Tips for Making Risotto With Top Chef Antonia Lofaso

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by Renae Chiovaro on October 3, 2011

Johnsonville Blog for a Cause

Last week I traveled to Milwaukee Wisconsin with Johnonsonville Sausage. For this Holiday season I will be working with Johnsonville to promote Blog for a Cause which will result in raising money for charities. One of the neatest parts of my trip to Milwaukee was meeting Chef Antonia Lofaso who was on Bravo’s Top Chef. I actually got to cook with Chef Antonia which was really cool! She is very down to earth and passionate about food.

A few of us made Sausage & Vegetable Risotto with Chef Antonia and she gave us some great tips. I was able to capture a few of the tips on a video although it is kind of hard to hear with the background noise. In the short video clip you can see Antonia’s passion for cooking though. You will also see Jenn from Balancing Beauty and Bedlam and Susan from She’s Becoming Doughmestic.

Antonia’s Tips for Making Risotto

  • Sweat the diced onions in olive oil and salt. This means cooking the onions until soft but not browned.
  • Toast the arborio rice. Do not brown the rice like you would for a pilaff. You want the rice to get translucent looking but nor browned. Smooth the rice on the bottom of the pan, let it sit for 30 seconds and then stir. Repeat this process until rice is translucent and hot.
  • To test for hotness, grab some rice from the pan with your fingers. If it’s too hot to hold it is ready for the broth. Go ahead and stick your fingers in the pan- Antonia did!
  • When the rice is hot start adding the broth a ladle full at a time. Make sure your broth is hot. Risotto turns out best if you add hot broth to the hot rice.
  • Don’t add too much broth at once. You want the rice to rub against each other to bring out the perfect amount of starch. Antonia talks about this in the video.
  • Stir, sitr, stir. Antonia says to whip the risotto. You might need a pinch stirrer as my arm just about fell off!
  • Keep adding a ladle full of broth at a time until the risotto is al dente.

I will certainly use Antonia’s tips the next time I make my mushroom risotto! Did you learn anything from these tips?

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Renae Chiovaro

Renae is a married working mom of two handsome boys. She works as a registered dental hygienist by day and blogs here at How to Have it All by night. She enjoys cooking from scratch, working in her vegetable garden and functional training.

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