Pork sausage & thyme risotto

As I mentioned few times in the past we both love risotto and it is our Friday night celebration to cook risotto and have it with a glass of wine. Our culinary heaven. We prefer vegetarian risottos but few people asked me if I have a good recipe for risotto with meat. I have to admit I was not very keen to make meat risotto but I decided to experiment with this dish few weeks ago.

I have to admit it was nice, but not as nice as any veggie risotto. Even my partner, who is a great meat lover pointed out that we should stick to veggie version of this dish. However I will post the recipe here, so meat lovers cannot feel ignored anymore - at least when it comes to cooking risotto.


Serves 2-3

onion, peeled and finely chopped
200g arborio or carnaroli rice
approx. 25g butter
approx. 150ml dry white wine
approx. 1 l vegetable stock
approx. 200g pork sausage (I used pork and herb sausages from local butcher)
2-3 tbsp fresh thyme, leaves picked
2 handfuls freshly grated parmesan
freshly grated black pepper


Keep the stock hot all the time. In a separate pan heat half of the butter, add the onion and fry very slowly without colouring until softened. Then squeeze the meat sausage out of the casing into about walnut size pieces and fry until browned. Next add rice and turn up the heat.

Fry the rice, stirring all the time. After a minute it will look slightly translucent. Add the wine and keep stirring until alcohol will evaporate.

Once the wine has cooked into the rice, add a ladle of hot stock and turn down the heat to a simmer so the rice doesn’t cook too quickly on the outside. Keep adding ladlefuls of stock, stirring – you will notice a creamy starch from the rice. This is why you have to allow each ladleful to be absorbed before adding the next. This will take around 15-20 minutes, until the rice is cooked. Season with pepper.

Remove from the heat and add the remaining butter, half of parmesan and most of thyme leaves (leave some for garnishing). Stir well and allow to rest for 2 minutes – this will make risotto really creamy and oozy. Sprinkle with the remaining parmesan and thyme leaves and serve immediately (as risotto cannot be reheated!).