🍜
All recipes
Italian kitchen

Saffron Risotto

Risotto alla milanese: gold, buttery, faintly perfumed, and the only recipe here that asks you to stand still and stir for a quarter of an hour. Consider it cheaper than therapy.

Total time
19 min
Serves
2
Effort
Medium

What you need

Written for 2 — nudge the counter and the numbers follow.

Cooking for
2 people

0 of 8 in the basket.

How you make it

  1. Steep the saffron in 3 tbsp of the hot stock in a small cup and keep the rest of the stock at a bare simmer on a back burner.

  2. Melt 40g butter in a wide heavy pan over medium heat and soften the onion for 3 minutes without letting it colour.

  3. Add the rice and toast it, stirring, for 2 minutes until the grains look glassy at the edges, then pour in the wine and stir until it has evaporated.

  4. Add hot stock a ladle at a time, stirring often and only adding more when the previous ladle has been absorbed, for about 11 minutes; stir in the saffron liquid halfway.

  5. When the rice is tender with the faintest bite, take the pan off the heat, beat in the cold butter and the grated cheese hard for 30 seconds, and let it sit 1 minute. It should spread slowly when spooned onto a warm plate.

Read all that and thought “absolutely not”?

Completely fair. Saffron Risotto is sitting in the Italian kitchen right now, it costs nothing, and it will never arrive.

Order it instead

Four ingredients, zero compromises, endless opinions.