Sautéed Mushrooms

When it comes to cooking mushrooms, there are really no rules for me. Take a fat of your choice, a couple of aromatics of your choice, and your mushroom of choice, season with salt and maybe pepper, and let it cook until slightly golden—and that's pretty much it. 

As a mushroom lover, there is no wrong way to cook or eat mushrooms in my book: white button mushrooms are perfect for eating raw with creamy garlic hummus or throwing into a salad, big portobellos are stuffed and baked or grilled with a light dressing, shiitakes are great in a hot and sour soup. But sometimes the most delicious ways are also the simplest, and you just can’t beat a simple sauteed mushroom.We’re calling this a recipe for sauteed mushrooms, but to be honest, it’s more just a handful of guidelines for you to follow on your path to some magically delicious mushrooms. Read on for our 5 easy steps to get you there: 

Clean your mushrooms.

Many respected sources say you should NEVER wash mushrooms because it makes them soggy, but you absolutely can! You’re about to cook them, and as long as you don’t pack them together too tightly, any leftover moisture will evaporate while they’re in the pan. The best way to wash mushrooms is to give them a little bath in a bowl filled with cool water. Just be gentle, and make sure you drain by lifting them out by hand onto a dry kitchen towel instead of dumping them into a colander – along with the grit you just cleaned off! Just be sure to pat them as dry as possible before putting them in the pan, or your fat might start spitting when the water droplets hit it!

Choose a delicious fat for cooking.

Any kind of oil, butter, or even rendered bacon fat or schmaltz will work perfectly with mushrooms. If you’re following a plant-based diet, olive oil is a great option. If you’re okay with dairy, butter really boosts the mushroom’s umami, so we highly recommend using a few pats of that culinary gold for the perfect stovetop shroom! Whatever fat you use, just make sure to evenly coat the mushrooms in it once you put them in the pan, and then leave them to sizzle in that fat so they can get to that golden brown deliciousness that we all love so much! 

Add some more flavor.

Once your mushrooms are lightly golden, it’s time to add your aromatics. We’ve gone with garlic and rosemary here, but you could swap them out for any herbs you want: wintry thyme, sage or oregano, or the more springtime flavors of chives or dill. You can also add shallots or onions if you like, but since those have more moisture, which will inhibit some of that gorgeous golden-browning, we recommend cooking them in the fat before you add the mushrooms, and then taking them out of the pan so they don’t burn while the mushrooms cook. You can toss them back in at the end. If you want to use dried spices, such as paprika, cumin, fennel seed, or curry powder, you’ll want to add them in at the very end — and make sure there’s a little fat still left so they can bloom properly and release their flavor. 

Deglaze!

Once the mushrooms are golden and crispy and you’ve added your aromatics, you’ll want to add a liquid to the pan to deglaze and pick up all that delicious golden fond that developed on the bottom of the pan. We keep it simple by deglazing with water, but you can also use any variety of broth or even cream to get the same effect while injecting even more flavor. Just pour it in and then scrape at the bottom of the pan to lift up all that flavor!

Bonus: storing uncooked mushrooms.

If you have leftover mushrooms that you haven’t cooked, they’ll last up to 4 days in the refrigerator. Just make sure they’re absolutely dry (we recommend waiting to wash them until right before you’re ready to cook them) and loosely wrapped in plastic. Don’t forget to poke a few holes in your plastic so they can breathe!

Love mushrooms as much as I do? Check out these recipes featuring more amazing ways to use mushrooms. Drop us a comment down below to let us know how you liked these shrooms!