Chicken and Mushroom Risotto Recipe

From pastas to pizzas, we love Italian cuisine! But we can’t forget about the scrumptious Italian rice dish, Risotto.

This week’s Healthy Heart Programme recipe shows you how to make our creamy, lower-calorie chicken and mushroom risotto - packed with 22.1g of protein and 30g carbs it will help to keep you feeling energised for your workouts.

Risotto is renowned for being high in calories and fat, often being cooked in butter, wine, and heaps of parmesan cheese. Don’t get us wrong, it takes incredible – but it’s not the healthiest choice for your heart health. So, we’ve levelled up our risotto recipe to make it a healthier, lower-calorie and lower-fat alternative so you can stay on track, without compromising on flavour.

We’ve cut out the traditional wine base, to cut back on alcohol, using a tasty salt-free stock and thyme, parsley, and lemon instead to maximise the flavour. We’ve also reduced the amount of parmesan cheese to cut back the saturated fat content.

If you still need some convincing, we’ve made our risotto nice and easy to make! We start by frying off the chicken and mushrooms and set aside before combining the risotto rice, chicken stock and thyme in a frying pan. Once the simmering is complete, everything can be thrown in the pan to form your creamy risotto. Simples!

Even better, if you’re looking to meal prep this one, double or triple up the ingredients and it can be frozen for up to 2 months!

Serves: 2

Prep time: 10 mins

Cook time: 40 mins

Suitable for freezing: yes

Ingredients:

• Low calorie oil spray
• 120g chicken thigh - skinless and boneless, diced
• 100g chestnut mushrooms, sliced
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• ½ onion, finely diced
• 175g risotto rice
• 500ml salt free chicken stock
• 1 tsp dried thyme
• 40g frozen peas
• ½ lemon, juiced
• 5g shaved parmesan
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Fresh parsley, chopped

Method:

1. Add chicken to a large, heavy based frying pan with a few sprays of low-calorie oil spray and fry until cooked through. Once cooked, remove from the pan, and set aside.
2. Add a few more sprays of oil to the pan and add your mushrooms. Leave to cook until golden, stirring regularly and then set aside with the chicken.
3. Add a couple more sprays of oil, onion and garlic into the same pan and cook for 3-4 minutes until the onions start to soften.
4. Add risotto rice and stir until the grains become translucent, this should take 30-60 seconds.
5. Cover with 300ml of the chicken stock and thyme and gently stir.
6. Leave to simmer until most of the stock has absorbed and then keep topping up with the remaining stock until the rice is cooked but with a slight bite. This should take around 30 minutes.
7. Add chicken, mushrooms, peas, and lemon back into the pan and heat for 5 minutes.
8. Top with shaved parmesan, freshly ground black pepper and fresh parsley.

Want to make a bigger batch and freeze for later? Our mushroom and chicken risotto can be frozen for up to 2 months. Get a portion out the night before and thaw fully in the fridge before then microwaving for 3 – 4 minutes, or until piping hot.

Looking for more lower-calorie Italian recipes? Try our tasty Lemon and Salmon pasta recipe, using low-fat cream cheese instead of cream to make a lower-fat version of the classic dish.