There are base sauces that are used to create other sauces; these sauces are called Mother Sauces.  The following recipe is a Mother Barley Risotto, it is a base risotto recipe that you can cook and keep refrigerated and when reheating you can add other ingredients to make different types of risottos. (Mushroom Risotto shown in picture.)

2 cups Chopped Onion
2.5 cups Pearled Barley
8 cups Vegetable Broth
1tbsp Olive Oil

Place a large pot over med high heat, once pot is hot add olive oil and onions. Cook onions until translucent then add barley to pot. Stir for about 1 minute until barley begins to toast and is mixed well with onion.

Turn heat down to med and start adding vegetable stock, 2 cups to start and keep stirring. Once liquid begins to be absorbed by barley add 1 cup of stock and continue to stir. Keep adding 1 cup of stock at a time as liquid is absorbed. Cook for 40 minutes while stirring often until barley is cooked just past al dente.

This will yield 8 cups of “Mother” risotto and we can add other ingredients later to make parmesan, sweet corn and mushroom risotto.

Each cup of this risotto contains 6.8g protein, 52.8g of carbs and 2.5g of carbs