• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Subscribe
Subscribe by email Connect on Facebook Connect on Pinterest Follow Me on Instagram

Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

Finding the Forgotten Feast

  • Shop
  • Podcast
  • Wild Game
    • Venison Recipes
    • Duck Recipes and Goose Recipes
    • Rabbits, Hares and Squirrels
    • Pheasants, Turkey, Quail
    • Dove Recipes
    • Wild Pig and Bear Recipes
    • My Best Taco Recipes
    • Wild Game Sauces
  • Charcuterie
    • Homemade Sausage Recipes
    • Smoker Recipes
    • Bacon, Jerky, Hams, etc
    • Salami Recipes
    • Confit, Pate, Terrines
  • Fish
    • General Fish Recipes
    • Salmon Recipes
    • Snapper Recipes
    • Crabs, Shellfish and Squid
    • Little Fish and Oddballs
  • Gathering
    • Preservation Recipes
    • Mushrooms
    • Sweet Things
    • Wild Greens and Herbs
    • Acorns, Nuts, Starches
  • About
    • Public Events
    • Privacy Policy

Mushroom Recipes

Seared lake trout, porcini and morels on a plate.

Photo by Holly A. Heyser

Find It Fast

•  About

•  Gathering & Preserving: Basic Tips | Preserving Mushrooms | Gathering & Cooking Guides

•  Recipes: Sauces | Pasta & Rice | Soups & Stews

•  Our Latest Posts

About

If you're looking for mushroom recipes, especially wild mushroom recipes, you have come to the right place: This is my collection of nearly 75 recipes where mushrooms are the star, or where they play harmony with other ingredients.

Some are fancy, some simple. Most of these mushroom recipes can be made with regular ole' button mushrooms, or their brown cousins, the cremini; yes, they are the same mushroom, just grown differently.

The single best store-bought mushroom that matches the flavor intensity of wild mushrooms is the shiitake, so if you're into mushrooms buy that one.

Back to top

Basic Tips

Virtually all mushrooms must be cooked, because even fully edible ones need their cell walls broken down by cooking to be fully digestible, and some, like morel mushrooms, are actually toxic if eaten raw.

Many mushrooms contain so much internal water you will want to toss them in a dry pan and "dry fry" them until they start giving up that water. Only then do you add butter or oil.

Mushrooms, being earthy, love wild game, beef, duck and other dark meat poultry. But some, like the matsutake, the enoki and the common white button mushroom, do go very well with fish and white meats.

Always save the water from rehydrating dried mushrooms. It's full of flavor and, once strained of its debris, is great for soups, stews and cooking rice.

In general, multiply the weight of dried mushrooms by eight to get the equivalent weight of fresh. So 1/4 pound of dried porcini, for example, will be the equivalent of 2 pounds fresh.

Back to top

Preserving Mushrooms

Most mushrooms are best preserved by drying. This is not true for a few popular mushrooms, like chanterelles and chicken of the woods. These lose a lot when dried, and should be sautéed, then vacuum sealed and frozen.

I dehydrate my mushrooms in a dehydrator at about 110°F. You can put them on a rack in a hot garage, the back of your car in summer, or if you have to, a low oven. This is not ideal because you want to dry mushrooms, not cook them.

The next most common way to preserve mushrooms is to sauté them in butter or oil, with onions and garlic (or not), either in large pieces or as a classic French duxelle. You then cool, put in a vacuum bag, seal and freeze.

You can pickle mushrooms, too, and I am especially fond of pickled chanterelles. There's also a hybrid technique from Italy where you salt mushrooms to remove some liquid, then boil in vinegar, dry them a bit, then preserve in olive oil. I prefer this style of marinated mushrooms for porcini.

Finally, you can lacto-ferment mushrooms, which is a brine pickle. I do this primarily with saffron milk caps, but you can use lots of different mushrooms.

