Giant Stuffed Arancini (Scopa Copycat)

This giant stuffed arancini is an almost perfect copycat for the one you can always find on the menu at Scopa Italian Roots, one of my fave L.A. restaurants. Scopa is owned by Chef Antonia Lofosa, one of my culinary heroes, who you might remember from Top Chef, as a judge on Cutthroat Kitchen, and many, many other Food Network shows.

Chef Antonia's signature giant stuffed arancini is beyond crispy — with a shell of delicously crunchy fried rice on the outside and stuffed with a mixture of ground beef and peas on the inside. The whole thing is served in a bowl of spaghetti sauce and topped with even more shredded cheese.

When you crack into one of these giant arancini with the edge of a fork, a pool of melty cheese comes oozing out followed by a cloud of steam, a sure sign that they're fresh out of the fryer. What's not to love?

One of the real bummers about moving out of L.A. in the middle of the pandemic was not being able to treat ourselves to a final meal at Scopa. So when the restaurant announced the launch of DIY at-home meal kits to create your favorite menu items at home, you know I jumped at the chance to order their arancini kit for Jimmy for the holidays.

Even though I know we put a lot of work into figuring out the right measurements ourselves and testing different ingredients, it does feel a bit weird to have gotten a head start with instructions from the restaurant itself. The kit is amazing, Scopa is amazing, Chef Antonia is amazing, and in no way do I want this to take anyone away from supporting restaurants, especially now.

Since Jimmy and I developed our copycat recipe — which is almost identical, with a little bit of our own spin — from the kit instructions, I do want to give a quick review of the kit here.

But, since I'm not sure how long Scopa will continue offering DIY kits, well, let's get to the review and the recipe.

what's inside scopa's arancini kit

Scopa's arancini kit comes with 3 pre-made giant arancini, vacuum sealed and ready to be fried. It also comes with all of the individual components needed, each individually vacuum packed, to shape 3 additional arancini by hand. Yes, including chopped fresh parsley and the meat mixture (pre-cooked), and the rice already mixed with eggs, cheese, and rice.

Literally the only "cooking" the kit asks you to do is when you fry the arancini. The only ingredient you need to provide yourself is the frying oil. Everything else is pre-cooked, pre-mixed, and ready for assembly. The kit even includes a thermometer for checking your oil temperature.

As intimidating as we expected the arancini to be, they were so much fun to make and also a lot easier to make than anticipated. And when you crack into one and all that steam comes burbling out with melted cheese... oh it's so satisfying.

The written instructions in the kit are clear and helpful, and Chef Antionia has even recorded a video (the "virtual" aspect of the kit) demoing how to shape the arancini here.

A warning: the shipping costs are steep (I paid $45 for shipping to Boston) because Scopa is creating and packing all the components on site and mailing them out with two day shipping for maximum freshness. But the actual cost of the kit — $109 — only seems steep until you realize that's the cost of 6 arancini on the standard restaurant menu ($18/each). So it's not like Scopa is marking them up for shipping.

The kits need to be refrigerated immediately and used within 4-6 days of receiving because of the fresh ingredients. But we basically ate arancini for dinner three days in a row, and then promptly went out and bought the ingredients to try making them ourselves from scratch. Zero regrets.

They're so good, and have I mentioned they're really fun to make?

a copycat giant stuffed arancini recipe

Our version of the giant stuffed arancini — and Jimmy deserves most of the credit for the work on this one — is almost identical to Scopa's, with a few simple ingredient swaps. We have no way of knowing exactly what goes into their sauce and meat filling, or the ratio of their rice and cheese mixture, so we tested a bunch until we found what worked for us.

Scopa definitely uses higher quality ingredients than our recipe does, including a specific brand of pecorino cheese (called Locatelli) that is it a bit hard to find. Scopa's arancini uses ground beef in the center, while we preferred the flavor of hot Italian sausage. And rather than attempting to replicate Scopa's exact tomato sauce, we used leftover spaghetti sauce (recipe here).

Why use leftover spaghetti sauce? Arancini are often made from leftovers. Leftover risotto, leftover meatballs, leftover cheese, leftover spaghetti sauce, etc. And you don't need a lot to make arancini — and what you do use, most of it is for serving. So instead of having you make spaghetti sauce from scratch in addition to having to cook the rice and the beef mixture, you can just use whatever your favorite spaghetti sauce is.

how to shape giant stuffed arancini

1. Scoop ½ cup Arborio rice mixture into the palm of your non-dominant hand and make a dent in the center.
2. Scoop (or have a friend scoop) a ¼ cup sausage and peas mixture, 1 tablespoon ricotta, and a few pieces of fresh mozzarella into the center.
3. Then scoop (or have a friend scoop) another ½ cup Arborio rice mixture for your other hand and use the back of your first hand to make a dent in the other half of the Arborio. This will be the other half of the arancini.
4. Then flip the Arborio over on top of the filling and shape it into a ball. Patch any thin spots with additional rice if needed to seal completely.
5. Coat the outside of the arancini with the breadcrumbs mixture, pressing the breadcrumbs firmly into the rice so it sticks.
6. Carefully place in 325ºF oil and fry for 10 minutes, until golden brown.

a few quick arancini recipe notes

• Arancini can be assembled by one person, but it definitely helps to have an extra set of hands. One person holds the rice mixture and molds the arancini, the other person scoops the filling for them. Jimmy has bigger hands than I do, so he does the shaping and I do the scooping. If you're working solo, scoop the components into the measuring cups before you start assembling so they're easy to grab.

• To quote Chef John: "Wet hands make smooth balls." Dampen your hands before scooping the rice mixture and it won't stick so much. Alternately, wear kitchen gloves, or line your hand with plastic wrap (the plastic wrap will also help you with the shaping if you have smaller hands.

• Pro-tip: Next time you make spaghetti sauce, save whatever's left in the freezer for making arancini in the future.

• If you don't have leftover spaghetti sauce: Cook ¼ cup minced onion in oil until soft, then add one can of crushed tomatoes (in the U.S. one can = 15 oz) and season with basil, oregano, salt and pepper to taste.

• If you have extra arborio rice mixture you can make tiny golf ball sized arancini stuffed with mozzarella cheese. Use the same process, just do it on a much smaller scale.

• Cook the rice the day before so that it's cool the next day when you go to assemble the arancini. I like setting up my Zojirushi Neuro Fuzzy at night before I go to bed and letting the "keep warm" setting hold the rice overnight. In the morning I take it out and put it in a container to cool, then pop it in the fridge until I'm ready to assemble.

I can't find arborio rice, can I use a different kind of rice?

Arborio is a specific type of extremely starchy, sticky short grain rice. If you use a long grain rice like Jasmine or Basmati, or even a standard short grain rice, your arancini won't hold together. Of all the short grain rices that work for arancini, arborio is by far the most common and easy to find in supermarkets. The other type of rice that can work is called carnaroli rice. You can buy arborio online here and carnaroli online here.

📖 Recipe