Easy, Fantastic Mushroom Risotto Recipe With Gourmet Flavor

Mushroom Risotto is a delicious rice dish that highlights the fantastic flavor of mushrooms. It’s the gourmet meal you’ve been dreaming about!

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I am so excited to share this mushroom risotto recipe. Mushroom risotto is a superb way to highlight mushrooms in a meal. Whether you buy button mushrooms, forage, or grow your own, a risotto will make your mushrooms shine and serve them in their best light.

If you can get a hold of some mushrooms, be sure to try this recipe. Serve it with juicy pork, goat, or venison roast topped with foraged wild greens pesto for a perfect wild foods dinner. Or do as I do, and chop the roast and add it to your mushroom risotto (my roast was special, see below). Top the risotto with pesto and, wow, you’ve got an awesome meal! Ready to start? Let’s go make some fantastic mushroom risotto!

Hey, if you love mushrooms, check out my mushroom chowder recipe too! And learn how to grow your own mushrooms so you have plenty for all these tasty dishes!

Make Mushroom Risotto 

Last May I planted some winecap mushroom spawn in my new food forest garden here in Missouri. That fall I harvested about 25 pounds of mushrooms and then the frost came and put a halt to it. I put enough into the freezer for mushroom servings all winter long and was hoping for another flush come spring. Well, spring came and with it, you guessed it, mushrooms! Loads of them! 

Spring Flush

I’m not sure how to best describe this bounty of mushrooms that has been flushing, starting at the beginning of April. Even before the last frost date I harvested probably 50 gallons of mushrooms and now it is May and I can’t keep up with them anymore.

I put about 20 quart bags of cooked mushrooms in the freezer, enough for a whole year for me. Now I’m drying some when I have time. And there are as many more that I just don’t have time to process or room for in the freezer. I had been growing mushrooms in the past, but never did I see such an abundance of mushrooms from just one planting.

I’m still shaking my head in disbelief every day I look at the flushes of winecaps popping up everywhere. Who would have expected to be harvesting and putting up a years worth of crops even before the first frost date! That is so wild!

If you can’t tell by now, I’m just blown away, in awe, and incredibly excited all at once.

So anyway, when you love eating mushrooms and have them in abundance, you’ll want to find delicious ways to use them. My favorite, besides my yummy mushroom chowder (I shared the recipe with y’all last fall), is this mushroom risotto. It is ultra delicious. You need to try this recipe, and I am certain that it will make you a fan too.

Mushroom Risotto Recipe

This is an easy recipe but does require some attention and lots of stirring. However, the end result is well worth the effort.

Equipment

5 quart dutch oven – Or other heavy pot or pan with deep sides. I doubled the recipe when I made it so I have enough for a week, and I used a 7 quart pot. (Cooking here in MO is a huge challenge when you don’t have a kitchen. And I usually a cook week’s worth of dinner one evening each week when we don’t have a thunderstorm. Otherwise its bread with cheese, lol).

Silicone spatula – for cleaning out your pan after frying the mushrooms.

Turner or wooden spoon – Or something like this, I don’t own it, but I’m seriously eying them. In traditional Italian risotto cooking, you must use a wooden scraper or spoon. I don’t have one yet, so I used my stainless steel turner. Shhh, don’t tell!

Grater – for grating your cheese, unless you buy the cheese already grated.

Saucepan – This is my favorite sauce pan because it has a metal lid. That is so rare these days and my resolve is to never buy another pot with a glass lid! Not easy to do.

Ingredients

A note on ingredients. I make or raise almost all my own food, so I might be referring to homemade ingredients. You can certainly use store-bought versions of everything and I’ll explain any substitutions. And I do recommend that you use only organic ingredients. I keep saying that because it is hugely important for your health! Here is a great post about why to choose organic ingredients that I recommend reading.

