Go dairy free! Healthy cow-free recipes for life.

Risottos don’t have to be creamy! This one is absolutely scoffable. If that’s a word.

Chicken risotto

• 1 chicken breast, chopped into bite size pieces
• 1 leek, chopped (just the white bit)
• 4-5 mushrooms, diced (depends how much you like mushroom
• Dairy free margarine (olive oil spread/nuttelex etc)
• olive oil
• white wine
• balsamic vinegar
• fresh thyme
• pepper and salt
• 1 cup aborio rice (this is important for a good risotto
• up to 1 Litre hot chicken stock (I make my own stock, it has much MUCH less salt than bought. Will post how below)

So! With a little margarine and/or a splash of olive oil, brown the chicken and remove from pan. Cook the leeks for a couple of minutes before adding the mushrooms. Add the rice and make sure it gets coated in the marg/oil. Then add a splash of white wine and 2 tblspns balsamic vinegar and as the wine cooks off, pour in 1 cup of chicken stock.

Risotto can take a LOT of liquid. Sometimes I use all chicken stock, sometimes I add in some water as well if I think it’s getting too strong a flavour. The trick with risotto is to keep stirring and never add stock that is cooler than the rice itself. Make sure it is hot!

Keep tasting it and you will know when it is done. i.e. when the rice isn’t crunchy anymore.

Then add in the seasoning, the thyme and the cooked chicken to warm through before serving.

MMMMM

Chicken stock:

If you are ever inclined to eat a BBQ chicken, keep the carcus and boil it up with salt, pepper, and whatever veggie scraps you have: i.e. carrot, celery, onion are great. Use a couple of litres of water, and boil the *** out of it.

Strain, and if you find it is particularly fatty, skim the surface of the stock to get the chicken fat off. I tend to not put too much skin or fat into boil so I don’t usually have this problem.

You can freeze the stock in 1 cup bags so it is easy to use in future too.