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Butternut Squash and Sage Risotto

A creamy risotto with butternut squash, sage, Swiss chard, tomatoes, and optional cheese.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Butternut squash and chard share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and 14 recipes mention both. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

The recipe

Timeabout 25 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: milk, soy (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the broth and squash

  1. Bring broth to a boil in a large saucepan.

  2. Drop squash into boiling broth, reduce heat and simmer until squash is tender but still firm, about 3 minutes.

  3. Remove squash with a slotted spoon and set aside.

  4. Reduce heat and let broth simmer.

Make the risotto

  1. In a large, deep skillet, combine oil and shallots.

  2. Place over medium heat and stir to cook without browning, about 2 minutes.

  3. Add rice and salt and stir until rice is coated with oil.

  4. Add wine and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, stirring, until rice absorbs wine.

  5. Ladle 1/2 cup of simmering broth into skillet and stir until absorbed.

  6. Continue with remaining broth, adding 1/2 cup at a time and letting each addition be absorbed by rice before adding more liquid, about 25 minutes total.

Finish and serve

  1. Add chard and stir until wilted.

  2. Stir in squash, tomatoes, sage, and parsley.

  3. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  4. Stir in cheese if using.

  5. Serve hot.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Butternut squash + chardtop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Butternut squash + shallottop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together29 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Olive + chardtop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Rice + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,990 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Arborio rice
Its high starch releases during stirring, giving the risotto a creamy texture.
Vegetable broth
Slowly absorbed by the rice, it cooks the grains and provides the liquid for the creamy texture.
Dry white wine
Adds acidity and aroma as the rice absorbs it at the start of cooking.
Butternut squash
Adds sweetness and body, and holds its shape when simmered until tender but firm.
Shallots
Build a mild, sweet aromatic base for the rice when softened in oil.
Olive oil
Coats the rice grains so they stay separate and absorb liquid evenly.

The step that matters

Adding the broth gradually. Adding broth in small amounts and letting each addition absorb before the next releases starch slowly from the rice grains. Adding it all at once would leave the rice unevenly cooked and the texture watery rather than creamy.

Flavor stand-ins for the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butternut squash, olive, shallot, rice, white wine, chard, tomato):

  1. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  2. Avocadobetter flavor fit
  3. Pumpkinbetter flavor fit
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butternut squash, olive, shallot, rice, white wine, chard, tomato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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