Mushrooms

Any mushrooms will work for this. You can buy your favorites such as button mushrooms or portobellos, which are usually easy to find. If you forage, try morels, porcini, chanterelles or any others. If you’re like me and grow your own, winecap mushrooms work great, and I’d use shiitake too once I get some growing here. A mix would be splendid!

Short grain rice, Arborio or Carnaroli Rice

Italian risotto normally calls for something like arborio rice. This is a short grain rice that has a high starch content and usually cooks up fairly sticky, unlike long grain rice like Basmati, which cooks up fluffy. We want the sticky kind. I didn’t have arborio, but I do have organic medium grain rice which works too in a pinch. And I wouldn’t make risotto with long grain rice. I also used brown rice, which is not really what most recipes use. White rice is more common. You’re welcome to use any you wish, and just for the books, short grain Arborio or Carnaroli white rice is the recommended rice for risottos.

Butter

We’ll use Butter to fry up the Mushrooms. Try to always choose a pasture raised butter such as Kerrygold.

Olive oil

Choose a good quality, cold pressed, extra virgin olive oil for your kitchen and cooking. I recommend you avoid the highly inflammatory oils that line the grocery store shelves. They are often rancid, are produced with horrifying procedures involving toxic chemicals, are loaded with pesticides and made with GMO ingredients. Even the cheaper olive oils are often stretched with other low quality oils even if the label doesn’t specify that. So choose your fats carefully, your health depends on it! Here is a great guide to choosing healthy oils.

Onions

If you can get a hold of shallots, use those, I think they are perfect for risotto, but I only had frozen regular onions to use and the risotto still came out delicious!

Garlic cloves

A must in my book, but some cooks do not use them in risotto. Just thought I’d point that out. I use them in my recipe because I think garlic belongs in almost everything, and it makes extra delicious risotto in my opinion.

Today I actually used my preserved fermented garlic, since I’m running out of stored garlic cloves and forgot about all that wild garlic grass that is growing throughout my garden and pasture. I won’t forget again, because it’s popping up everywhere now!

White Wine

A dry vermouth would work great in this recipe. Don’t use a sweet wine.

I got lucky and found a jar with white wine from my own grapes that I made almost 3 years ago that still tasted like wine (sometimes they turn into vinegar if the bottle wasn’t sealed well). So I was very excited and used it in my risotto with great results. I also granted myself a few sips while cooking, even though I’m not at all a wine drinker, but I think cooking and a sip of wine do match up well.

Broth

You can use any broth you like. Choose a vegetable broth if you’re keeping this vegetarian or spring for some rich chicken, beef, or pork broth. I used pork broth to match my additional optional ingredient, fresh roasted pork. I had some rich canned suckling pig broth that made a delicious risotto.

Parmesan or Pecorino Romano

The traditional cheeses used in risotto are Parmesan or pecorino Romano. I would also consider Asiago cheese for that strong aged cheese flavor.

As it is, I have some 3-year old, aged cheddar cheese in my cheese cave (I’ll be posting the recipe soon). And it tastes quite like Romano cheese. Both are from goats milk and so they both have that rich flavor that is associated with goats cheese and that is often mimicked in cows milk by adding lipase, an enzyme that enhances the more bland flavor of cow’s milk.

But my cheddar cheese, even while it’s a mesophilic based cheese unlike Romano, which uses thermophilic bacteria, still tasted very similar. And it had turned quite dry and very strong and was perfect for my risotto today. Just goes to show you how you can flex your ingredients and arrive at a tasty finale!

Your choice cheese is used mixed into the risotto at the end of cooking, and you can also provide some grated cheese to be sprinkled over the top when serving.

Flavorings

You may opt to use other flavorings than what I used, such as parsley, mixed greens, wild greens, marjoram, rosemary, dill, etc. But I’ll list the flavorings I used, and they worked very well.

Salt – I salted my mushrooms, but I didn’t really need to add much salt otherwise, just a few pinches, since my broth was salted, the cheese was salty, and so was the pork that I added. I’d hold off on extra salt till near the end after all ingredients are in the pot. Taste and adjust if necessary.

