Meaty (but meatless), earthy, and full of umami wild mushrooms make everything better. One of our favorite ways to use them? This comforting, hearty wild mushroom risotto recipe. We adore wild mushrooms. Here in the Pacific Northwest, all these rainy forests make for wonderful mushroom hunting, and we love to gather up the kids — or a caravan of friends — and head out into the woods.
Our reward for all that (often wet and cold) hunting? Big bowlfuls of creamy wild mushroom risotto, rich with all those beautiful forest fruits, as well as with Parmesan, garlic, Arborio rice, and a splash of white wine. Risotto is a beautiful, simple, vegetarian main dish that’s elegant enough for a dinner party, and easy enough for a weeknight. If you need more mushroom ideas, check out our 20 Best Mushroom Recipes.
Mushroom Risotto Ingredients
- Risotto Rice
- Arborio rice is probably the easiest risotto rice to find, and it’ll work great. Do not try to substitute regular white or brown rice for the Arborio. If you do, your risotto won’t turn out. Arborio rice is named for the Italian town of Arboria, but also grown all across the U.S. Arborio rice has a higher starch content than other kinds of rice, giving the finished risotto a creamy texture. That creamy starchiness is a must when it comes to our mushroom risotto recipe.
- Carnaroli rice is a fancy-pants chef rice. If anyone ever offers to bring you an edible souvenir from Italy, make it this — it’s almost impossible to find stateside.
- Vialone Nano rice is grown in the same Italian region from which Prosecco hails. Meaning the two really should be consumed together. Sadly, while Prosecco is easy to find, vialone nano is a little harder to track down here in the U.S.
- You can also make risotto-esque meal out of orzo, as in our Orzo Risotto recipe.
- Wild mushrooms The mushrooms used in our risotto recipe can be adjusted depending on what’s in season, and what your budget is (wild mushrooms are expensive). Springtime in the Pacific Northwest means morel mushrooms, but come late summer and early fall we crave the meaty, unique umami flavor of chanterelle mushrooms, which are abundant at that time of year. When it comes to selecting wild mushrooms, the fresher, the better. Other mushrooms that also work great in this recipe are:
- Crimini mushrooms
- White button mushrooms
- Lobster mushrooms
- Hen of the Woods mushrooms
- Portobello mushrooms
- Oyster mushrooms
- Shiitake mushrooms
- White wine: For risotto, we recommend using a wine that’s tasty enough you’d want to drink it, but perhaps not that ultra gorgeous aged Riesling that you’re saving for your 20th wedding anniversary. Usually, bottles in the $15 range are ideal for both cooking and casual sipping.
- Stock. Use vegetable stock to make this a vegetarian risotto for Meatless Mondays (or anyday).
- Garlic: Fresh garlic is a must. Risotto can be rich, and garlic helps lighten things up a bit.
- Parmesan cheese: Use a high-quality aged Parm, and not the pre-shredded kind. Pre-shredded Parm has additives that prevent it from melting nicely into the risotto.
- Butter: Butter is a must! You’ll want to coat every grain of the arborio rice with the butter, and it’ll also flavor the mushrooms.
- Shallots: A little sweeter and more delicate than regular onions, shallots are ideal for risotto.
- Thyme: Thyme and mushrooms are a classic combination, the thyme’s earthy flavor brings out the mushroom’s woodsy goodness.
- Cream: We wanted a truly, madly, deeply creamy risotto to honor the deliciousness of our wild mushroom harvest, so we actually added heavy cream to our mushroom risotto recipe. In Italy, folks might scoff at this addition but we say don’t knock it til you try it!
How to Make Mushroom Risotto
If you can stir a pot, you can make our creamy mushroom risotto.
Don’t rinse the Arborio rice. Normally, the first step in any rice recipe is to rinse the rice. But with risotto, the Arborio rice’s outer coating is where most of the starch is, and it’s this rice starch that will make your mushroom risotto creamy and satisfying.
Warm the stock in a small pan over.
Sauté the mushrooms and shallots in butter. When they’re fragrant and have released their liquid, add the garlic, thyme, salt, and pepper. Set them aside.
Sauté the Arborio rice in more butter, taking care to coat each grain of rice with butter.
Pour in the wine and lemon, and bring the pan of risotto to a gentle simmer, stirring constantly.
Simmer the rice gently, stirring constantly. Whenever the rice looks like it has absorbed all the liquid, add a little more stock. We suggest adding it about 1 cup at a time, but that doesn’t have to be exact. You can add a ladleful and just keep a close eye on the rice. Stir, stir, stir. When it looks like the stock has been soaked up, add more. You want to go as slowly as you can, and if you’re going to err, err on the side of letting the rice get too dried out rather than adding the liquid too quickly. Add warm stock and cook, stirring constantly, until stock is absorbed, about 5 minutes more.
When the risotto looks done — it will be creamy, and seem like it is unwilling to absorb any more stock — turn the heat way low, and stir in the mushrooms.
Stir in the Parmesan and cream.
Eat! Rich and creamy mushroom risotto makes a beautiful, simple main dish on its own, served with a nice Green Salad and some good Sourdough Bread.
Tips For Making Perfect Risotto
If you don’t have stock on hand, one of our favorite tricks for making the best risotto is to make a simple Parmesan rind stock. Just toss a few Parm rinds into 4-5 cups of water, and let it simmer on the stove next to your risotto, adding a little at a time as you stir.
Our best risotto tip? Lean into the stirring. There’s no way around stirring when you make risotto, so you might as well enjoy it. Put on a podcast, and let the meditative, slow stirring motion take you away.
A note about cleaning wild mushrooms: Wild mushrooms are often a little dirty — hopefully they came straight from the forest — but that’s no big deal. Just give them a little soak in water and let them dry on a kitchen towel once all of the dirt is gone.
Our Favorite Mushroom Recipes
Love Our Creamy Mushroom Risotto?
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