After all the Holiday eating, with the New Year’s coming soon we could all use something a little lighter. Now don’t get me wrong. A roasted butternut squash and cider risotto with plenty of grated cheese and garlic is still a pretty indulgent meal if you ask me. But somehow seems a bit lighter than your average roast and bread and sausages or what have you not.
While usually, one would make risotto with Arborio rice I decided to make this meal as easy and frugal as possible and went for regular short-grain white rice one would cook with pretty much anything. Most of the flavor comes from oven-roasted butternut squash and garlic plus a healthy glug of sweet apple cider. Now, when we are in Europe when referring to apple cider or cider, we ALWAYS mean the alcoholic one. Anything else is called juice. So for this recipe, I used a splash of Somersby apple cider which is very sweet by my standards but has that deep apple flavor in it. So overall the perfect cider for cooking. This roasted butternut squash and apple cider risotto recipe was a fridge raid recipe. Swapped the white wine with cider, more popular mushrooms with squash, and special rice with regular. The only thing that doesn’t change is the method.
The most important task is to keep stirring. No fast or simple or secret cooking hack will make risotto as creamy as stirring does. That is the only secret behind a creamy and silky risotto without any added cream. That is why you don’t need to always use specialty gourmet products, you just have to trust the good old methods that have been proven. What makes this roasted butternut squash and apple cider risotto the best is the added cheese. Because there are no rules on how much cheese you should serve it with.
Roasted butternut squash and apple cider risotto
Ingredients
For the roasted butternut squash
- 300 g butternut squash or any pumpkin
- 4 cloves of garlic
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp pepper
- ½ tsp sugar
- 3 tbsp olive oil
For the risotto
- 1 small yellow onion
- 1 cup rice of your choice
- 200 ml sweet apple cider
- 800 ml water or light vegetable stock
- 3 tbsp butter
- 1 tsp salt
- 70 g grated parmesan or grana padano
- Sage leaves for serving
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 200°C
- Cube the squash and smash the garlic, place on a sheet pan and sprinkle with the spices and drizzle with olive oil
- Roast in the oven for 25 minutes
- Melt the butter in a pot or dutch oven and add the chopped onion
- Roast the onions for 5 minutes then add the rice and stir for a minute
- Add the cider and cook stirring on medium for 5 minutes, add the water and salt
- Add the squash and the garlic to the pot and cook stirring for 15 minutes
- At this point you can use a potato masher or anything else to smash the pumpkin pieces even more
- Add most of the parmesan and stir it in, leave some for serving
- Serve the risotto with sage and more grated parmesan
Now go on an make this meal before it is too late and you are roasting a whole bird again!
