Baked Mushroom Arancini

These Mushroom Arancini are baked instead of fried to create a flavorful, healthier version of the traditional Italian appetizer!

Date night is always such a fun night!  I’m a big fan of going out and checking out new restaurants. The list of places I want to go seems to get longer instead of shorter despite my best efforts.  One of my favorite options for date night is actually to stay in a cook.  It’s a great way for me to test new recipes and it can be a lot of fun to cook together.

I recently made these baked mushroom arancini as an appetizer for part of a date night menu.   The main course was a butternut squash gnocchi with sage brown butter sauce – Yum!!

One thing I love to do when cooking is to create recipes where you can basically cook once and eat multiple times.  It’s a great way to give new life to leftovers!  In this case, the “leftovers” are this tasty Mushroom Risotto.    If I know I’m planning to make the arancini I’ll often make a double batch of risotto just to be sure I have enough for both recipes.  

If you just want to make arancini, the risotto recipe is enough to have a small portion of risotto and then make the arancini the next day.  You can also use your favorite risotto recipe for these.  You’ll need about 3 cups of risotto, so likely about half of most recipes that serve 4 to 6 people.

As much as I love the crispiness of traditional arancini, for a variety of reasons I really try to avoid fried food, and I know a lot of other people do too.   While you can never quite get the same crunch from baking as you do from frying, with high heat and the right ingredients you can really achieve some amazing results!

notes from the kitchen

• Leftover risotto works best for this recipe, as you want it to be a little sticker than freshly made.  I’d recommend making the risotto the day before you plan to serve the arancini.
• I used a full-sized ice cream scoop to form the balls.  It helps to keep them a consistent size and makes it easy to push the mozzarella cube into the ball with smashing it.  You can also use a 1/4 cup cookie scoop like the one I’ve noted below.
• You’ll want to clear enough room in your refrigerator for the baking tray before you form the risotto.  They need to chill for about 30 minutes before baking and it’s much easier to just keep them on the same tray.
• Be generous when spraying the arancini with olive oil.  This is what helps them to get nice and crispy when baking.

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things you may want for this recipe

Dough or Ice Cream Scoop – Using a scoop for these ensures a consistent size and it makes it easier to reform the risotto into a ball after you add the mozzarella cube.  A plain ice cream scoop works well, though I like the dough scoop as it’s the perfect size for this and you can use it for large cookies, muffins, etc.

Olive Oil Mister – This essential kitchen tool has so many uses!  Like I do in this recipe you can use it to spray things you are going to bake to crisp them up.  It also works well to give salad or veggies a very light coating of oil.  Since you fill it yourself, you can use flavored olive oils or even add herbs or garlic to the bottle for extra flavoring.

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