Risotto with broccoli, a tasty and healthy recipe for autumn!
Broccoli, or rather the “broccoli cabbage”, along with the whole large Cabbage family, the Cruciferae (including the cabbage, turnip tops, cauliflower, Roman broccoli – the so-called “broccolo romanesco”- and Brussels sprouts) is definitely an autumn vegetable.
The combination with rice and, in particular, the preparation of risotto with broccoli are certainly important allies to strengthen the immune system and stay healthy during this season.
Risotto with broccoli
For this recipe, we rely on Risotto.us, the Italian website dedicated to risotto where you will find, in a convenient recipe book, over 300 recipes for risotto and rice-based preparations: just insert an ingredient in the site’s search engine.
You should normally choose a rice from the “superfine” variety, commonly called “risotto rice”. In this case, we have instead chosen the Vialone Nano rice, with a medium grain, but perfect for risotto due to its remarkable cooking resistance.
In the preparation of risotto with broccoli, you can choose to cook and blend the broccoli, creating a cream to be added to the rice, or to make diced broccoli and cook it directly in the risotto.
The result will certainly be a different colour (greener in the first case) and different consistencies (in the second case, some parts of the vegetable will remain in your risotto).
Not bad, the benefits are almost the same!
The properties of broccoli and rice
Broccoli is extremely interesting from a nutritional point of view: it contains a lot of water (almost 90% of its weight), has very few carbohydrates and is fat-free. So it balances very well with rice, which instead has a higher sugar intake.
Broccoli is a good source of vitamins and, in fact, contains vitamin C, beta-carotene, vitamins E and K and B-group vitamins.
Thanks to a high content of mineral salts, broccoli also has a high remineralising power, which makes it part of the so-called natural “supplements”.
All these characteristics are better assimilated by consuming the broccoli raw, lightly blanched or steamed: for a healthier risotto with broccoli, it is better to cook the broccoli in this way, blend and add it before creaming our risotto, thus avoiding prolonged cooking.
You will get a green, creamy and more nutritious risotto!
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