Creamy Green Pea and Lemon Almond Milk Risotto with Califia Farms Unsweetened Almond Milk

Creamy Green Pea and Lemon Almond Milk Risotto with Califia Farms Unsweetened Almond Milk

Even though its winter at the moment, I have been feeling like lighter meals. I have been wanting to try a green pea risotto for a long time. It’s fresh and light and pretty easy to make too. The first risotto I ever made used thickened cream.  I try and stick to whole grains as much as possible so all my risottos (and other rice dishes) are made with pre-cooked brown rice. I like to batch cook whole grains and store them in the freezer and then pull out the grains when I need them. It makes the process so much easier and quicker as brown rice takes forever to cook! It’s pretty difficult to make a risotto in a traditional style using brown rice, but using precooked rice it comes together very quickly.

For this recipe, I needed to create a vegan cream that would stand in the place of a dairy thickened cream in more traditional risotto. I knew Califia Farms Unsweetened Almond Milk would work really well in this recipe as it is a beautiful creamy texture. Most almond milk on the market is quite watery, but Califia has a thick consistency so when it is blended with the other ingredients in the vegan cream, the texture came out fairly similar to a traditional cream. It is also unsweetened so can work well in savoury dishes. I like to add the cream slowly and mix it into the rice to allow the rice to pick up on all the flavour, just like you would a normal risotto, but the process is much quicker as you don’t need to wait for the rice to cook.

What I also love about this dish is that it can easily be rolled up into balls, rolled into bread crumbs, and baked or fried in an air fryer to make arancini balls. I often like to make a big batch of this risotto and use the leftovers for arancini balls which can be eaten as a quick lunch the next day.

The recipe is fairly quick and easy provided you have precooked rice, dairy-free, gluten-free and refined sugar-free.


Creamy Green Pea and Lemon Almond Milk Risotto with Califia Farms Unsweetened Almond Milk
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Hazel & Cacao:
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Ingredients
  • 2 cups precooked brown rice
  • 1 red onion (diced)
  • 2 cloves garlic (crushed)
  • ½ cup frozen green peas
  • big squeeze lemon
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • VEGAN CREAM:
  • ⅓ cup cashews
  • 1 cup Califia Farms Unsweetened Almond Milk
  • juice half a lemon
  • 1 tsp tahini
  • ½ tsp paprika
  • 1 TBSP nutritional yeast
  • pinch of salt
  • pinch of pepper
Method
  1. Begin by placing all the cream ingredients in a high-speed blender. I like to let them sit in the blender while I am making the rest of the dish to allow cashews to soak up the almond milk.
  2. Dice onion and fry in a large pan with a little olive oil until translucent and beginning to brown, add crushed garlic and cook for a few more seconds until it becomes fragrant.
  3. Add pre-cooked brown rice and stir through the onion and garlic. I like to add salt and pepper as I go and adjust seasoning when the meal is finished.
  4. Add green peas to the mixture and heat through.
  5. Blend up the vegan cream in the blender and smooth and creamy and begin to pour over the rice a little bit at a time. Stir through the rice and allow the rice to soak up the cream. Continue until the mixture is used up and the rice is creamy. Adjust seasoning to liking.
  6. Finish with a big squeeze of lemon and serve with sprouts, vegan parmesan, and fresh parsley.
Talida

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