This creamy polenta recipe comes together in a flash, thanks to one simple prep step. Serve it as a side dish, or add flavorful toppings to make it a meal.
Everyone raves about Italian pasta and pizza, but if you ask me, polenta deserves just as much love. A north Italian porridge made of coarsely ground cornmeal, polenta is wonderfully creamy, with a lightly sweet, buttery corn flavor. Unlike oat porridge, it’s not a traditional breakfast food. Though I do eat it for breakfast on occasion (see page 49 of Love and Lemons Every Day!), I most often enjoy this smooth, savory porridge for dinner. Topped with cheese, herbs, cooked vegetables, or a flavorful sauce, it transforms into a mouthwatering comfort food.
Below, you’ll find my go-to method for making creamy, soft polenta in no time, plus my favorite ways to serve it. Try it once, and it’ll have a permanent place in your rotation of potatoes, pasta, and bread. It’s simple, healthy, and, most importantly, delicious.
How to Make Polenta
Polenta has a reputation for being a finicky dish – it can take up to an hour of stirring over the stove, and it’s easy to end up with a lump-filled mess instead of a smooth porridge. But when I want polenta, I want it now, so I developed an easy method for making creamy “instant” polenta.
Before I start cooking, I pulse the cornmeal in the blender so that the granules are less coarse. Made with this fine cornmeal, polenta is extra creamy, and it cooks in a fraction of a time. Once you try this method, you won’t make it any other way! Note: this method works perfectly with Bob’s Red Mill’s Coarse Ground Polenta.
After you pulse the cornmeal in the blender, sift through it with your fingers to break up any clumps. Then, bring 3 cups of water to a simmer in a saucepan, and gradually add the polenta, whisking constantly.
Add an additional cup of water to the pan and continue to cook, stirring, for 15 minutes. Reduce the heat as needed if the polenta starts to boil. If the porridge becomes too thick, stir in up to 1/2 cup more water.
Turn off the heat and add a glug of olive oil and a pinch of salt. Let it stand, covered, for 5 minutes before you eat. Enjoy!
Polenta Recipe Tips
- Sift through the blended cornmeal before you cook it. After you pulse the cornmeal in the blender, the fine grounds will have a tendency to stick together. To avoid ending up with large lumps in your cooked polenta, sift through the blended cornmeal with a fork or your fingers to break up any clumps.
- Whisk constantly as you pour the cornmeal into the boiling water. Lumps are the biggest pitfall in making polenta, but it’s easy to avoid them. Pour the cornmeal into the water gradually – NOT all at once – and whisk constantly as you do it. The constant whisking will evenly disperse the cornmeal grounds in the water, so they won’t have a chance to clump together.
- It’ll thicken as it sits. Cooked polenta thickens quickly, so if you don’t plan to eat it right away, you’ll likely need to thin it before you serve it. Reheat the thickened polenta on the stove over low heat, adding more water or olive oil, as needed, to thin it to your desired consistency. Make sure to taste and adjust the seasonings before you serve it. After you add the extra liquid, it’ll likely need another pinch of salt.
Polenta Serving Suggestions
Polenta is a fantastic blank canvas for flavorful toppings. Most simply, I enjoy it as a side dish with a shower of grated Parmesan cheese and freshly cracked black pepper. On occasion, I’ll add roasted chickpeas or toasted pine nuts for crunch. Otherwise, I’ll top it with a cooked veggie and a punchy sauce to make it a meal on its own:
- Cooked veggies are the perfect way to add hearty texture, richness, and flavor to creamy polenta. Try pairing it with roasted broccoli, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, butternut squash, or cauliflower, with grilled mixed vegetables or zucchini, or with sautéed mushrooms.
- A punchy sauce is key for transforming this from a side dish into a show-stopping entrée. I especially like it with homemade marinara sauce, pesto, or chimichurri.
How do you like to serve polenta? Let me know in the comments!
More Cooking Basics
If you loved learning how to make polenta, try making one of these healthy cooking components next:
- Perfect Brown Rice
- Fluffy Quinoa
- Herbed Farro
- Couscous
- Lentils (any variety!)
- Baked Tofu
- Smoky Marinated Tempeh
Creamy Polenta
Ingredients
- 1 cup stone-ground polenta*
- 4 to 4 1/2 cups water, divided
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt, more to taste
Instructions
- In a blender, pulse the dry polenta to make the granules less coarse. This gives the polenta a creamy texture and helps it cook faster. Remove from the blender and run your hands through the dry polenta to make sure there aren’t any lumps.
- In a medium pot, bring 3 cups of water to a high simmer. Slowly whisk in the polenta. Add 1 more cup of water and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring frequently. If your polenta is very thick, whisk in the remaining ½ cup water. The polenta should be creamy.
