In our house, we love Risotto, and we love Buffalo Sauce. After a few years of experimenting with each concept, we decided to try merging them. We had a hunch that it would work well, and it did! The arborio rice came out really fluffy, and it held up surprisingly well to the flavours of the Buffalo Sauce. It also gave the dish body, cohesion, and the necessary carbohydrate for nutritional rounding.
As for the Buffalo Chicken components, we picked celery (classic) and red onion (really nice added flavour to any risotto) as our veggies. That said, if you want to go a little funky, we think some diced red bell pepper would have been fun too. Then, we added some ground chicken to the party…and a heap of ground cayenne. We typically don’t use cayenne AND Buffalo Sauce, but with risotto, we had to be mindful of how much liquid we were using (similar to our approach with Buffalo Whipped Ricotta)…so we added some heat via ground cayenne and let our sauce finish everything off. Lastly, we crumbled some blue cheese atop everything for the classic Buffalo and Blue Cheese pairing!
If you’re looking for a really cool meal to watch for your next sports game, give this a try!
Time: 60 Minutes
Ingredients:
- Ground Chicken
- Onion
- Celery
- Cayenne Powder
- 1 Cup Arborio Rice
- 5-6 Cups Chicken Stock
- 1/4-1/2 Cup Buffalo Sauce
- Crumbled Blue Cheese
Method:
- Bring your chicken stock to a simmer in a saucepan.
- Dice your onion and celery.
- Melt a little butter in a large pan with tall sides, and then add your onion and celery. Cook until they begin to soften.
- Add your ground chicken, and sprinkle in your ground cayenne (amount up to you based on how much spiciness you want in your meal).
- Break up your ground chicken as it starts to brown, and cook everything fully.
- Add in your arborio rice, and stir to combine. Let sit for a few minutes until your rice starts to turn opaque around the edges.
- Pour about a cup of your simmering stock into your pan, and let it absorb into your rice. Then, pour another cup of the stock in, and keep repeating this until all of your stock has been used, and your rice is nice and fluffy.
- Pour in your Buffalo Sauce, and stir to combine.
- Scoop, sprinkle on your crumbled blue cheese, devour, and enjoy!
