Ingredients You’ll Need and Why

These are some ingredient notes I took during the testing process for this recipe. Handwritten recipes are often written down with your knowledge and assumptions in mind from already having made the recipe, and when I share something here, I need to have tested extensively to make sure it works for you the first time.

• Carrot juice: this should be unsweetened, and the only ingredients should be carrots and maybe something like lemon juice. I think the juice pictured is from Voelkel.
• Rice: risotto rice should be labelled as such, or arborio. It might also be sold as ‘rice pudding’ rice (Milchreis) and I know for a fact that companies take the same large bag of rice and split it into smaller bags with different labels (Graham used to work in a factory that packaged rice). You can get brown and white risotto rice but note that brown takes ages to cook.
• Shallot: a little sweeter and milder than onion, shallot is preferable here. If you can’t get them go ahead and use onion instead but make sure to look it long enough that the sharpness is reduced.
• Broth: this can be homemade vegetable broth or from a cube or jar, but you have to like the way it tastes. Stronger broths can overwhelm the delicate carrot juice.
• Mushrooms: oyster mushrooms are a personal favourite but just about any type will work. If you can get wild mushrooms, all the better – boletes are very good here.
• Wine: choose a dry white wine. If you don’t want to use wine at all, replace it with more vegetable broth and add an extra squeeze of lemon juice to make up for it.
• Parsley: I can see dill being good here in place of parsley. Maybe it’s because I’m a bit ambivalent about fresh coriander (cilantro) that I wouldn’t use it for this recipe, but it should pair well with the other elements, so if you’re a big fan, it should work.

How to Make Carrot Risotto

As with any risotto recipe, the key is low, slow cooking. Stirring frequently helps to release the starch from the rice, making it creamier, and if you don’t stir, you don’t get risotto.

Step 1: cook the shallot and garlic in olive oil until translucent. Be patient with this step, as it needs at least ten minutes of cooking before it’s ready.

Step 2: toast the rice in the pan for a couple of minutes. Toasting helps to bring out the flavour in the rice and improves the final texture. Add the wine to deglaze the pan.

Step 3: stir in the carrot juice and cook with the lid on until the juice absorbs. This helps to reduce the cooking time when using brown rice and doesn’t negatively impact the final texture.

Step 4: this is what the rice should look like once the carrot juice is absorbed. At this point, start adding the hot broth. Always use hot broth for risotto. Cold will increase the cooking time. I keep it in a pot on the stove on low heat beside the risotto pan.

Step 5: add the broth in ladle by ladle, stirring frequently, until the broth has been absorbed and the rice is fully cooked. It should be soft but still have a slight bite when ready.

Step 6: just before adding the last ladle of broth, add the mushrooms to a hot frying pan over medium heat. You don’t want the mushrooms to get cold so start them at the last minute.

Step 7: fry the mushrooms until crisp and browned, about 15 minutes. Note that the risotto should rest for about five minutes before serving, so the timing should be just right.

Step 8: top the risotto with the mushrooms and parsley, and serve hot. Timing is important for risotto so make sure the parsley is chopped ahead of time and you have the lemon zest and juice prepared.

Expert Tips for the Best Risotto

• Simmer, then stir: a little different from a typical risotto recipe, this one lets the carrot juice absorb first before starting the bit-by-bit addition of the vegetable broth. It cuts down on the extraordinarily long cooking time for brown rice – my original notes for this recipe say “takes effing forever” so it needed something to help speed it up!
• Don’t skip the mushrooms: they add a textural counterpoint that’s very pleasant. The risotto is also a bit sweet and mushrooms provide a little more meatiness to the dish.
• For white rice: the recipe is written for brown rice, because the cooking times are different. If you want to use white rice it takes about half the time called for and there’s no need to soak.
• Don’t rinse: the rice is soaked to speed up cooking time. You can skip this step but note that the risotto will take well over an hour to cook in that case. But it’s important not to rinse the rice, unlike when cooking for other rice dishes, because you don’t want to rinse that starch off.

More Rice Recipes

We don’t eat as much rice as we used to, as we’ve been moving more and more into eating as locally as possible and spend most of our time in the north. I love it, though, and have shared many rice recipes over the years. Here are some savoury dishes with rice:

• If you have more risotto rice to use, try my brown rice risotto (consider this a base recipe) topped with wild garlic pesto, or make something sweet with coconut milk rice pudding.
• For something light and seasonal make this rice salad with chickpeas and a lemon ginger vinaigrette.
• Some more good seasonal late autumn rice mains on the site are vegetarian stuffed pumpkins and this lentil and rice vegan butternut squash soup. Risotto rice would work well for either of those recipes to make them a little creamier from the added starch.

If you make this Carrot Risotto recipe or any other vegetarian dinner recipes on Occasionally Eggs, please take a moment to rate the recipe and leave a comment below. It’s such a help to others who want to try the recipe. For more OE, follow along on Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest, purchase the Occasionally Eggs cookbook, or subscribe for new posts via email.