Spring Creamy Pea Risotto
Perfect for spring, this creamy pea risotto is vegan friendly. Bright green in colour, the flavour of the peas really works with the garlic and caramelised shallots. The great thing is you can make this recipe all year round with frozen peas, but it’s a perfect spring recipe to serve with focaccia.
What’s in the recipe?
Peas- This is such a versatile ingredient as it adds a sweet flavour but can be pureed to give a good texture. You can use fresh peas or frozen, that’s the great thing about this recipe – it can be enjoyed all year round.
Vegan Cream- To give the creamiest texture, single cream (American’s use half abd half) to mix with the pureed peas.
Arborio Rice- This is the perfect risotto rice, the good tip is to add stock slowly and gradually to give it time to absorb.
Rice wine vinegar- You don’t have to use white wine to get a good risotto. For this, rice wine vinegar gives the acidity that reduced wine would. Of course if you have some white wine knocking about, get a good 250ml of it into this recipe.
Vegetable stock- Just a stock cube and boiling water will do for this.
If you like this recipe why not try:
Asparagus and Shiitake Risotto
Squash and Leek Risotto
Easy Tomato and Garlic Risotto
Cooking Tips:
Add stock slowly and gradually- to get the most out of your arborio rice, add the stock slowly so it absorbs each ladle full at a time.
Blend the peas- To get that amazing green colour, blend the peas with the cream, nutritional yeast and seasoning, then mix into the risotto. You don’t have to do this step, but it helps with the colour and texture.
Want to use white wine? Absolutely – get around 250ml of white wine in there. This recipe swaps white wine for the vinegar so make it cheaper.
Creamy Pea Risotto
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 shallots
- 2 large cloves garlic finely chopped
- 500 g frozen peas
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 200 ml vegan single cream
- 250 g arborio rice
- 1 tsp rice wine vinegar
- 1 l vegetable stock
- Salt and pepper
- 3 tbsp sunflower seeds
Instructions
- Start by finely slicing the shallots and frying in the olive oil on a low heat, after around 5 minutes add in the finely chopped garlic cloves and continue to fry for a few minutes
- Add in the arborio rice, toast for a minute before adding in the vinegar, followed by a cup full of the stock, allow the rice to absorb then repeat the process until it has absorbed the entire 800-1l of stock
- Meanwhile prepare the peas by defrosting in water in the microwave, drain then add to a blender with the nutritional yeast, a large pinch of salt and pepper and the vegan cream, blend until smooth
- Once the rice has absorbed all of the stock, add the creamy pea mixture, note you may need to add a splash more water depending on the texture
- Season again with salt and pepper, in a separate pan add the sunflower seeds and toast on a high heat then top the risotto and enjoy