Best Pumpkin Risotto Recipe – How to Make Pumpkin Risotto
Caitlin Benzel
The nicest Italian in town has nothing to do with your kitchen with this delicious pumpkin risotto. It’s one of those hearty pumpkin recipes with lots of love and a really delicious treat – a creamy risotto with smoky bacon and fragrant sage. Frying the sage leaves in the bacon drops is a cooking trick that’s actually very easy to do. It does double duty here, flavoring the whole dish with just enough sage and making a pretty garnish. Wow your friends for an Italian dinner party, make it for your special someone (or have it made for you), or add to your fall recipes this season.
Can you use regular rice for risotto?
A risotto calls for arborio, or short-grain rice, which contains much more starch than long-grain rice. This starch helps it absorb more of the broth and become creamy as it cooks. Long grain rice cooked with broth is usually called pilaf and is not as creamy.
Does the broth for risotto have to be heated?
For a great risotto, it pays to heat the broth first. Warm broth doesn’t slow down the cooking as it’s added to the rice to help it stay creamy and cook a little faster.
What do you do with leftover canned pumpkin?
There are so many ways to use up a can of pumpkin. If you’re short, stir it into pumpkin pancake batter, add it to a pumpkin chili, or spread it on toast with a sprinkle of cinnamon sugar.
Read more +
read less –
Advertising – Continue reading below
Income:
4 – 6
portions
Preparation time:
0
hours
10
minutes
Total time:
0
hours
40
minutes
low sodium chicken broth
Slice thick-cut bacon, cut into 1-inch pieces
fresh sage leaves, plus 1 tbsp. chopped sage
finely chopped yellow onion
Garlic cloves, finely chopped
kosher salt, plus more to taste
Canned pumpkin puree
finely grated Parmesan, plus more for garnish
Roasted and salted pepitas for garnish
This ingredients purchasing module is created and maintained by a third party and imported to this site. You may find more information about this and similar content on their website.
- Heat the chicken broth in a small saucepan over low heat. keep warm
- In a large saucepan, cook the bacon over medium-high heat, turning occasionally, until browned and crisp, 8 to 10 minutes. Transfer the bacon to a plate lined with paper towels and reserve the drips in the saucepan.
- Return the pot of bacon drips to medium-high heat. Add the whole sage leaves and sauté, turning occasionally, until crisp, 45 to 60 seconds. Put the sage leaves on the plate with the bacon. Add the onion to the saucepan with the bacon strips and cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until tender, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until fragrant, about 30 seconds.
- Add the arborio rice and cook, stirring constantly, until very lightly toasted, about 1 minute. Add the wine and cook, stirring constantly, until almost completely evaporated, about 1 minute.
- Reduce the heat to low. Stir in the salt and 1/2 cup of the warm chicken broth. Simmer, stirring constantly, until the rice has absorbed most of the broth.
- Continue to add the broth, 1/2 cup at a time, stirring constantly and repeating each addition of broth as the rice fully absorbs the liquid, for a total of 20 to 25 minutes. After about 4 cups of broth, taste the rice to see if it’s tender and has a slight bite. If not, continue cooking and add broth.
- Once the rice is tender and thickened to a creamy consistency, stir in the squash, parmesan, and 1 tbsp. chopped sage. Adjust consistency with additional chicken broth as needed. Season to taste with more salt and pepper.
- Finely chop the reserved bacon. Garnish the risotto with bacon, fried sage leaves, Pepitas and Parmesan. Serve immediately.
Advertising – Continue reading below