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.
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
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.
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.
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!
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.
- Garlic Butter Spinach and Mushrooms
- Pomegranate Orange Spinach Salad
- Creamy Garlic Green Beans
- Lemon Pepper Butter Parmesan Asparagus
Making Italian Beef Risotto
Time is the key here with this incredible Italian Beef Risotto. A hearty, warming meal that can be served as a main dish for lunch or dinner or turn into a side dish and pair it with a delicious meal you’ve whipped up.
Italian Beef Risotto
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.
I love risotto, my favorite is a butternut squash risotto:-) This looks creamy dreamy delicious! Take care, Terra
Terra, I love risotto too, and I’ve never had butternut squash risotto but it sounds amazing. Thanks so much for stopping by!
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. 🙂
Misha, I’ll be putting them up next month in honor of summer months finally landing in my area. 😉 Thank you for the sweet comments and I agree – making your own is SO much better!
Yum – risotto is one of my all-time favorite dishes. And I’m loving all the flavors in here!
Mine too! Thank you!
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.
Did you use fresh or dried herbs ?
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!
Hello, i would like to know how much broth I put in with the meat and how much I save for the rice. Thank you!
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!
in the ingredients what is 1c of wine and 6c beef broth what does the c
stand for as measurement
The c means cups.
Hey there. Trying this recipe. At step 3 it says add olive oil but no where does it say how much.
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.
Did you pick out the beef and put on top for the pictures? It all seems to be cooked in together in the recipe.
Thanks!
Karen
Yes, for photos we try to make the pictures look a little more aesthetically pleasing. But also we have done it this way as well. It’s best when all cooked together.