Instant Pot Mushroom Risotto Recipe

If you have an Instant Pot and haven't made risotto yet, what are you waiting for? Risotto, which is normally quite the lengthy and involved process, can be made in a matter of minutes in your Instant Pot. No stirring required! While we love that we can usually count our risotto stirring process as arm exercise, you can leave all that behind when you simply pop all the ingredients into the Instant Pot and turn it on. This saves you time, energy, and arm fatigue. What could be better?

Recipe developer and registered dietitian nutritionist, Kristen Carli, MS, RD, brings us this Instant Pot mushroom risotto recipe. If you are not a fan of mushrooms, you can simply swap in diced leeks, peas, and artichoke hearts for more of a Spring flavor profile. We know that mushrooms can sometimes be divisive, so having these ingredient swaps may come in handy depending on who you are serving. Follow our step by step guide below to make this Instant Pot mushroom risotto at home.

To make this Instant Pot mushroom risotto, we will start by gathering our ingredients. For this recipe you will need olive oil, a yellow onion, minced garlic, sliced white mushrooms, arborio rice, chicken broth, salt, pepper, dried thyme, salted butter, and grated Parmesan cheese. If you want you can add a bit of heat by also adding in some crushed red chili flakes. But be careful — just ¼ teaspoon will do the trick.

Let's get started! Plug in and turn on your Instant Pot to the sauté setting. Once it has heated up a bit, add in the olive oil, diced onion, and minced garlic. Stir and saute until the garlic is fragrant and the onion becomes translucent. This will take about five minutes. Then toss in your sliced mushrooms. Stir and sauté until the mushrooms begin to darken in color and shrink in size.

Next up, turn off the sauté setting on the Instant Pot. Add in the rice, chicken broth, salt, pepper, and dried thyme. Give the contents a big stir, then close the lid of the Instant Pot and close the valve to sealing. Then turn on the pressure cook setting for five minutes. Once the time is up, be patient. We will actually wait for the Instant Pot to naturally release instead of quickly releasing the steam valve. This process takes about 10 minutes.

Once the risotto is done cooking, and the steam valve has been released naturally, open up the Instant Pot. Add in the butter and the grated Parmesan cheese. Using a large wooden spoon, stir in the ingredients until the butter is melted. Since the risotto is still very warm from cooking, the butter will quickly melt from the residual heat. That's it! You are ready to serve this decadent and delicious mushroom risotto.