Roasted Squash Risotto

This gluten free butternut squash risotto is the perfect autumnal dish, and gives you countless options to customise it to suit your own particular taste.

But, learning how to cook this squash risotto recipe will also give you all the tools to make a perfect year-round meal. It forms the base for so many different flavour profiles with only a few simple ingredient tweaks, and is the ultimate blank canvas for you to make a mark on! And when it comes to gluten free dinners, I’m sure you’ll agree that is simply gold dust. The result is a huge bowl of comfort food based on any flavour profile you like, right on demand.

In this recipe, we’ll make the risotto and the squash separately, bringing them together at the end for maximum effect. 

Make this recipe now for a simple lunch or dinner, or cook elements of it ahead of time so you can have the perfect squash risotto in minutes any night of the week!

I love this recipe as it’s the basis for so many other great simple dishes, and so here’s a simple primer on each ingredient to help you understand all of the steps

After making this recipe, you’ll have all the tools to go ahead and create your own recipes using all of the principles below.

Ingredient List

Butter and oil

If you want to keep this recipe vegan, you can – and i’ll explain how to do that as we go through the recipe itself – but as the weather gets colder I love the flavour and mouthfeel that butter lends this dish.

Onions and Garlic

This recipe, like so many others you’ll find on this blog, sweats onions and garlic to release their flavours. Make sure the onion is as finely chopped as you can get it – the ultimate goal here is to keep the diced onion around the same size as the grains of rice. Not easy, but the smaller the onion, the more coherent the final dish is!

Rice

Arborio, carnaroli, and vialone nano are the three main varieties of risotto rice that you’ll find in shops in the UK – with the first two being the most common. Felicity Cloake’s ‘Perfect Risotto’ recipe specifies carnaroli, but personally I haven’t found arborio to be lacking in any department.

In fact, as arborio is what I usually have on hand, that’s the variety this recipe is built upon.

The only thing I’m going to ask of you, if you make this squash risotto, is PLEASE use a short grain rice like the ones above which contain enough starch to create the creamy texture this dish is known for. That means, don’t use jasmine, basmati or any other kind of long grain rice. 

Or do – that bit’s up to you. Just don’t tag me, and don’t expect it to work!

Wine

Dry white wine is the traditional play for any squash risotto recipe, but if you’re not sure what sort of wine to choose then I’ll say two things: pick any wine you’d happily drink alongside the dish (so long as it isn’t sweet or dessert wine), and don’t waste the expensive stuff on cooking.

Simply put, your goal with this step is to deglaze the pan after toasting the rice, picking off any burnt-on bits from the bottom of the pan. The secondary goal is to start the cooking process with a hit of acidity. Practically any normal dry white table wine will do that.

Oh, and avoid reds here. They make a tasty risotto, but will give you a wine-coloured dish which clashes with the squash. 

Lastly, if you don’t want to use alcohol at all you have two options. A splash of lemon juice – around half a small lemon – can lend the acidity of the wine, but can also lend a lemony flavour. That works great here, but might not work if you’re switching up the toppings. Or, you can totally skip this step and move on to the stock.

Stock

I use Stock Pots for this recipe. They’re gluten free and don’t do this dish any harm. Be careful of stock cubes, but if you find a gluten free version (like some of the big supermarket versions) or marigold bouillon powder, then that works ok too. 

If you have homemade stock, even better!

If you have no stock at all, using water and adding some salt will work in a pinch – though if that’s your only option, I might recommend saving this recipe for another day!

Butter & Cheese

Again, this squash risotto loves the hearty addition of butter and cheese in the finale.

But if you don’t want to use either you have options.

If you want to keep this vegan, know that the addition of butter at the end does more than just make this dish tastier. When you stir the rice, it releases starch into the stock, and the fat in the butter binds with that starch to create an emulsion. This is what gives the final risotto its creaminess. The cheese also adds fat and helps here too (though admittedly, the parmesan is more about flavour than the butter is).

To get around this, replace the butter with 1 tbsp olive oil and continue.

