I am in love with this recipe for creamy mushrooms on toast. It’s cheesy, savory and easy. It works with most types of mushrooms from store-bought to wild, and you don’t need to serve it on toast.
The inspiration for this recipe is mushrooms a la savoyarde, a lovely dish in the obscure-but-excellent book Auberge of the Flowering Hearth by Roy Andries de Groot.
It’s a book about eating and traveling in the French Alps and thereabouts, and this little side dish, which is, essentially, creamy mushrooms on toast, is one of the book’s highlights.
Cream, Gruyere cheese, some herbs, lots of fresh mushrooms and more than a little butter make this dish rich and filling. It’s not low fat by any means.
I used morel mushrooms for this recipe, but pretty much any mushroom you can cook in butter works, from white button mushrooms to their brown cremini cousins, blewits, meadow mushrooms, hedgebogs, lobsters, even porcini. Chanterelles are especially good here.
Gruyere cheese is the soul of this dish, although you could substitute Gouda, Jarlsberg, Edam or Fontina. It needs to be able to melt, but have real flavor, so something like mozzarella won’t really get you there.
As for the toast, I don’t overthink it. I buy a nice loaf of freshly made supermarket bread — whatever strikes my fancy at the moment — and either toast it in a toaster oven, or, better, fry the slices in a little butter or bacon fat. Like I said, this is not a low fat recipe.
Alternatives to toast would be boiled or roasted potatoes, as a side dish to, say, venison steak, or something very French, like next to celery root puree. Or if you’d like to make this as a tart, try my mushroom tart recipe, which is loosely based on this.
My recipe for creamy mushrooms on toast starts with bacon because, well, bacon. But if you want it vegetarian, simply switch to butter. It will be just as good.
Once made, this will keep a couple days in the fridge. It does not freeze well.
If you liked this recipe, please leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating and a comment below; I’d love to hear how everything went. If you’re on Instagram, share a picture and tag me at huntgathercook.
Creamy Mushrooms on Toast
Ingredients
- 3 slices bacon
- 1 yellow onion, minced (2 cups)
- 1 1/2 pounds fresh mushrooms, chopped if large
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/4 pound grated Gruyere cheese (see above for alternate cheeses)
- 1/3 to 1/2 cup sour cream or heavy cream, or a mix of both
- 1/4 cup minced parsley
- black pepper to taste
- 8 slices bread, toasted
Instructions
- Cook the bacon in a pan over medium heat. Remove when crispy and chop. Maybe eat a piece.
- Add the minced onion and mushrooms and turn the heat to medium-high. Sauté until browned, adding butter if need be. This should take a solid 8 to 10 minutes.
- Stir in the cheese, and, when it's melted and stirred in, do the same for the cream and/or sour cream. Drop the heat to medium-low and cook gently with a cover on the pan for another 20 minutes or so. Mix in the parsley and black pepper, and serve on toast.
Not sure what I missed, it wasn’t very creamy. But it tasted wonderful, maybe half and half instead of sour cream next time?
So good! As soon as I saw this I also thought it would be great on a steak! I only was able to try it on a porterhouse, but some venison steak or maybe seared duck breast would also be great!
Delicious with freshly foraged Tillamook forest chanterelles!
I assume that you add the chopped, cooked bacon back in at the end?
S. Parrott: Yes, or you just eat it. 😉
Outstanding recipe Hank! Your recipes are always good, but this one was next level. Any plans on making a mushroom cookbook at any point?
I made this using 50/50 supermarket Swiss browns and white buttons.
The plan was to have some as an afternoon snack, and the rest for breakfast the next day.
Well breakfast was bacon and eggs because it was so good that the wife and I polished it off in one sitting.
Thank you for an excellent recipe Hank.
Hi Hank! This recipe looks amazing. How much butter should I start with if I am omitting the bacon?
Kate: I’d start with 1/4 cup.
I have that wonderful book, “The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth”. It’s good to see it lauded in your excellent column. This dish reminds me not just of lovely times in the Alps, but most especially of a great restaurant (sadly no more) in the Latin Quarter of Paris, Le Savoyard. It was just like stepping into the alpine chalet of good friends, and every dish (naturally) featured bacon, mushrooms, and cheese in one way or another. I can still see the great chunks of tomme melting under the hot irons, and smell the bubbling raclette, the beef and cheese fondues. Sigh! For mushrooms on toast, they added a splash of brandy, and used creme fraiche (which is likely what the book would have suggested if it were written now, but back then, before Julia Child, I don’t imagine that anyone in North America had ever heard of creme fraiche). Thanks for sharing yet another splendid dish.
Hank/Holly –
Can you use reconstituted dry mushrooms in this recipe? I have a feeling it would require an additional step or two and change the proportions somewhat. But I have so many dried morels, hedgehogs and black trumpets awaiting consumption!
Any ideas appreciated.
Cheers
Arthur: I am sure it would work mechanically, but rehydrated mushrooms have a very different texture that might not be as nice. Of the three you mention, I’d try it only with the morels.
I got my copy of Duck Duck Goose … Thank you ,
Is this recipe one that will be in a cookbook ?
I will be using this as an appetizer on acorn bread for my next wild game dinner !
The best yet for a quick comforting meal.
As the photographer and Taste Tester in Chief for this recipe, I can confirm it is A M A Z I N G!
Hank,
Another great recipe!
On my weekend to do list.
Tad
Dear Hank, this is a lovely fragrant timely savory recipe. Thank you
1) would sage be a good addition? Dried or fresh…started with the bacon and onions because it’s strong
2) do the reported calories cover the bread for each serving or is it only the mushrooms savoyarde?
Tuffy: Yes, sage would be good. I’d use fresh. I think the reported calories include the bread, but don’t hang your head on them — it’s a program we all use to guesstimate calories.
Ok thanks