Instant Pot Mushroom Risotto

Instant Pot Mushroom Risotto is creamy and delicious. Best of all you don’t need to stand over the stove stirring in a little liquid at a time.

The Instant Pot is a bit of a miracle when it comes to making risotto. Instead of standing over it the entire time ladling in hot broth, you simply add in the rice and broth and walk away.

For this mushroom risotto made in the Instant Pot, you do need to sauté the onions and mushrooms a bit before adding the rice and broth. But it really is very quick to do. After that, you just add the rice and broth, and yes really, you walk away.

How To Make Risotto In The Instant Pot

Am I going to say “You walk away” again? lol. But seriously, what you do is sauté some onion and any other vegetables that need a bit of cooking, in a bit of oil or a mixture of oil and butter.

Next you add in Arborio rice (more on this in a minute). Then you sauté the rice for a moment. Then you add twice as much liquid as you added rice.

Note that normally when you cook rice in the Instant Pot you add the same amount of rice and liquid. That will give you a perfectly fluffy kind of rice. Here we want it to be creamier so we need to add extra liquid. That extra liquid is going to mix with the starches of the rice to create the creaminess that risotto is known for.

You then pressure cook the mixture for 6 minutes. In the time it takes the Instant Pot to come to temperature and then pressure cook, the rice is going to get nice and tender.

Do a quick release and then take off the Instant Pot lid. Give the rice a stir and a taste. It should be a tiny bit al dente. If there is too much liquid at this point (sometimes there is – I’m not sure why) then you can set the Instant Pot to sauté and stir it to cook out that liquid for a minute or two.

Finally, you add a bit of butter and cheese and you’re done! Easy, right?

What Kind Of Rice To Use For Risotto

I have used regular long grain rice for risotto, because that’s what I usually have in my pantry, and it works just fine. You can follow the recipe below with regular rice and it will work.

However, risotto is better with Arborio or the closely related Valencia rice. These rices are shorter grain and they have a lot of starch. Since it’s the starch that makes risotto creamy, having extra of it is a good thing!

Using Dried Mushrooms In Mushroom Risotto

When I make mushroom risotto on the stove, like this, I use a combination of fresh button mushrooms and dried porcini mushrooms. The dried mushrooms require about 20-30 minutes of soaking though, which adds time to making the dish. If I’m making it in the Instant Pot, best guess is that I’m in more of a hurry and don’t have those 30 minutes. I therefore skip the dried mushrooms.

However, if you want an intensely mushroom-flavored risotto, you’re going to love this extra step. What you do is take 1 ounce of dried porcini mushrooms and put them into a small bowl. Add 1 cup of boiling water and stir. Then leave them to soak for 20-30 minutes.

Next, line a fine meshed sieve (like this one) with some paper towel and put it over a medium bowl. Pour the mushrooms through there. Do not discard the liquid and do not discard the mushrooms.

Rinse the mushrooms and then chop them up. Add them along with the mushroom liquid when you add the broth to the recipe. Except, reduce the amount of broth by the amount of mushroom liquid that you have. That will be pretty close to 1 cup so you’ll be adding 1 cup of broth and 1 cup of mushroom liquid.

If you want more information about using dried mushrooms in recipes like this one, head over here.

Now here you are, my delicious recipe for Instant Pot Mushroom Risotto. Enjoy! – Christine 🙂

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