I underestimated the yield of my homegrown mushrooms. I thought I would have a steady supply over the next few weeks, but instead, they all matured at once. As a result, I now have 2-3 kg of mushrooms, with another batch expected in about a week. I plan to make a pasta-mushroom casserole, pizza, capsicum-mushroom lecso, and mushroom cream soup, but I still have a lot left. Do you have any suggestions for how I can use them?
You can always dry them. Allegedly you can freeze them if you cook/steam them beforehand, but I have never tried that.
We freeze raw shiitake all the time. It works OK with button mushrooms as well. With the latter, the texture can suffer a bit so it might not be good for your usecase (or you might want to slice and/or cook them first, but I’ve never done that).
By raw are you saying raw raw? Like pick the mushroom, shove it into a freezer bag and freeze it? I’m asking because all the tips I got where “slightly fry it, cool it and then freeze it”. If it’s the raw raw thing, does the vacuum sealing would make a change?
From the grocery store straight into my freezer as-is. So far as I am aware, none have been processed in any way other than harvesting.
Slice and dehydrated some!
Dehydrated mushies can be kept (long shelf life) to add to meals. Or put them through a food processor to make a powder (takes up much less space, if that’s an issue for you) which is great for extra flavour in soups, sauces, casseroles, etc.
Slice them, then either steam or sautee them.
Then put them on a cookie sheet, let them cool off completely and put the sheet in a freezer.
Scrape them off with a spatula, vacuum-pack them and put the bags back in the freezer.
They’ll last for a year.This is how I get my pizza mushroom from :)
Line the pan with parchment so you don’t have to scrape the pan.
Mushroom stock comes to mind. Just, uh, makes sure to rinse them well first. (forget cloudy stock. sandy stock is ewww)
I will rinse it right but I’m all in for the mushroom cream (not soup) so I don’t mind much about the colour :)
Cloudy stock is like soggy pie crust bottoms to certain crowds. Though generally speaking, a cloudy stock is less about messing something up and more about what you’ve added to veg stock. (or it could be “over” cooked- if you just kept it at a simmer the entire time, it should just be a matter of filtering the liquid. or going full on consomme-clear with the whole chill it-and-egg-whites process to filter it.)
if you do make vege stock with scraps; mushrooms definitely add a positive flavor too it. this is more of a use-it-or-loose-it phase of salvaging the shrooms. (or scraps, carrot and apple peels feature in my stock, too. as well as onion skins and garlic-ends that I just can’t be arsed to mince all the way down.)
By the way, you can use stock of all types for more things than just soup. for example, using stock instead of water for rice will definitely improve the flavor. (veg or chicken stock; beef stock was… weird…). same goes for stews; including mushroom stews and beef stews (veg stock here.)
Every time I have a chicken I save the bones and when I get enough I make a chicken broth for infusing chicken soup or for all kind of sauces. Sometimes I use it for cooking rice. Having said that I could make a mushroom soup/cream with the chicken broth I have.
Mushroom ketchup and dust! Townsend’s Mushroom Ketchup
You could make a bunch of pasta sauce and freeze it. And you could also make a bunch of chili and freeze that as well. Mushrooms give it a great flavor. And lastly, vegetable soup, and freeze that.
Mushroom stroganoff, mushroom pot pies, mushroom pasta sauce. And yeah, I made a similar mistake :/
Food dehydrator.
Dehydrate and turn into a powder. That 2-3kg will make like 200g of powder that adds a big umami hit to anything it is added to.
You could try to pickle them? The recipe I found uses 2tbsp sugar , 2tbsp salt, 1tbsp vinegar , black pepper and bay leaves for 1l water and 1kg of mushrooms. You cook the mushrooms for half an hour, then boil the brine as well, mix the mushrooms with the syrup, cook together for 15’ and put them to jars. I haven’t tried it yet, though.
Quick cook and freeze, Soup (and freeze), Slice and dehydrate, Use in pasta sauce and jar
I’m considering blanching mushrooms but it will limit the future use. I know, not a big deal but still I like my mushroom fresh.
Mushroom conserve
Make some good old English pies!
Chicken Marsala. One cannot add too much mushroom to that dish.
The problem with chicken masrala is that there’s a lot of marsala left. Which means there’s a marsala weekend that always ends up with tequila shots :)