Close up of fermented mushrooms on a plate.
Photo by Holly A. Heyser

Back to top

Gathering and Cooking Guides

These are guides to finding, safely identifying and cooking a few popular types of wild mushrooms.

Starting with chanterelles, which come out in summer in most of the United States, but in fall and winter in the Northwest. I wrote another article on yellowfoot chanterelles, a type of related mushroom.

Here are some tips on how to look for morel mushrooms in the West, and some pointers on looking for spring porcini.

Meadow mushrooms, Agaricus campestris, live all over, but they can be tricky to identify. Here's how.

Here's a guide to cauliflower mushrooms, and one for honey mushrooms.

Back to top

Sauces

Mushrooms of all kinds make for great sauces. Some of the best are the simplest, like a mushroom sauce for steak.

I do a specific morel sauce with venison that's also great with beef or pork, and a rich mushroom ragu to serve with pasta or polenta.

I also make a simple mushroom sauce that works well with fattier fish, like trout, salmon or mackerel.

A plate of mushroom ravioli with sautéed mushrooms
Photo by Holly A. Heyser

Back to top

Pasta and Rice

Mushrooms love to be with pasta or rice. Everything from risotto with porcini, morels or chanterelles, to Japanese matsutake rice.

I love mushroom ravioli, as well as mushroom tortellini, too. And you can never go wrong with mushroom pierogi.

This pasta recipe was made for chanterelles, but goes well with a variety of mushrooms, foraged or store-bought.


Back to top

Soups and Stews

I have a range of soups and stews where mushrooms are either the star or a main player. Some of my favorites are a smooth chanterelle veloute, a wild mushroom bisque, a Spanish stew called chilindron, which uses lots of dried mushrooms, or a Russian stew with mushrooms, barley and a red meat like goose.

Back to top

The Latest

venison tenderloin with fresh morel sauce

Venison with Morel Sauce

By Hank Shaw on March 13, 2008, Updated October 28, 2020 - 6 Comments

I am happy to report that the morel mushrooms in this venison steak were not the only ones we found in our front yard. Since I cooked this dish last weekend, we’ve found six more. Woo hoo! Morels are the best mushroom to pair with red meat like steak or, in this case, whitetail venison. They

Read More about Venison with Morel Sauce

  • « Go to Previous Page
  • Go to page 1
  • Interim pages omitted …
  • Go to page 8
  • Go to page 9
  • Go to page 10

Primary Sidebar

Hank Shaw holding a rod and reel in the American River

Hi, My name is Hank Shaw; I’m a James Beard Award-winning author and chef. I started this site back in 2007 to help you get the most out of all things wild: fish, game, edible wild plants and mushrooms. I also write cookbooks, have a website dedicated to the intersection of food and nature, and do a podcast, too. If it’s wild, you’ll find it here. Hope you enjoy the site!

More about Hank...

Featured Recipes

Cucumber sauce for salmon on a pretty plate
Cucumber Sauce for Salmon
Wild purslane growing in my garden.
All About Purslane
A cherry tomato tart ready to serve.
Cherry Tomato Tart
red snapper with cherry tomatoes recipe
Red Snapper with Cherry Tomatoes
A platter of okra salad with serving plates
Lowcountry Okra Salad
Mexican aguachile recipe on a plate, ready to eat
Mexican Aguachile

As Seen In

As seen on CNN, New York Times, Simply Recipes, Martha Stewart, Food and Wine, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, Field and Stream, Outdoor Life, and The Splendid Table

Never Miss a Recipe

Receive recipes direct to your inbox.

 

 

Back to Top
  • Home
  • About
  • Classes & Events
  • Tutorials
  • Podcast
  • Charcuterie
  • Wild Game
  • Fish
  • Foraging
  • Privacy
Subscribe by email Connect on Facebook Connect on Pinterest Follow Me on Instagram

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

© 2022 Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, All Rights Reserved.

Site built by: Site by Status Forward