Pepper – Always try to use fresh ground pepper. Pepper is quite important medicinally since it enhances absorbance of other nutrients in your foods. But it only works when freshly ground. The benefit of the active ingredient, piperine, will dissipate quickly once it’s exposed to oxygen.

Thyme – My favorite savory spice. My thyme was just starting to get going this early in the spring so I didn’t want to disturb it by taking any fresh leaves yet. I used the dried ones. But fresh ones would be great to use in this risotto.

Oregano – I used fresh oregano. This herb can be used as soon as it greens up in very early spring, it is so prolific, I never worry about taking too much. You can certainly use the dried version if you don’t have any growing.

Parsley – I didn’t add parsley in my risotto, since it’s just getting going, but it would be a good addition. However, I always keep some salt-preserved parsley in the refrigerator, which I sprinkled over the top after filling my bowl.

Optional Meat:

I’m including this because I think it is a great addition to mushroom risotto. This is a great option if you have some left over meat, chicken, or thanksgiving turkey to use up. And I enjoyed having it mixed in rather than on the side quite well.

Roasted chopped pork, turkey, or chicken – Ok, so I was making a roast to eat sliced beside my risotto, however, check out the picture and you’ll see why it wasn’t like your average roast that you can just cut easily into beautiful slices.

So instead of eating my pork roast sliced and topped with wild greens pesto, the smaller pieces inspired me to just chop it all and add it right into the risotto. I then topped the risotto with the pesto instead and it made a wonderful meal.

This was the butt end of a young Kune kune/AGH cross suckling pig that I had butchered a couple of years ago. I needed to use it up. It was vacuum packaged so it kept fine in the freezer. This whole pig was delicious. When I first butchered it, I roasted the front part whole and cut the butt part off for later. Head to toe it gave me some wonderful meat and the bones made many jars of rich bone broth, which I also used in this risotto.

Instructions For Mushroom Risotto

Add 1 Tbsp of Butter to the Dutch oven, heat till hot but don’t let it burn.

Add the mushrooms and leave them to brown a little. After a minute or so, turn them over and continue to let them brown. Turn them only occasionally so they brown but don’t release all their juices. Continue to cook for about 10-15 minutes till soft but not overcooked. Add ½ tsp salt and pepper to taste. 

Transfer the mushrooms to a bowl and with the help of a silicone spatula scoop up all the juices too.

Add the olive oil to the dutch oven and heat to medium hot. 

Meanwhile, add the broth to a separate saucepot and keep it just below a simmer for the duration of the cooking time. Add a little water if it reduces while it simmers.

When the olive oil is heated in the dutch oven, add the chopped onion or shallot.

Saute on medium for about 5-10 minutes till soft and starting to brown. 

Add the rice to the pan and toast for 4-5 minutes. 

Add the garlic and herbs, toss and cook for one minute

Deglaze with the white wine. Cook while stirring until the wine is absorbed.

Add about one cup of the broth to the rice and keep stirring it until all the broth is absorbed. 

Add the rest of the broth, one cup at a time, stirring till absorbed before each addition.

You may not need all the broth, Don’t let the rice get soggy, you want a moist and creamy consistency with just a bit of al dente bite to the rice.

With the last addition of broth, add the mushrooms. I like to reserve a few mushrooms to toss over the top when serving.

If you want to use meat too, add it now.

Bring back to a simmer and cook until it’s creamy and has the consistency you prefer. Add more broth if it’s too dry. Taste it to see if it needs salt. Depending on the saltiness of your broth, it may not need any, and the parmesan cheese will add more saltines too.

Turn off the heat and add the parmesan cheese.

Stir well and serve with wild greens pesto, or any other pesto if desired. 

How To Store Mushroom risotto

You can store mushroom risotto in the refrigerator for 3 days. However, it will turn into a brick and you’ll have to give it a little help to cook up nice and creamy again. 

