Creamy polenta! This light and fluffy polenta is perfect with ribs, chicken, pork, lamb or veal, and also goes great with roasted vegetables.
One of the tastiest, most versatile and easiest to prepare side dishes is polenta. It’s a wonderful serving base for osso buco, short ribs or oxtail. It’s also a great base for veggies like mushrooms or roasted broccoli.
What is polenta?
Polenta is a porridge-type dish popular in northern Italy. In Italy, it is often made from a variety of ingredients, including cornmeal, ground rice, buckwheat, and chestnut flour. Here in North America, it’s typically made solely from coarsely ground cornmeal. Think of polenta as an Italian version of grits! But made of yellow corn instead of white corn grits.
You can prepare and serve polenta warm and mushy, or let it set and slice to grill or fry.
How to make creamy polenta
For this recipe we make a particularly creamy polenta by adding butter and cream cheese. To do this, we first beat polenta (coarse cornmeal) in boiling salted water. Then we reduce the heat, stir in some butter and cook the polenta for about 25 minutes. When the polenta is cooked through, soft and tender, stir in some cream cheese to serve. just right?
This polenta is so light, fluffy and creamy, it could almost be a dessert.
Change it!
This recipe is meant to be a guide, feel free to experiment with it.
- Swap some water for broth — We only use water as the liquid in this recipe, you can easily substitute some of the water with chicken broth or broth.
- Change the cheese — Cream cheese gives this polenta its creamy taste. But you can also use goat cheese, parmesan, ricotta, mascarpone or mozzarella. It all makes a nice, delicious polenta.
- Herb it up — Stir in a little dried or freshly chopped green herbs such as parsley, chives, sage, thyme or oregano.
- Chill it and grill it — Prepare the polenta, pour into a loaf pan to set and cool. Once set, you can slice and grill or stovetop toast the slices.
What kind of cornmeal should I use for polenta?
Look for a gritty yellow cornmeal; This will give you the right polenta texture. Fine-grain cornmeal tends to cook into a mush. There are many brands that sell cornmeal made specifically for polenta and will state this on the packaging. That’s a good bet.
How to advance and warm up
If you prepare polenta ahead of time, cool, cover and refrigerate. Heat the polenta on the stovetop or in the microwave (about 5 minutes on high), stirring in more liquid to fluff it if necessary. After reheating, stir vigorously to fluff. Serve immediately.
Here are other ways to taste polenta:
- Creamy polenta with white beans and roasted broccoli
- Cheese polenta with grilled sausages and summer vegetables
- Polenta casserole with fontina and tomato sauce
- Polenta sausage mozzarella casserole
Creamy polenta
If you make polenta ahead of time, allow to cool, cover and refrigerate. Heat on the stovetop or in the microwave (about 5 minutes on high), adding more liquid if needed. After reheating, stir vigorously to fluff.
ingredients
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4 cups water
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1 1/2 teaspoon Saltor 1 teaspoon if using salted butter
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1 Cup yellow polenta or coarsely ground meal with cereals
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2 tablespoon unsalted butter
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1/4 Cup cream cheese
method
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Stir polenta into boiling salted water:
Bring salted water (1 1/2 teaspoons salt to 1 quart water) to a boil in a 2 or 3 quart heavy-bottomed saucepan over high heat. Slowly add the polenta to the boiling water, stirring to avoid lumps forming.
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Simmer and cook:
Reduce the heat to a very low simmer and add the butter. Continue beating the polenta until it starts to thicken. Then cover the pan and let the polenta cook for 25 minutes. Stir occasionally with a wooden spoon so that the polenta does not stick to the bottom of the pot. The polenta should be soft and tender when ready. If not, let it cook a little longer.
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Add the cream cheese:
Add the cream cheese and stir into the polenta. Taste and add more salt if needed. (If you want it even creamier, you can also add more cream cheese.)
| nutritional information (per serving) | |
|---|---|
| 106 | calories |
| 6g | Fat |
| 12g | carbohydrates |
| 2g | protein |
