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Finding the Forgotten Feast

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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 | Miscellaneous

•  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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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

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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.


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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.

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Miscellaneous

Mushroom fried rice is a simple, quick and easy recipe that works with any fresh mushroom, from buttons to morels, and whatever vegetable is in season when you make it.

Creamy mushrooms on toast is savory, rich, filling and definitely not low-fat. I am in love with this recipe! A recipe similar to this, only using egg as a binder, makes an incredible mushroom tart.

Mushroom spinach frittata is an easy "breakfast for dinner" recipe that works with any sort of fresh mushroom, and any sort of leafy green.

Wild mushroom stuffing is a must for the holiday season, and this especially satisfying version can be vegetarian.

The Latest

A group of young honey mushrooms

How to Identify and Cook Honey Mushrooms

By Hank Shaw on December 27, 2010, Updated February 2, 2022 - 71 Comments

I don’t eat unknown mushrooms lightly. But when I spotted these honey mushrooms, I knew, somehow, they were edible. Turns out they’re a prime pierogi ingredient, too.

Read More about How to Identify and Cook Honey Mushrooms

an Oregon black truffle

Hunting Oregon Truffles

By Hank Shaw on December 7, 2010, Updated February 1, 2017 - 37 Comments

Think you can imagine the thrill of unearthing a truffle? Sorry, but you can’t. Not unless you’ve panned for gold. Or dug diamonds. It’s the same feeling, complete with the whiff of rapacious greed…

Read More about Hunting Oregon Truffles

A close up of chanterelles

Cooking Chanterelle Mushrooms

By Hank Shaw on November 5, 2010, Updated June 24, 2020 - 36 Comments

Chanterelles vie for my favorite mushroom with the great porcini. Chanties are the light to porcini’s dark, pheasant not beef, white wine not red. Our season has begun!

Read More about Cooking Chanterelle Mushrooms

collage of porcini

Porcini-O-Rama

By Hank Shaw on June 20, 2010, Updated January 25, 2021 - 15 Comments

One of my favorite things is to gorge on a fresh, seasonal ingredient when it’s abundant — in this case porcini mushrooms. We ate them in a salad, grilled, pureed with venison, and in porcini ravioli.

Read More about Porcini-O-Rama

Stuffed mallow leaves.

Foraging Mallow – Hiding in Plain Sight

By Hank Shaw on April 4, 2010, Updated April 22, 2021 - 29 Comments

An offhanded remark leads me down the rabbit hole in search of the mysterious – yet ubiquitous – mallow plant. Who knew how important this weed was to the Eastern Mediterranean?

Read More about Foraging Mallow – Hiding in Plain Sight

cream of chanterelle

Chanterelles and the Sexiest Soup Ever

By Hank Shaw on August 31, 2009, Updated April 4, 2020 - 57 Comments

Some people spend their money on gadgets, rare wines, drugs or Craftsman tools. I spend mine on mushrooms. And after eating an orgasmic mushroom soup I made with some chanterelles last weekend, I feel entirely justified in my choice. Who needs a cordless drill or a ’57 Dom Perignon when you have this soup? I’ve

Read More about Chanterelles and the Sexiest Soup Ever

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

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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!

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