If, however, you’re avoiding the butter and cheese in a bid to keep this gluten-free risotto healthy and light – just skip this step altogether. You’ll get a less creamy result, but it won’t taste bad… we can’t all eat fattening foods all the time, and I won’t judge you for skimping on the dairy!

Squash

This is a butternut squash risotto, but any squash or pumpkin that you can roast until soft and flavourful will work well.

And, if you don’t fancy squash, try topping this risotto with fried mushrooms, or roasted asparagus, broccoli, or tomatoes. Really, once you start considering risotto as a base for toppings, you’re limited only by your imagination!

Herbs and Spices

This recipe will see you make squash risotto by roasting the veg with olive oil, fennel seeds, and chili flakes.

This is my go-to spice mix for this recipe, but I also love rosemary and sage. Just replace the fennel with rosemary and the chili flakes with sage – or experiment with your own mix.

For me, this squash risotto is a foundational recipe that really helped me to understand that by following basic principles, a simple risotto can be the first building block for any number of flavourful toppings. And that roasted squash, too, is a versatile ingredient that can go with a variety of spices and herbs, but can also be used for pasta and gnocchi dishes as well.

If you make this recipe, please let me know whether you experimented with any other types of flavours!

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Yield: Serves 2

Roasted Squash Risotto

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Cook Time: 1 hour

Total Time: 1 hour 20 minutes

An endlessly customisable risotto recipe, made with comforting autumnal flavours.

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Ingredients

Roasted Squash

• 1 small butternut squash, chopped into 1cm cubes
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tsp chilli flakes (adjust quantities depending on your taste)
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 small bag spinach, washed and chopped if desired

Risotto

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 rib of celery, finely diced
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 150g arborio rice
• 75ml white wine (or vermouth)
• 700ml vegetable stock
• 25g grated parmesan cheese + another 10g as garnish (optional)
• 1 tbsp butter / olive oil to finish

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 190 c
2. In a roasting tin, toss chopped squash in the olive oil, add fennel seeds, chilli flakes and salt
3. Roast in the oven for 30 minutes, or until squash is soft and beginning to brown. Give the squash a shake now and then, keeping an eye out to prevent burning
4. Remove squash from the oven, and add spinach and return to the oven, allowing spinach to wilt - around 5 to 10 minutes
5. When spinach has wilted and the squash is soft and lightly browned in the corners, remove from oven and serve with the risotto
6. While the squash is cooking, make the risotto: Pre-heat a heavy bottomed pot over a medium heat and add olive oil
7. When oil is hot, add the onion and the celery (if using). Cook until both ingredients are soft, stirring frequently, around 5-8 minutes
8. Add chopped garlic and cook until soft, around 3 minutes
9. Go in with your arborio rice, and stir to coat. Allow the rice to fry gently in the oil and onion mixture, around 3-5 minutes until rice is translucent around the edges, then turn up the heat to medium high
10. Add the wine (or vermouth) and it should sizzle. Stir well
11. Once the liquid has been absorbed into the rice, add the first batch of vegetable stock and stir well - the goal is to draw as much of the starch out of the rice and into the liquid as possible
12. When rice has absorbed the liquid, pour in the next batch of stock, and continue this pattern until the rice has cooked - you may not need all of the liquid
13. The rice is done when it is pleasantly al dente and the consistency is loose, but not soupy - this should take around 17-20 minutes in total.
14. Add butter or olive oil, and mix vigorously into the rice
15. At this point, remove from the heat and add parmesan if using and stir in
16. Serve in bowls, and top with the roasted squash and spinach mixture
    

Notes

To make this recipe vegan, omit the butter and parmesan cheese from the first and final steps.

Mixing the butter or oil into the rice vigorously at the end of cooking allows the fat to bind to the starchy liquid created by stirring the rice constantly throughout cooking. This creates the risotto's signature creamy texture by binding together three key ingredients: the liquid from the stock, the starch from the rice, and the fat from the oil.

Nutrition Information:

Yield:

2

Serving Size:

1
Amount Per Serving: Calories: 620Total Fat: 41gSaturated Fat: 10gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 28gCholesterol: 38mgSodium: 2408mgCarbohydrates: 48gFiber: 8gSugar: 6gProtein: 13g