Vegan Mushroom Brown Rice Risotto
Time for another savoury recipe on the blog. I used to love making mushroom risotto pre-plant-based days. I used to load it up with lots of creams and parmesan cheese. Since cutting out the dairy ( or most of it) I have tried a vegan version for a mushroom risotto a few times and it just never turned out very good at all. It was a little sad since it was one of the things I loved making for my husband most. He loves risotto’s and he absolutely loves mushrooms. Recently I came up with this and it was delicious! I can not wait to try it with buckwheat instead of brown rice as well. Initially, buckwheat was my grain of choice but I thought I would test it out with rice first just in case the flavours were a fail again.
I have another risotto recipe on the blog for my pumpkin risotto, and as I mentioned in that post this is not the traditional way of making risotto at all. I don’t think you can make a risotto traditionally using brown rice and its probably a lot harder trying it that way when its vegan as well. If you ask me, this is a good thing since I find my method a lot easier, less stressful, and more nutritious while still giving the distinctive risotto texture. As you know I avoid using refined grains in my cooking as much as possible which is why I wanted to use brown rice instead of the traditional white arborio rice. If you don’t mind using white rice you can go ahead and use it. It will most likely cut down cooking time and speed things up a bit. The trick with getting the brown rice to give that gluggy risotto-like texture is to boil it in lots and lots of water. This will give you stickier gluggy rice instead of the usual perfectly cooked rice where you can separate each grain from one another. As I mentioned in my last risotto post this is actually how I learned to cook rice. Romanians like their rice on the gluggy side.
The recipe uses a fair bit of nutritional yeast or savoury yeast flakes to replace the parmesan. We like to serve it with my vegan parmesan cheese which uses even more nutritional yeast. The link to the recipe for the vegan parmesan is here:
https://talidavoinea.au/vegan-parmesan-cheese/
| Vegan Mushroom Brown Rice Risotto | Print |
- RICE:
- 1 cup medium grain brown rice
- 8 cups of water
- 2 tsp dry vegetable stock
- 1 TBSP olive oil
- 1 brown onion - diced
- 2-3 cloves garlic
- 4-5 cups thickly sliced mushrooms
- salt and pepper to taste
- a handful of chopped fresh parsley
- 2 TBSP nutritional yeast
- CREAM:
- ⅓ cup cashews
- 1 cup soy milk ( other plant-based milks will work but soy gives most authentic taste)
- ½ tsp paprika
- 1 TBSP nutritional yeast
- juice half small lemon
- 1 tsp tahini
- Begin by cooking your rice in 8 cups of water and 2 tsp of stock over low - medium heat until all the water is absorbed. Once cooked set aside.
- Make your cream by blending all the cream ingredients in a blender until smooth and set aside. If your blender is not strong enough you may wish to soak your cashews for an hour or two before blending. Alternatively, I like to let my cashews sit in the soy milk for 10 - 15 minutes before blending.
- Gently fry off the brown onion in the olive oil until soft and lightly browned. Add in crushed garlic and fry for a few more seconds until it becomes fragrant.
- Add your chopped mushrooms and allow them to cook adding salt and pepper to taste. The mushrooms will shrink in size and release water as they cook.
- Once the mushrooms are cooked and most of the mushroom water has evaporated, reduce heat to low and add the cooked brown rice to the mushroom mixture and mix through. Sprinkle in 2 TBSP nutritional yeast and chopped fresh parsley and mix through.
- Slowly add your cream mixture a little at a time while mixing the cream through the rice. The rice will absorb the cream, stop adding cream when you get the creamy risotto consistency you are looking for. I usually use the whole amount but sometimes find that I need a little less.
- Adjust salt and pepper to taste.
- Garnish with extra parsley and vegan parmesan cheese ( recipe link in the description above). Best eaten straight away while still hot.
This risotto sounds so good! Mushrooms + risotto is one of my all-time favorite combos. Beautiful capture of your husband, Talida!
Thanks Nisha! It took me quite a long time to get just this one photo! haha
This is my go-to vegan mushroom risotto… I have made it several times now since changing from vegetarian, to vegan. Thank you Talida
Thats amazing to hear! I still make it all the time too.