EASY CHICKEN VEGETABLE RISOTTO
Need a date night dinner idea? This Chicken Vegetable Risotto is a romantic meal you can make at home that’s both rich and nourishing! The combo of savory chicken, velvety rice, sautéed mushrooms, and tender asparagus is phenomenal. It's a great one for meal prep too! As always, this recipe is gluten-free and easily made dairy-free.
Did you know? Bone broth, as used in this recipe, is rich in glutamic acid, which converts to glutamine in the body. Glutamine helps maintain and restore your intestinal lining (source), and adds flavor to this dish!
What is risotto?
Risotto is made by lightly sautéing onions and garlic, then adding the rice and cooking until translucent. Then, while stirring constantly, you add broth a ladle at a time until absorbed. As the rice cooks slowly, it becomes rich and velvety as the starches are released. Arborio rice or carnaroli rice are the most popular for risotto.
Making risotto takes a long time, so I cheated and used Healthee USA's organic vegetable risotto bowls. Since this rice has already been slow cooked, all you really have to do is add it to the skillet then simmer for 20 minutes or so. And it tastes absolutely delicious! Besides being organic and non-GMO, their rice bowls are certified gluten-free and dairy-free. HealtheeUSA has tons of delicious rice bowl flavors here!
Choosing the best chicken
For this recipe, you can use chicken breasts, chicken thighs, or chicken tenderloins. I used chicken breast, but thighs are juicier with a higher fat content. I always look for "free range" chicken raised with "no antibiotics." Organic chicken must also have outdoor access, must be fed organic feed, and cannot be administered antibiotics. I also buy "animal welfare certified" chicken when I can find it, because it's important to me that animals are treated with care and allowed to live a good life.
What vegetables go in risotto?
For this recipe, I added onion, garlic, mushrooms, and asparagus. You can also use green beans, peas, baby carrots, broccolini, spinach, bell peppers, or whatever is in season! Generally, quick-cooking vegetables should be added more towards the end, while harder vegetables should be added with the onion.
Other ingredients
There rest of the ingredients are pretty simple: olive oil, chicken bone broth, white cooking wine, salt, pepper, butter and parmesan. I actually used vegan butter and dairy free parm because I don't do so well with dairy! However, you can use dairy butter and cheese if you prefer.
It's seriously such a simple but flavorful dish! And as you can see above, easy to divide into meal prep containers, too.
Here's the printable recipe for this Easy Chicken Vegetable Risotto. I'd love for you to comment below if you try it!
This post contains affiliate links and is sponsored by HealtheeUSA.
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