Cheating Risotto
Alternate post title: Risotto with and without all the things.
Ingredients:
3 tbs olive oil, divided
2 12 oz packages riced cauliflower
1 shallot, minced
2 tbs minced garlic (or less if you aren’t a garlic fiend like me)
5 oz baby spinach
1 1/2 cup sliced button mushrooms
1/2 cup chicken broth
2 tbs nutritional yeast
2 chicken breasts (approx 1.5 lbs of chicken)
Salt and white pepper to taste
parsley (optional)
parmesan (optional)
Instructions:
Prepare cauliflower rice according to directions on the package.
Heat a large skillet and add 1 tbs of oil. Dice the chicken breast and sauté, remove from pan and set aide.
Add another tbs of oil to the skillet and sauté the shallot until clear, then add garlic and stir for about 30 seconds. Add the mushrooms and sauté until tender (about 5 minutes). Remove from pan and set aside.
Add the remaining oil to the skillet and add spinach one handful at a time, sauté until wilted.
Return chicken and mushroom mixture to the skillet, stir in cauliflower rice, broth, and nutritional yeast. Add salt and white pepper to taste.
Garnish with parsley. If you don’t need this to be dairy free, top with parmesan.
Serves 6.
Ok, back story. Girls night was coming up and we needed a theme. This group of ladies has been getting together for a monthly girls night for about 13 years, before most of us were married and had kids. Back then, the meals we made together were elaborate affairs, feasts even, involving piles of pasta and sumptuous sauces. In those days, cooking was a novel, fresh adventure as we traversed early adulthood together. Cooking has become a chore for a lot of us with the onset of additional responsibilities, so our girls nights have often gone the way of “What’s easiest to make?” But I had a rare moment of needing to make something special, so I suggested Italian food as our theme.
To complicate matters, several of us can no longer indulge in gluten or dairy. Risotto is a great alternative, but some of us also limit carbs. Enter cauliflower risotto. I love living in a day and age when I can bop over to the store and snag a bag of pre-riced cauliflower - convenience is a beautiful thing and I’m deeply grateful for it. I found several recipes for dairy-free risotto, but none of them had all the things I wanted in it (chicken, mushrooms, and spinach), so I improvised a bit. This dish is gluten-free, dairy-free, and guilt-free. And it’s absolutely delicious.
There’s a distinct lack of photos in this post, so to make up for it, here are some shots of Spring in my neck of the woods.
