No Stir Risotto: The Pressure Cooker Method | Ecency

I've probably made this dish about once a week for the past four or five years. It is the dish that convinced me that the Instant Pot is a magical device. However, any pressure cooker should work just fine.

I'll share the basic approach and loose recipe. There is lots of room to experiment! 👩‍🔬

Important rice & broth ratio

This is the key 🔑: One part unwashed Arborio rice to two parts broth. Water probably works fine, but I've always used a simple powder broth.

I usually do 1 cup rice, 2 cups broth. That turns into four generous servings.

Ingredients

Arborio rice
Broth or water
Optional meat (chicken is used in the picture)
Veggies (onion + garlic is a good base. Also used: celery, mushrooms)
Aromatics to taste.
Parmesan cheese (about 2/3s the amount of rice being used)
Unsalted butter (~2 tbsp per cup of rice)
Lemon juice, but any acid works (balsamic, white vinegar)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

If using an Instant Pot...
Put the pot on sauté mode for steps 1 and 2. Step 3 won't apply to you :)

High level approach

🍖 Brown any meat. Cut meat into small chunks and brown it on a stainless steel pot or pan, with a little bit of oil. You're looking to develop a fond on the pot. You can skip meat entirely if you like!
🥕 Sauté veggies. I usually do celery and onion in some olive oil, followed by some form of mushroom. In the picture we used shiitake. I add a pinch of salt and some chili flakes if using mushrooms (salt helps draw out the water). Some garlic usually goes in too. Deglaze as needed.
➕ Add meat and veg to pressure cooker. If you're using an Instant Pot, all this happens in the same bowl so just skip to Step 4.
🍚 Add broth and rice. You can optionally toast the rice a little bit by adding it before you add the liquid. It is supposed to alter the flavour but I've never really noticed a difference.
🌿 Add aromatics. I usually do a bunch of fresh chopped thyme and some ground up dried porcini mushrooms. Try whatever you'd like!
⏱️ Pressure cook for 6 minutes on HIGH. When time is up, hit the pressure release (this is the loud and fun part!)
🧀 Stir in butter and cheese. This gets you to the creamy consistency.
🍋 Add salt, pepper and acid to taste. Add a little, taste, adjust, etc. You will likely need a decent amount of salt to really bring out the flavour.
🙃 Extra tricks. You can stir in a few huge handfuls of spinach here. It will wilt down and give you a brilliant green mix in. Once plated, I also like to crumble cashews atop for some crunch.