy consistency. Arborio and Carnaroli rices have the ideal combination of these two starches.

An interesting factoid — depending on who you talk to, there are thought to be between 70,000 and 100,000 kinds of rice in the world. Of these only about 100 are cultivated for consumption.

The Liquid:

Often there are two liquids used in risotto – usually wine and a stock or broth of some kind. In my experience the wine is usually white and the stock is most often chicken. Red wine is sometimes used or even beer. The stock could be vegetable, veal, seafood or indeed, just plain water, among other options.

The Wine:

We don’t drink a lot of white wine so we don’t always have bottle to hand when we are in the mood for risotto. For cooking (whether risotto or anything else calling for white wine) I keep a bottle of dry vermouth on the shelf. Vermouth has two distinct advantages — it is a fortified wine and therefore keeps well after opening the bottle and it is inexpensive (keep the good stuff for your martini). Above all, avoid using any wine sold as ‘Cooking Wine’. It is very poor quality and often contains salt. Why that stuff continues to be sold is beyond me!

Red wine, although not as commonly used as white wine, is nevertheless perfectly acceptable. The down side for me is the purple hue it gives the risotto. If you are OK with that, by all means use red wine instead of white. Me, I’ll pass, thanks.

You would want to use an inexpensive (but drinkable) dry white wine or, if you are going with red, a Pino noir. Don’t use a full bodied or fruity red. An alternative to wine is beer. You would want to choose a lager style beer or IPA rather than a heavier porter style.

In the risotto making process the alcohol, if it’s used, is added to the rice before the main liquid component. It is cooked for a minute or two to cook off the alcohol, leaving behind its underlying flavor.

The Main Liquid:

The most commonly used (but by no means the only) liquid for risotto is chicken stock and when it comes to stocks home made is undoubtedly the best, especially if you are doing a simple risotto with only a few ingredients. (If you are feeling adventurous and want to make your own chicken stock, click here to check out my post on how to do it). In the long, slow simmering stock making process the collagen in the skin and the meat’s connective tissue breaks down into gelatin which gives the stock a rich texture and mouth feel you simply do not get in commercial stocks.

But still, a good store bought stock will work as well. If you are using a store bought stock be sure to check the nutrition label for the salt content and take it into account when you are seasoning the risotto.

What about those stock cubes such as OXO, for example? When they were sold originally in the early 1900s these stock cubes were concentrated beef stock. If only that were sill true, but sadly, not. Today, stock cubes are mostly salt with flavor enhancers and yeast extract and with only a hint of chicken, beef, lamb or whatever flavor it is supposed to be. Does that mean they are bad? That’s not for me to judge. I do not use them because I am fortunate to be able to take advantage of better quality products, including home made stock. But, if convenience and cost are important to you, a stock cube will definitely fit the bill. Just remember to adjust any added salt to account for the salt in the stock cube.

We have focused on chicken stock because it is the most commonly used liquid for risotto. However, depending on the risotto you are making you might choose to use a beef, fish, vegetable, mushroom, or whatever stock best suits the flavor of your risotto.

I like to salt my stock rather than adding salt directly to the pot with the rice. As the rice cooks it absorbs the stock and is uniformly seasoned.

Add-ins:

There is almost no limit to what you can flavor your risotto with – mushrooms, shrimp, butternut squash, asparagus, are all favorites but there are so many more options. I like to add raw vegetables (cut up into small dice) along with the first addition of stock and let them simmer gently as the rice cooks. Alternatively I will par-cook the veg and add it in with the last addition of stock to finish cooking in the hot rice. With delicate proteins like shrimp I always pre-cook them to not quite done and let them gently finish cooking with the last addition of stock. That way they won’t over cook and become rubbery.

Cheese:

Almost always risotto is finished with a handful of cheese and perhaps a nob of butter for extra richness. And again, almost always the cheese of choice is Parmigiano-Reggiano, considered by Italians to be the king of cheeses – Long live the king!

While a wedge of Parm is my go-to cheese for risotto I have also used Pecorino Romano (a sheep’s milk cheese) and occasionally blue cheese.

Now, when it comes to parmesan cheese I would strongly urge you to buy a wedge of genuine Italian Parmigiano-Reggiano for its superior flavor and grate it yourself. Pre-grated parmesan cheeses quickly loose moisture and flavor and often contain fillers. Domestically produced (non-Italian) parmesan cheeses do not compare to the real McCoy for quality and flavor.

