Cooking chicken in a risotto without it drying out I was following a recipe for a chicken risotto, which said to brown the chicken (breast meat, cut into small pieces, maybe 3/4 of an inch or so) in the pan after browning the onions, and then add the rice and stock to the same pan afterwards (so the chicken was in the pan the entire cooking period of the rice). However, when the dish was complete, many of the chicken pieces had unfortunately dried out.

What can I do to prevent this next time?
Brown the chicken in the pan where you will cook the risotto.  This will give your risotto some nice flavor if you make sure to scoop up the browned bits during cooking.  Then remove it.  Let it rest on a plate, tented with foil, throughout the whole time you are making the risotto.  Towards the last few minutes, put the chicken and any accumulated drippings from the plate back in.  This will warm the chicken and add the flavor from the drippings.  I use this technique whenever I am doing any sort of single skillet dish with meat, starch, and veggies.