Best Apple Risotto Recipe From Food Wars

Apple risotto is a sweet twist of the traditionally savoury Italian recipe. This dish was made popular in recent years by the Japanese anime Food Wars!: Shokugeki No Soma and the game Bloodstained.

In Food Wars!: Shokugeki No Soma, the main character, Soma, makes an apple risotto in a cooking duel against his father. The breakfast meal was made to rejuvenate the eater. Even though Soma ends up losing against his father, the unique dish has stayed in the minds of anime lovers, and many attempt to recreate it.

If the combination of apple and risotto has you wondering about its taste, read on to learn how to recreate it.

Jump to:

• What Is Apple Risotto? 
• Origin 
• Ingredients 
• Best Apple Risotto Recipe | Food Wars
• Cooking Tips 
• How To Make Apple Risotto Without Wine? 
• Without Bacon 
• With Cinnamon 
• Serving 

What Is Apple Risotto? 

The dish is a sweet version of traditional risotto, using the main ingredients of apple and Arborio rice. The dish is a popular comfort food in Northern Italy, especially during autumn due to the seasonality of apples. 

It pairs a unique blend of ingredients to produce a sweet and tart yet savoury dish. The soft and chewy texture of the risotto paired with the softened apple cubes adds a nice touch to this delicious meal.

Origin 

Apple risotto is a speciality in Trentino South Tyrol, a region in Northern Italy. The valleys support various crops, accentuated by Trentino's traditional cuisine. 

Val di Non apples, a key ingredient in apple risotto, are grown in a limited area with specific climatic and soil conditions. These factors contribute to their high quality in taste, crunchiness, and colour. 

Ingredients 

The key ingredients used in making the best apple risotto recipe include high-quality and crunchy apples, Arborio rice and Italian cheese. 

You don't need any additional seasonings, as the apple's natural sweetness and sourness pair well with the cheese's saltiness and butter's richness. 

If you want your risotto to taste more savoury, you can season it with salt and pepper at the end. But we recommend serving the dish with table salt and pepper on the side. This will allow guests to add salt and pepper directly to the dish.

Apple

Make sure to use sweet, crunchy apples for our recipe. We like Granny Smiths, as they have a slight sourness that enhances the taste of the dish.

Rice

Arborio rice is preferred for our Food Wars recipe as the grains are wider and longer, making for a slightly softer and thicker risotto. Therefore, this texture adds to a nice blend with the cooked apple cubes. 

You can substitute Arborio rice with Carnaroli or Vialone Nano, which will give you a starchier and creamier texture.

You can also use Japanese short-grain rice if you can't find it. Just avoid using medium- to long-grain rice grains like basmati and jasmine. They do not have enough starchiness for a risotto recipe.

Cheese

Lastly, Italian cheese is key to creating the perfect apple risotto. You could use grated parmesan and melt it with the risotto to add to the creaminess and salty, nutty flavour. 

If you don't have any parmesan, you could replace it with sharp cheddar. Although not Italian, cheddar will give the dish a salty, nutty flavour similar to parmesan. Also, cheddar will melt well, making it easy to work with.

Cooking Tips 

Apple risotto can be considered an easy dish to make, but things could go wrong in a couple of ways. Here are some tips to make sure you're in the clear.

Don't rinse the rice before cooking. For any risotto recipe, the starch on the rice grains is key for producing that al-dente texture when you bite into the cooked grains. Rinsing and washing them will wash away the valuable starch.

When melting the butter and caramelising the onions, use low heat. Butter burns easily, so you need to use low heat to ensure that the onions caramelise without burning the butter.

Make sure to add the cheese at the end of the cooking process. However, adding it in too early can cause the protein to coagulate quickly, making it lumpy.

Do not add in the stock all at once, as this would just give you boiled rice. We usually add about ½ cup of chicken broth every time. The trick is gradually adding the stock and allowing the rice to absorb the liquid, creating a creamy starch.

Don't overdo or underdo the stirring. Too much stirring can cool down the risotto too quickly, creating a gluey texture. However, too little stirring can make the rice stick to your pan and burn. Make sure to strike a nice balance between the two. People say that risotto requires tender care and patience when cooking. For 2 servings, it took me about 20-25 minutes of continuous stirring and adding chicken broth to cook the risotto into an al-dente and creamy texture.

How To Make Apple Risotto Without Wine? 

White wine is one of the common ingredients used in this recipe to add to its flavour and acidity. However, if you prefer to leave it out you can substitute it with verjus, which is pressed juice of unripen grapes. 

Verjus is not fermented. Hence, it is non-alcoholic, yet it has a tart and acidic taste similar to wine, making it an appropriate substitute. Make sure to keep tasting as you add verjus to make sure that the acidity is not overbearing.

We sometimes use white wine vinegar or rice wine vinegar as an alternative. It adds a mild acidity to the risotto. You can perhaps substitute it with lemon, but we recommend halving the amount as lemon's acidity is quite vivid and sharp.

Without Bacon 

The bacon adds a salty flavour to the sweet and tangy apple risotto. It also adds a nice crispy texture that blends well with the soft and chewy Arborio rice. 

However, if you prefer to skip the bacon, you could eliminate it from the recipe altogether or replace it with mushroom bacon. Pink oyster mushrooms, in particular, can provide the same umami flavour as bacon while being a healthier option. 

Thinly slice these mushrooms to make them as similar to bacon as possible. Season with salt and pepper and cook in the oven for 20 minutes or until crisp. Once you're done, toss the mushrooms with maple syrup, sugar, paprika, and garlic powder.

With Cinnamon 

Not all recipes call for cinnamon because the spice has a strong flavour that usually only goes well when there's no savoury element.

If you'd like to add cinnamon to your apple risotto, you could take cues from the classic oatmeal breakfast recipe. Our favourite is adding butter, apple juice, dried cranberries and walnuts, and a dash of cinnamon.

Serving 

To serve, you want to peel the apples. This way, the bitter skin does not affect the sweet taste of the risotto. However, we recommend adding some thin slices of apples with skin on them for aesthetic purposes. The green colour of the apple skin will add colour accents to the generally plain-looking dish.

Apple risotto is best served as a light main meal or a sharing dish. It also goes well with a side of salad and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese. 

In addition, if you're feeling up to it, a glass of white wine would accompany this dish well.

We hope that our recipe has inspired the Soma in you. If you've given it a go, tag us on Instagram @honestfoodtalks. Looking for more anime-inspired recipes? Check out our Chaliapin Steak recipe and our Narutomaki recipe.