(Here’s a tip for you – when you have grated your wedge of parm down to the rind, don’t throw the rind away. Put it in a freezer bag in the freezer and keep it to add a nice Umami boost of flavor to a pot of soup or stew).

Ratio of Rice to Stock:

Typically when you steam rice you would use a 2:1 ratio of liquid to rice by volume. Making risotto we use a ratio of about 4:1 liquid to rice. There are two main reasons for this:
1. When you steam rice the pot is covered with a lid so little or no moisture is lost, whereas risotto is cooked in an open pot allowing some of the liquid to evaporate. And
2. Steamed rice is relatively dry, unlike risotto which has a much looser consistency. Indeed properly cooked risotto should flow on to the plate, come un’onda – like a wave.

When you steam rice it takes about 18 minutes for the rice to fully cook. It will take that long to cook the risotto also, starting from the first addition of stock. The stock you add to the rice may evaporate faster or slower depending on how high you have the fire. If your fire is a little too high you may need a little extra stock if the rice is not fully cooked by the time your stock is used up. The pot should boil very gently after and between each addition of stock – it should not boil violently.

The Importance of Adding Hot Stock to the Rice:

Risotto recipes will always say to heat your stock to just a bare simmer and hold it at that point throughout the process and it’s important you heed that instruction.

When the rice is heated, the starch molecules – Amylose and Amylopectin – begin to separate and allow water (in the sock) to penetrate the rice grains. Eventually the starches begin to leach out into the surrounding stock, thickening it to the characteristic creamy texture of risotto. This is a process called Gelatinization.

The opposite of Gelatinization is called Retrogradation where the starches begin to revert back to their original crystalline structure when the temperature of the rice is lowered. Adding cold stock to the rice will lower its temperature so that the stock cannot be properly absorbed and your risotto will not be the creamy consistency it should be.

The Process in a Nutshell:

The very basic risotto process goes something like this:

• Seasoned stock is heated in a pot and kept just barely simmering throughout the process.
• A quantity of finely chopped onion is sautéd in some olive oil until it softens.
• Rice is added and ‘toasted’ for a few minutes. It doesn’t actually take on any toasty color but the grains will become translucent around the outer edges.
• Dry white wine (or red wine or beer) is added to the pot and the rice is stirred until the liquid is almost all absorbed.
• A cup (240ml) of hot stock is added to the pot along with any add-ins (see the note above about add-ins) and stirred into the rice until it is almost completely absorbed.
• The hot stock is added to the pot, 1/2 cup (120ml) at a time until each addition is almost completely absorbed before adding the next ladleful.
• After about 20 minutes the rice is done, taken off the heat, covered and allowed to rest for 5 minutes or so.
• Parmesan cheese and a bit of butter are stirred in to the rice.

Et Voila! Risotto is served.

Risotto Shortcuts:

I’ve seen several recipes that add the bulk of the liquid all at once, leaving some to adjust the texture towards the end of cooking. There’s no adding by increments and no constant stirring involved. Can that really produce the classic taste and texture of a traditionally made risotto? Proponents say, yes. I have never personally made it that way, in part because I can’t quite let myself trust that it will work and also because I enjoy the slow, rhythmic stirring routine which I find to be quite therapeutic.

In 2023 Kenji Lopez-Alt at Serious Eats wrote an article on Perfect (Almost) No-Stir Risotto. (Click here to read the article). In typical Kenji fashion he rigorously researched and tested recipes to come up with a method that I might be convinced to try, at least once (only because Kenji says it’s OK). I’m not at all opposed to modernizing old, traditional recipes adapted to new food science understanding. In this case I just like the relaxing (for me), almost zen like experience of stirring a pot of risotto. If you would like to make risotto without all the fuss, this may be a good option for you.

A Final Word:

This is not a comprehensive discussion on how to make risotto and nor is it a recipe. It is intended as an overview of the process so that after following a published risotto recipe (such as this one) to get more detailed instructions, the cook can riff off of that and create their own recipe.

A Final, Final Word:

With an eye towards Cultural Appropriation, I should say I am not Italian and do not have any cultural connection to Italy beyond loving the food and the country. (It is my personal belief that for the flavor to simplicity ratio you cannot beat Italian food). When I make Italian food I try to respect the cultural traditions of the Italian cucina but ultimately whatever I make (or write about) results from my own experience and research.