Pesto Shrimp Risotto Recipe
I love to make risotto and I suspect if you are a regular reader here you know that. It is a wonderful vehicle for leftovers as in my recipe for Holiday Risotto and it’s also classic Italian cooking as in Risotto Milanese. I also like it because I can stretch a protein; I only had 6 shrimp left and knew that would not be enough for both of us if I were to just cook them and serve them but if I cut them up and put them in a risotto – they would stretch just fine. The same was true for the pesto I had leftover – it wasn’t enough for a full meal but a perfect amount to flavor this dinner.
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Pesto Shrimp Risotto
Serves 4
- 1 1/2 cups arborio rice
- 1 1/2 quarts chicken stock
- 1 cup white wine
- 1 clove of garlic
- 8 large shrimp
- 1/4 cup pesto sauce homemade or store bought
- 1 TBS olive oil
- salt to taste
- Bring the stock to a simmer and keep it warm
- Cut each shrimp into three to four pieces. Add them to a bowl with 1 TBS of pesto sauce and stir to coat. Set aside.
- Heat a heavy bottomed saute pan over medium high heat. When it is hot add the olive oil.
- Add the garlic and swirl in the oil until it begins to get fragrant.
- Add the arborio rice and stir in the hot oil until all of the grains are coated.
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- Add the white wine and stir until all of the liquid is absorbed.
- Add 2 – 3 ladles of stock to the rice and stir until it is absorbed. Keep doing this – stirring
- constantly – until you have about a cup of stock left in the pot. Turn the heat off under the stock.
- Add the remaining stock to the rice and stir.
- When it almost all absorbed stir in the pesto sauce but keep back about 2 tsp for garnish.
- When the rice has absorbed all of the liquid stir in the pieces of shrimp, cover and remove from the heat. Let sit for 10 minutes. The residual heat with cook the shrimp.
- Serve with a dollop of pesto sauce on top.
How Was the Shrimp Pesto Risotto?
Very tasty if you ask me. The hubby really liked it too. I came to this recipe because I had leftover pesto from making Testaroli for dinner last week and I didn’t want it to go bad. We both really enjoyed the sauce in the risotto so I know I’ll be using it as a flavor agent in it again. Pesto is easy for me to make now that I am using the Aerogarden to grow basil. Cappuccino the bunny isn’t happy about that but I sure am! The risotto absorbed the pesto in a truly delightful way.