- Turn off the heat and whisk in the olive oil and sea salt. Cover and let stand for 5 minutes. Season to taste and serve hot.
I used Bob’s Red Mill polenta for the first time and it was absolutely delicious!
I made it with a side of a beans. I combined chick peas, cannellini beans & cranberry beans. Cooked the beans in a mixture of soffrito, garlic, chopped fennel and added chopped herbs at the end. I used the water from cooking the beans instead broth to make a sauce. It was so comforting and delicious. It would of been Vegan if I didn’t add Parmesan cheese at the end. Love your recipes.
Oh yum, that sounds delicious! I”m so glad you’ve been enjoying the recipes.
I like to make polenta with natural yoghurt on top and some salt. So simple, so easy to make, best breakfast ever!
I have just made it and it was delicious. I served it with pan-fried fish, it really was super tasty.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Excellent recipe! This came together very well. I served mine with a from-scratch tomato and mushroom ragù, as well as a salmon steak. Thank you very much!
Oh that sounds delicious, I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe!
Comes out great using it as a base for shrimps in a creamy garlic, ginger sauce.
I’m so glad you enjoyed it!
Your recipes are always super duper useful, thanks!
I’m glad you’ve been enjoying them!
Just made this — it’s thickening up on the stove. Looks lovely! There are some smallish lumps, alas, it’s not perfectly smooth. I made it as instructed, putting the cornmeal in the blender first, etc. Maybe I didn’t add it slowly enough to the water? Could that make a difference?
Hi Donna, that could make a difference, or I would just whisk a bit more to get the lumps out.
Hi! Could you possibly sweeten this? Thinking of make ahead meals…
Thanks!
Delicious and so easy. Wasn’t expecting it to be so easy. Added Parmesan cheese and used tour mushroom topping. Served with seared scallops
I’m so glad you loved it!
I’m curious, when a miller grinds corn, the larger pieces are polenta and the smaller pieces that pass through a second sieve are grits. Can you just skip a step and use grits?
You can use grits here.
Mixed with feta cheese is amazing!
As a child, my Nona made creamy polenta with small sausages and marinara. She was from Cigna, northern Italy
how do I make this polenta to fry? do i adjust the water and cornmeal ratio?
Hi Anna, I haven’t tested this water ratio for frying. You basically want to take really thick polenta (in step 2, I wouldn’t add the additional 1/2 cup water). Spread your thick polenta in a greased baking dish so that it’s about 1 inch thick. Chill it overnight and it’ll firm up. The next day slice it into cubes or triangles, and you’re ready to fry. I hope that helps!
When I have left over of the Palenta Soup. I get out clear plastic paper. Place the Palenta in the middle of plastic wrap in a heaping stack and wrap the plastic wrap all around the Palenta (Same shape as rolled sausage).. Keep rolling to squeeze out the liquid, if necessary. Make it same shape as sausage in a rolled package. Put in refrigerator 24 hours. After 24 hours remove from refrigerator
Then cut in 1″ to 1 1/2 slices. Put in skillet and cook slowly on medium or medium low heat until it look cruchy golden brown color around the edges. Remove from skillet and put on plate and add butter on top. Enjoy!!!!!
Perfect! Easy to follow and turned out well. I paired with spicy sauteed shrimp. Yum. Thanks!
My husband grows and grinds corn and we use cornmeal on the regular… but I can’t seem to get the hang of polenta. I’ve made it a few times but am never really satisfied with it. I think I might try making it with his cornmeal, rather than a special grind. The last time I made polenta, we had it for breakfast topped with scrambled eggs, spinach, cheese, and hot sauce.
Hello. I’m new to this blog and possibly I’ve missed the answer. What do you serve with the polenta?
Hi Lili, if you scroll up in this post, there’s a section with Serving Suggestions – also, take a look at this recipe, we love this combination: https://www.loveandlemons.com/fancy-mushroom-polenta/
Thank you!
braised boneless short ribs would be delectable but the easy chicken madeira is wonderful also. For Vegan, Mushroom is perfect.
How many will 1mthis recipe serve?
Let me try again 🙂
For how many servings, is this recipe?
I made this! It was fantastic. I started with the sautéed mushrooms and once that was done, I melted a log of Polenta into them, then put the chimichurri on top. LOVED it. Thanks for an interesting recipe!
Hi Jeanine,
Love all your recipes! I don’t have coarse ground cornmeal right now, but I do have Bob’s Red Mill Fine Grind Cornmeal. Do you think it would work for this recipe, or is it too fine? Thanks for your advice!
Hi Pam, I think it could work. Skip step 1, and then you might need less water overall.
If I’m WFPB no oil will this recipe still work without the oil?
It will – just add more water (or vegetable broth) in it’s place.