I mentioned that I eat mine for a week. But I know that this is not recommened and I don’t encourage it. I’m just recording my practices here, which are not always official and FDA approved, and I will add this disclaimer for your information.

So to reheat your wonderful risotto, all you need to do is add some broth or milk and stir a few times when reheating so the bottom will not burn. But it will taste delicious if you do that. I actually think the flavor gets even better the next day.

Your Questions Answered

What mushrooms can I use for Mushroom Risotto?

You can use any mushrooms you like. From common button mushrooms and portobellos, to foraged morels or chanterelles, to homegrown winecaps or shiitake mushrooms. 

What goes with mushroom risotto?

• You can serve mushroom risotto as a vegetarian main dish with a salad
• Serve it as a side with a roast or steak.
• It would be great as a Thanksgiving weekend meal with leftover turkey either side by side or mixed together.
• And it would be a great feature dish for any special occasion. Even though it is simple, it has fantastic gourmet flavor.
• I can imagine that it would be really great with with vegetables such as snap peas, beans or asparagus. I’ve made it with mixed greens from the garden and loved it.
• I would also serve this to someone who needs some strength back after giving birth or when recovering from illness. It is a rich dish with lots of immune supporting ingredients especially with some pesto added.
• And I’m sure you’re aware that mushrooms have so many health benefits too. They are rich in antioxidants, immune boosting, heart healthy, anti-inflammatory, high in minerals and they can preserve our brain health. So this would be a totally legit excuse to make it often. You can learn more about it in my post on growing mushrooms.

My favorite way to serve it: I love to mix in chopped meat and top it with wild greens pesto for a full meal.

Is mushroom risotto healthy?

Yes it is healthy. If you make it from scratch with all natural ingredients and especially if you choose organic and whole ingredients, it can be very healthy. If you practice soaking your grains, you should know that the rice should not be rinsed or soaked before making risotto. This would remove the starch that is important for the recipe to work correctly.

Mushrooms are rich in antioxidants, immune boosting, heart healthy, anti-inflammatory, high in minerals and they can preserve our brain health. Bone broth is known for being anti-inflammatory and immune supporting, and great for bones, skin, nails and hair.

Is mushroom risotto gluten free?

Yes it is. Rice is naturally gluten free. 

Can I reheat risotto?

I know some will disagree with me, but yes, you can reheat risotto. However, it will not reheat to the way it was when fresh. Once you refrigerate it, it will turn into a brick in your refrigerator and you’ll have to give it a little help so it will cook up nice and creamy again. 

Just add some broth or milk and stir a few times when reheating so the bottom will not burn. But it will taste delicious the next day too. I actually think the flavor gets even better the next day.

What is the best rice for risotto?

Use a short grain rice for best results. Authentic risottos are made with white Arborio or Carnaroli rice. They are more starchy and will result in a sticky, creamy risotto, whereas long grain rice cooks up fluffy and the kernels don’t tend to stick together.

Since I don’t normally cook very authentic, because I use what I have on hand and tend to not follow recipes well, I used medium grain brown rice. I loved the result and it tastes amazing to me. I see no reason to make it different! But who knows, maybe it would be even better with a short grain rice. I am thinking I might get some with my next Azure Standard haul.

Isn’t this so Very delicious?

I hope you enjoy this risotto as much as I do. I think this creamy, flavorful rice sets up the perfect stage to show off mushrooms and the mushroom flavor comes through so beautifully in a fairly neutral base such as rice. When they meld, both are elevated. I love this risotto and will make it many times again. And if you can forage or grow your own mushrooms, this dish will be extremely budget friendly. 

I’d love for you to test this recipe and let me know about it in the comments. And if you love this mushroom risotto, I’d very much appreciate a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating! 

To get more recipes like this and other information on homesteading and traditional skills, sign up for my Food For Life Garden News, and I’ll let you know when I post new information.

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5 quart dutch oven
Spatula
Grater
Saucepan