Vegan Creamy Garlic Mushroom Arancini
These Vegan Arancini are stuffed with a creamy garlic mushroom filling with thyme and lemon, and make for the perfect dinner. Crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, and topped with a garlic Alfredo sauce.
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Introduction
Risotto is the golden child of the fancy restaurant - the same fancy restaurants that secretly don’t want you to know that it’s not super difficult to cook. Sure, it’s difficult when you’re cooking for a table of snooty guests that might complain that their water isn’t sourced from a spring off of the coast of Bora Bora and your chef calls out for another 3 Rack of Lamb and 2 Foie Gras - but for us at home, all risotto takes is time, effort, and a little bit of loving.
Arancini is the beautiful combination of risotto, breadcrumbs, and deep-frying. Sometimes it has filling, others it doesn’t. In our case, it absolutely does. Mushrooms, cooked with garlic, thyme, lemon juice, and dairy-free milk puts Kinder Eggs to shame when everybody at the dinner table realizes the surprise inside.
This recipe takes a little preparation, granted. Prepare your risotto the night before, toss it into a Tupperware and into the fridge, and forget about it until dinner tomorrow. Make your mushroom filling and your sauce at the same time if you want to save yourself some effort when making your arancini. That being said, they’re super easy to throw together, and should take about 15 minutes between the two of them, so if your arm is absolutely knackered from stirring the risotto, don’t sweat it. Make your filling and sauce the next day.
The secret to this dish is to take your time with your arancini. If you want them to be cube-shaped like in the picture, it just takes a bit of effort. This was my first time making arancini, too, so I was kinda winging it. I used my cutting board as a flat surface, and lightly pushed down my arancini to form a straight side, and repeated that for the remaining 5 sides. They don’t have to be perfect - mine certainly weren’t. Make sure your filling is totally sealed inside the risotto, season at every step along the way, and like always, taste taste taste.
Check out the Spruce it Up section for ideas on how to take this recipe to the next level.
Before we Get Started
Prep Time: 12 Hours (as short as 3 Hours)
Cook Time: 1 Hour
Total Time 13 Hours (as short as 4 Hours)
Yield: 9 Arancini
Ingredients
Risotto
2 cups Uncooked Arborio Rice
2L Vegetable Stock
1/2 Onion
3 cloves Garlic
1/2 tsp. Chopped Thyme
Splash of Lemon Juice
1 cup Dry White Wine
Creamy Garlic Mushroom Filling
250g Mushrooms
Of your choosing, I used White
1/2 cup Unsweetened, Dairy-Free Milk
3 Cloves Garlic
1/2 Onion
1 tsp. Chopped Thyme
Splash of Lemon Juice
Garlic Alfredo Sauce
3 cups Navy Beans (cooked)
3 cloves Garlic
1/3 cup Raw Cashews
Splash of Lemon Juice
3/4 cup Water
1 tbsp Olive Oil
Pinch of Oregano
Breading
2 cups Bread Crumbs
1 cup Unsweetened, Dairy-Free Milk
1/2 cup Flour
Method
Risotto
The night before you plan to make your arancini, make your risotto:
Preheat a deep pan over medium-high heat, with oil. Pour your 2L of vegetable stock into a different pot, and bring to a boil.
While you’re waiting for your stock to come to a boil and your pan to preheat, very finely chop your onion, garlic, and thyme.
As soon as your stock begins simmering, add your onion, garlic, and thyme into the deep pan, as well as a good pinch of salt. Stir often until translucent.
Add your arborio rice into the pan, and stir for about two minutes.
Add a splash of lemon juice and your white wine to the pan. Continue stirring until all of the wine has disappeared
Once the wine has disappeared (reduced), grab a ladle, and pour in two ladles worth of stock into your pan.
From here on out, do not stop stirring. Seriously.
Once that stock has disappeared, add another two ladles, and stir until it has disappeared again. Continue this process until you’re out of stock, at which point, your risotto should be soft and creamy.
This should take approximately 15-25 minutes.
Taste for salt, and add some if needed. Give it a few cracks of pepper.
Put it into a Tupperware container and into the fridge overnight, or until completely cool.
Filling
Preheat a pan over medium-high heat, with oil.
Slice your mushrooms, dice your onion and garlic, and finely chop your thyme. Once your pan has preheated, add in your onion, garlic, and thyme. Stir until translucent.
Toss in your mushrooms, and continue to stir. Add in a bit more salt.
Once the mushrooms have cooked down and reduced in size, add in a splash of lemon juice, as well as your dairy-free milk.
Stir until all of the milk has reduced.
Give it a taste, and add salt if needed.
Sauce
Add all of the ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth.
Give it a taste, and add more salt or lemon juice as needed.
If you’re satisfied with the consistency, you’re good to go. If you want it a bit thinner, slowly add more water until it’s at a point you’re happy with.
Arancini
In a bowl, add 1 cup of unsweetened, dairy-free milk and 1/2 cup of flour. Whisk together until there are no more lumps. In a separate bowl, add your bread crumbs.
Grab your chilled risotto from the fridge, and using a 1/3 cup measuring cup, scoop out two scoops of risotto.
Hold one of the scoops in the palm of your hand, flatten it slightly, and make a shallow bowl shape with it.
Add some of your mushroom filling into the “bowl”. Grab the other scoop of risotto, and press it on top of the other, sealing the filling inside.
Roll it about in your hands, making certain that the filling is totally sealed inside.
If you want the arancini to be spherical, roll it into your hands until it’s circular, and repeat the same process with the remaining risotto.
To make your arancini into a cube, lightly press it down onto your cutting board, so that you form a flat side. Roll it over, and press down onto your cutting board again, forming another flat side. Continue doing this, working it with your hands, until you have 6 flat sides.
They don’t have to be perfect - mine certainly weren’t.
Repeat this process with the remaining risotto.
Grab one of your arancini cubes, and using one hand, dip it into the milk-flour slurry, making sure that all of the sides are coated. Place it into the breadcrumb bowl, and roll it around with your other hand, making sure its entirely covered in bread crumbs.
By using different hands for each bowl, you’ll get less bread crumbs sticking to your fingers.
Dip the arancini back in the milk/flour, and then again the breadcrumbs, making sure its entirely coated. Put it to the side, and repeat for the remaining arancini cubes.
Preheat a deep pan over medium-high heat, and pour in approximately 1/2-1 inch of oil.
Once the pan is preheated, place your arancini inside, and fry for approx. 30 seconds, or until it’s nice and golden-brown. Flip, and fry the remaining sides.
While your arancini are frying, pour Alfredo sauce into a pan over medium-low heat, and warm it up.
Put your arancini onto a plate, and top with some of your sauce.
Enjoy.
Spruce it Up
Zest your lemon into your Alfredo sauce for an extra boost in flavour. Also, add a few red chili flakes if you like a bit of heat.
If you want to save yourself a bit of time, pour in enough oil into the pan to completely cover the arancini, and deep fry them instead of a shallow fry.
Make the arancini smaller to plate them up as appetizers.