According To Lidia Bastianich, Beginners Should Start With This Type Of Risotto

While not complex, risotto can be rather labor-intensive, making some cooks hesitant to try their hands at it. In an interview with Tasting Table, Lidia Bastianich suggested that a vegetable-based risotto alla Milanese is a great starting point that keeps things simple and straightforward while you learn the tricks of the trade.

Bastianich explained that mastering the dish is "mostly about technique." Risotto is not just regular rice, and it requires enough stirring to release the starches, but not so much that you ruin it and create a paste. In-season vegetables already have incredible flavor, so leaning on them to season your dish takes some work off your plate and allows you to focus more on learning the technique to get the texture perfect. Plus, risotto already gets plenty of richness from dairy fats, so you may not even need savory meats for a satisfying meal.

In the fall and summer, Bastianich recommends using butternut squash, leeks, onions, and shallots, providing creamy textures and a mix of fresh and savory tastes. Squash is a particularly good choice because it takes about as long to cook as the rice itself, plus it breaks down in the stock to create a velvety texture. Different vegetables are great at helping you achieve the qualities of a great risotto and can essentially act like training wheels while you learn tips, tricks, and techniques.

Vegetable risotto isn't just delicious and simple, it's also efficient. "A good stock is important," Lidia Bastianich told Tasting Table. "If you want to keep it vegetarian, you make a good stock with all the leftovers — the top of the leeks, the top of some of the carrots." While risotto rice provides the texture, the real flavor comes from the ingredients, so seizing opportunities to infuse it with more taste is key to the best dish possible.

Good risotto rice is short-grain but also incredibly high in starch, creating a thick, creamy sauce. If you don't have the right rice on hand, you can compensate for this with potatoes. You'll want to use ones that are great for homemade french fries, like Idaho potatoes, because of their starch content, letting it seep into the stock and boosting its thickness. However, if you do have Arborio rice on hand, you can stick with Yukon Gold or red potatoes, which have less starch and may not thicken the sauce quite as much.

If you're worried about breaking apart vegetables with all your stirring, try preparing and then folding them in during the mantecare stage instead. This lets you focus on your rice and veggies separately, ensuring both have the perfect textures while still combining their flavors. Plus, this allows you to trick out your vegetables in new ways, like charring them on the grill, roasting them to caramelized perfection in the oven, or even frying them.

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