April 1, 2021

Leftover Rice Recipe: Faux-Sotto! (Quick “Risotto”)

Simple, creamy, and versatile, this leftover rice recipe is the perfect hack turn leftover rice into a beautiful meal instead of it being destined for the trash can. This simple little hack turns cooked dry rice into a stunning, creamy risotto. Use any vegetables and herbs you have to make the dish unique and to use up leftovers. Best of all it only takes about 10 minutes to make.

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What is Risotto? Is this really risotto?

The word risotto comes from the Italian word for rice. And that’s just what risotto is, an Italian rice dish. The secret to making risotto, traditionally anyway, is to cook the rice slowly, so that the starches are released, creating a thickened, creamy rice dish. Because of that, rice with high starch content is typically used in risotto – short grain rice usually- in order to get the best creamy consistency. I actually came up with this “faux-sotto” after watching a show on Netflix (Leftover Wars) where a contestant tried to make risotto from leftover rice. As you can imagine, it did not work that well since cooked rice no longer has starch to release. Additionally, it was dried out long grain rice which would not have been a good pick even if it had not been cooked already. It occurred to me that there might be an easy way to mimic the consistency of risotto – no this is not traditional, and no this is not going to be the best risotto you ever had. If I was smarter, I probably wouldn’t even call it risotto, just creamy rice or something like that. But it will be a pretty darn good imitation risotto, and an excellent way to reuse old rice. And we are all about reusing, repurposing, and reducing food waste here at Very Vegan Val. The secret to our fake risotto recipe is pretty simple – we add in some starch that normally would have been released during the cooking process. After all, available on most grocery store shelves is rice flour, (make sure not to use glutenous rice flour), which is the stuff that is normally released when cooking risotto. Now since our rice is all ready cooked, you don’t really want to cook it a whole lot more. Fortunately the rice flour mixed with a little bit of vegan milk will thicken pretty quickly. It’s an excellent way to use a little bit of science as a great hack to get rid of leftovers, and to prove that fried rice isn’t the only good leftover rice recipe.

Looking to Rice Recipes? Try one of these Vegan Rice Recipes

Making this Leftover Rice Recipe

Making risotto all starts with the rice, and this is no different. Grab that stale, dry, leftover rice from your fridge – the one you shoved back in there after getting take out. That’ll do. To make sure your rice is safe to eat, refrigerate it as soon as possible rather than letting it sit at room temperature. It’s also a good idea to not eat rice that’s more than a few days old. Before you turn on the stove you can also combine your vegan milk with your rice flour. Shake it up well in a jar or whisk it together in a bowl and set it aside.

This recipe is meant to be versatile, so you can use what you have around. Start with some garlic and onion (not technically necessary, but what is food without alliums?) and cook them in a little bit of vegan butter. Now you can stop here, or you could add chopped mushrooms, broccoli, peppers, chopped squash, or really any other vegetable you have around. Just make sure that they’re chopped up fairly small so they cook quickly. Any vegetables you have that cook really quickly, or you’d rather have raw (such as green peas) omit until the end. If you’re adding a lot of vegetables you will want to also add a little more vegan butter. You could also add dried herbs like thyme, rosemary, sage, or whatever you like at this time. Once your onions or any other vegetables you have added are cooked, you can move on to the next step. Add your rice. Use a wooden spatula or spoon to break it up a little bit, and then throw in your soy milk mixture. Stir everything around to avoid burning, and within the next couple of minutes your risotto should start to thicken and look more like a porridge than a soup. As it reaches the correct consistency you can add any fresh herbs you like, some salt and pepper, and any vegetables you only want lightly cooked or raw. For the version I made for this recipe I only added finely chopped sun-dried tomato and fresh dill, and it was delightful. Reach into the back of your fridge and see what you have that needs using up. Sometimes the most delicious and creative dishes come from just trying to get rid of things that have been living rent free on your fridge shelves.