Chicken Risotto with Spinach and Lemon

A plate with risotto garnished with lemon slices. Next to the plate there's a half lemon and further out on the left there's a salad bowl.

This chicken risotto with spinach and lemon is the perfect family dinner. It's easy to prepare, tastes sooo goood, and it's creamy! This risotto melts in your mouth bite by bite, yumm!

Course Main Course

Cuisine Mediterranean

Keyword chicken risotto, risotto

Prep Time 25

Cook Time 25

Total Time 50

Servings servings

Calories 669kcal

Author Sonila

Equipment

Medium size pot

Ingredients

2 cups arborio rice any short grain, starchy rice will do
2 chicken breasts (medium size)
1 lemon
1 cup dry white wine
1 shallot or use half of a yellow onion if you don't have shallots
2 cups spinach
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup parmesan cheese
1 tbsp fresh dill
4-5 cups chicken broth
salt to taste
0.5 tsp black pepper
2 tbsp butter

Instructions

Boil chicken breasts for about 15 minutes in 5 cups of water in a medium pot. Turn heat off. Remove chicken and cut it in bite size pieces. If you already have cooked chicken as part of meal planning for the week you'll need about 5 cups of chicken broth.
Chop shallot (fine) and mince the garlic. Chop dill and set it aside. No need to chop spinach, it will welt. Cut lemon in half, juice half of lemon and cut the other half in slices.
In a medium pot or Dutch Oven saute onions, garlic in butter for a minute or two. Keep heat on medium. Add chicken bites and stir occasionally so chicken gets a light browning. Add rice and continue stirring so grains don't get burnt but just coated.
Add wine to pot to deglaze and use a wooden spoon to scrape everything from the bottom of the pot as the wine simmers and gets absorbed from the rice. If you don't like adding wine you can add few tbsps of hot water in this step to deglaze the pot.
Keep heat medium low for this step. I keep mine at a 4 setting in the stovetop out of 10. Add hot broth to rice-chicken mix half a cup at a time, stir until it gets absorbed. Once the liquid seems to be running out, add another half cup or ¾ cup of broth and repeat.
Before you get to the last half cup of broth to add to risotto, add salt, pepper, dill, lemon juice and chopped spinach. Add the last half cup of broth too and mix everything together until you get a creamy mix. Spinach will welt fast.
Once you get the desired consistency with risotto, add parmesan cheese for that gooey risotto consistency & flavor.
Serve right away, garnish with lemon slices. Add more parmesan, black pepper and salt to the table so everyone can make extra additions as needed. Enjoy:)

Notes

Check for salt often - both broth and butter can have different quantities of salt so adjust accordingly. I personally try to make the broth with no salt. Also, I try to use unsalted butter. Then I add 0.5 tsp of kosher salt to risotto and taste from there until I get the exact flavor I need.
If you're cooking the chicken before making risotto, plan for about 50 minutes or so from beginning to end. If you're using pre-made broth then calculate about half an hour to make this dish.
Tip - if when adding the cheese, you waited too long and risotto is losing its creaminess, then add 1-2 tbsps of hot water or broth and give it a good mix. Some extra butter wouldn't hurt either but keep in mind that it will change the nutrition values.

Nutrition