If you have leftover roast chicken to use up, you’ll love this chicken and pea risotto. With just a few store cupboard ingredients, you can make this family favourite with your leftovers.
There’s something very satisfying about using your leftovers to make a whole new meal, and I absolutely love making risotto. You get a lot of food from very few ingredients, and it’s always delicious.
Risotto needn’t be difficult to make – just pay it a little attention and it will be perfect!
Chicken and Pea Risotto – The Ingredients
- Butter – butter is the perfect start for a risotto – it packs everything with flavour. However, you can substitute with olive oil.
- Onion – use a large brown onion,
- Risotto rice – you’ll need to use arborio rice to make the risotto; any other rice won’t have the right texture.
- Roast chicken – use however much leftover roast chicken you have. Don’t worry if it’s more or less than the ingredients specify – it’ll still be delicious. If you want to make this but don’t have leftover roast chicken, you could use shredded rotisserie chicken.
- Chicken stock – or water and a good quality chicken stock cube.
- Peas – use frozen peas for best results.
- Parmesan – or any other good quality hard Italian cheese.
Top Tips
- Cooking the rice
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t need to constantly stir a risotto for it to turn out well. You can just stir every 5 minutes or so when adding stock, making sure that it doesn’t stick to the bottom.
- Other vegetables
If you don’t have peas, try using asparagus, broad beans or broccoli (tender stem is best).
- Get ahead
If you want to make this in advance, cook until the rice is not quite cooked. Allow to cool and store in the fridge for up to a week. When you’re ready to eat, add a ladleful of stock and bring up to boiling.
Get the cook books:
Chicken and Pea Risotto
Save This RecipeIngredients
- 20 g butter
- 1 onion
- 300 g arborio rice
- 200 g roast chicken shredded
- 700 ml chicken stock
- 200 g frozen peas
- 60 g parmesan grated
Instructions
- Peel and finely chop the onion. Melt the butter in a large pan over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook for two minutes.
- Tip in the rice, stir so that the rice is covered in the butter. Add about 50 ml of the stock. Stir, turn the heat down to low.
- Add 50ml more stock every 3 minutes or when the risotto is looking dry, stirring each time.
- When all of the stock is used up, taste the risotto – it should be al dente. If it is underdone, add 50ml more water and continue until the rice is ready.
- Stir in the peas and Parmesan. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Leave a Reply