Embrace the warmth of autumn and winter with Italian Beef Risotto! This slow-cooked masterpiece offers a symphony of comfort in every bite. Savory Italian beef mingles with creamy arborio rice, creating a delightfully warming dish perfect for chasing away the chill of fall or winter. Each mouthful is a delightful embrace, promising a satisfying and comforting meal experience.

Beef Risotto

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

  • Simple recipe with easy to source ingredients.
  • While it’s a little time consuming, the finished dish is absolutely worth it, hearty, comforting and oh so flavorful.
  • It makes a lot and it’s easily doubled or tripled to feed a larger crowd.

Beef Risotto FAQ

What is Risotto?

A traditional Risotto is a northern Italian rice dish. It is typically cooking arborio rice with a broth until it reaches a creamy consistency, and it doesn’t matter the type of broth. However, many risotto recipes add white wine, butter, onion and Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese. This is one of the most common ways of preparing rice in Italy. 

Can you Make Beef Risotto with any rice?

The answer is yes. Any rice will do. It is most common to make it with arborio rice which is known for it’s plump, short- to medium-grains, with a high-starch content, creating the creaminess that Risotto is known for.

Beef Risotto

Recipe Summary

I’ve always loved Risotto, but way back didn’t completely understand the difference between a Risotto and any other type of rice dish.

I had been making this dish with regular rice but following all of the other steps.

So I just used the wrong rice (I do this a lot actually, discover that I’m making something with a real name plus an ingredient, or minus an ingredient – haha).

Once I used Arborio rice I couldn’t stop making this dish. Our family already loved it, but the rich creaminess the Arborio rice added was insanely delicious!

Italian Beef Risotto Cooking in a Pan

Ingredients for Risotto

  • Arborio Rice – brand doesn’t matter, but regular rice won’t cut it – it won’t be a risotto at that point. However if all you have is regular rice, you could still use that.
  • beef – quality beef is always better, but even the cheaper cuts work great here.
  • unsalted butter – if all you have is salted butter that’s fine to substitute, however I would reduce the amount of added salt later.
  • onion – fresh is best but if you just want it for flavor, you can substitute with onion powder. Avoid onion salt.
  • garlic – same here – fresh is always best, but we do buy minced refrigerated garlic and that works too. You can adjust this to suit your taste.
  • herbs – basil, marjoram, oregano, rosemary, thyme or you can just simply use an Italian Herb Seasoning Mix.
  • dry white wine – it doesn’t really matter what kind, but I would make sure it’s definitely a dry white wine.
  • beef broth – if you want to cut back on the salt, use a sodium free broth. It should still be full of LOADS of flavor, but without the salt.
  • Salt & freshly ground pepper – this is to taste, but I do recommend adding a little.

What to Serve with Risotto

While there are lots of different recipes that go well with this Italian Risotto, the following pair beautifully with the rice dish.

Beef Risotto

Recipe for Italian Beef Risotto

Beef Risotto

Italian Beef Risotto

Nicole Cook
This Italian Beef Risotto is one of our go-to recipes when we are looking for comfort food. Hearty, flavorful and slow cooked to perfection.
4.44 from 48 votes
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 1 hour
Total Time 1 hour 20 minutes
Course Main Dish
Cuisine American
Servings 6 servings
Calories 717 kcal

Ingredients
  

  • 2 ½ cups Arborio Rice or any other Risotto rice
  • 1 ½ pounds beef we used stew meat
  • ¼ cups unsalted butter
  • 1 medium onion chopped
  • 1 clove garlic minced
  • 1 Tablespoons basil
  • 1 Tablespoons marjoram
  • 1 Tablespoons oregano
  • 1 Tablespoons rosemary
  • 1 Tablespoons thyme
  • 1 cups dry white wine
  • 6 cups beef broth
  • Salt & freshly ground pepper

Instructions
 

  • Season your meat, cut it up and then brown slowly over medium heat in a large skilket. Once browned, remove the meat from the skillet and set aside.
  • In that skillet, melt the butter and add the chopped onion. When it turns a golden color, add the wine to the skillet and allow it to cook until it evaporates.
  • As soon as its evaporated, add the pieces of beef, with garlic, all Italian herbs and onions to the skillet. Use a little olive oil to kinda loosen everything and cook it up.
  • Add the beef broth. Add the rice. Cover and simmer for about an hour or more. Stir OFTEN!
  • When the rice reaches the al dente stage remove it from the stove and sprinkle pepper over the top.
  • You can also sprinkle Parmesan cheese in too, but its not necessary. It’s delicious either way! Serve immediately.

Nutrition

Calories: 717kcalCarbohydrates: 70gProtein: 28gFat: 31gSaturated Fat: 14gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 12gTrans Fat: 2gCholesterol: 101mgSodium: 974mgPotassium: 585mgFiber: 3gSugar: 1gVitamin A: 361IUVitamin C: 4mgCalcium: 78mgIron: 7mg
Keyword easy rice recipes
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15 Comments

  1. I love risotto, my favorite is a butternut squash risotto:-) This looks creamy dreamy delicious! Take care, Terra

  2. That looks seriously delicious. Too bad you didn’t post the ice cream recipe. I recently took to making my own and am loving the new flavors and stuff that I can create.

    Looking for tips as well. 🙂

    1. Hiya,
      Just trying out your recipe! I’ve tweaked it a little, sorry, lol. I had some cooked lean roasting beef left over from Christmas which I had frozen, so I’m using that cut up, also I have a couple of plum tomatoes that need using so I’ve seasoned them with black pepper and I’m throwing them in at the end just before its ready. Can I also mention one thing? (Not so bad for me as I’ve made a few risotto’s) but in the instructions, as far as I can see it doesn’t mention when to add the arborio rice.

    1. I’ve used both Mary. And both work equally well. You can adjust the amount according to your own taste. I tend to use dried herbs more frequently simply because I always have them on hand, but of course I prefer fresh when available. Enjoy!

    1. Check the recipe again and see if it is easier to follow now. I have made this dish dozens of times since posting this recipe and have tweaked the recipe to reflect what we do now, instead of the original way.
      If you have any more questions, please just ask!

    1. Hi Marlene, that recipe is an older recipe on my site and I should probably rewrite those instructions to be a little more clear. The olive oil is only for sauteeing the ingredients, and so it would be your choice of how little or how much you would use. Usually when sauteeing something, depending how large the pan is, I go with a tablespoon or two of olive oil. Add more if desired, or less if you’d prefer. The goal is to lightly coat the ingredients with the olive oil. I have added editing those instructions to be clearer to my to-do list. I appreciate you bringing this to my attention.

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