This recipe for sautéed mushrooms involves steaming and releasing their own water, then cooking them for 5-10 minutes. After draining and drying the pan, return it to high heat. The recipe uses fresh thyme and oregano for an herby punch. To cook the mushrooms, start by cleaning them thoroughly before sautéing them in a skillet. Wipe each mushroom with a paper towel or brush them with a soft brush.
In a high-sided sauté pan, add the mushrooms and water, cook until the mushrooms collapse, 2 to 4 minutes, then add the butter. Cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, 7 to 10 minutes. Avoid rinsing mushrooms before sautéing them as they are porous and absorb water, inhibiting browning.
To cook the mushrooms, heat an 11-inch, high-sided sauté pan over high heat for 45 seconds. Add the mushrooms and water, cook until the mushrooms collapse, 2 to 4 minutes, then add the butter. Cook, stirring occasionally, until browned, 7 to 10 minutes.
Steaming the mushrooms in water before sautéing them surrounds them with heat, allowing them to collapse faster and exude their own moisture. After washing them, put the mushrooms in a wok or skillet and add enough water to cover them. Turn on the heat and let the mushrooms speak to you. Mushrooms consist of 80 to 90 water and do all the work for you. No oil, butter, or salt is even needed.
📹 The wet method of cooking mushrooms
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📹 How to cook mushrooms properly
This is a basic video that will show you the proper technique of how to properly fry mushrooms. Although you can cook …
I filmed in a restaurant in the middle of Burgundy that specialises in mushrooms – Auberge de L’Artre. The chef there, Francis, knew more about cooking mushrooms than, well, most… Here’s his technique: put your chopped mushrooms into a dry pan, quickly cook off the moisture moving them constantly (like a wok chef), then add tons of butter, a dash of salt, cook without burning the butter. Boom. Crazy delicious.
I actually just wash the mushrooms off and throw ALL of the mushrooms in the pan dry because of how much water is in the mushrooms. I’ve noticed that most of the common ones that you get in the little cartons in the grocery stores will typically just spill out of all their water and will use that to stop sticking and burning.
No idea about mushrooms but eggplants work in a similar fashion: when you first add oil to sauteé eggplant it gets absorbed almost immediately but as the eggplants cook it “returns” the oil back to the pan. Took me a couple of tries and a very angry Brazilian mom to tell me why my eggplants were always so oily lol.
I think the water trick fails when it’s done as you described, using water as a 1-to-1 replacement for oil – you need far less, JUST enough to keep the mushrooms from sticking and to coax them into giving up their own moisture. Using a very sparing amount eliminates the issue of having to wait for all of that surplus water to evaporate and you can move on to the oil very quickly. Drier is better!
Well, I use the anti water trick. I slice all the mushrooms and give those slices some time to dry (from a few hours to a day in the fridge). It makes the spongy things inside the mushroom more kind of brittle and they seem to absorb less water, also they have less water in them to start with. Remember your slice of bread, it’s like you let it dry out a bit, as if it went a little bit stale. You get more flavorsome roasted mushrooms that way and you don’t have to cook them as long. It’s similar to frying a steak, you want to pat down the steak to make it dry, it’ll have a much nicer crust then.Use oil, but use somewhat dried mushroom slices. Faster, more tastier, and less oil absorbed. This also works with onions, slice them thinly and dry them a bit. You can thank me later.
I’m not classicaly trained, so take my advice with a huge pinch of salt(!), but I think I found a pretty solid way of cooking mushrooms back when I cooked an obscene amount of “full english” breakfasts in a busy British pub. I found cooking evenly sliced mushrooms in a third of their volume of water with a pinch of salt, pepper and sugar would produce this gorgeous and umami-filled mushroom “broth”, which would then turn into a sort of concentraited mushroom syrup once cooked further, then once they were cooked down to that stage and the syrup was thick and just barely clinging to the mushrooms then I’d then turn the heat up to high and saute them in a little butter very quickly to colour them to a deep mohogany colour. They were a little “rubbery” in texture like how you experienced Adam, but for me, the flavour was more than worth that sacrifice.
As an experienced home cook and being a french dude, when I’m cooking mushrooms I’m starting with the mushrooms by themselves in the pan on medium heat, no need to add anything because they contain the water already. Only after I got rid of a decent amount of their water contained inside, I’m adding a little bit of butter WITH the oil ! The oil has a higher smoke point than butter and is going to prevent the butter form burning. The butter is interesting here because it’s gonna help get a nice color and add a nutty flavor (what we call in french beurre noisette). Then for example, after mushrooms have shrinked decently, I’m gonna add some fresh diced garlic and cilantro or parsley (according to your tastes) 3 min before the end (be careful with garlic because it doesn’t like high temperature and will become black and bitter if not used properly). The most common mistake is that people are not patient and wanna do everything fast. But good cooking takes time and patience and often the best results are achieved with low temperature and patience (you get also to keep all the good vitamins). Of course sometime you need medium to high temperatures to obtain the “Maillard reaction” (crust and caramelization), but it has to be controlled and monitored carefully. keep in mind also that Mushrooms are acting like little “sponges”. That’s precisely why they go perfectly with recipes like beef stews etc, (what we call in french : “plats en sauce” literally “dishes with/in sauce”)
Here is what I figured out: You can also add salt very early. This helps to draw moisture out of the mushrooms. Remember that mushrooms are ~90% water. Unlike the water method you cook for a shorter time and so they end up less leathery. And unlike the traditional method you usually don’t need to add more oil because at that stage the water starts to come out. Just cook until the water is evaporated and then some of the oil comes out and you can brown them. I noticed that this works better the riper / softer they are (when their heads are mostly open)
I’m curious how my method works with store-bought mushrooms, but for fresh foraged mushrooms, I’ve learned to heat them in a dry pan until a little after the water comes out, then add oil (specifically butter) and finish. This works fantastically for porcini, which is pretty similar to a giant button mushroom. I usually end up with nicely crisped slices.
If you do the dry method with a bit of salt, they release their water much faster. So I usually just do a ton of mushrooms and some salt in a dry pan and the thermal interface is there pretty quickly. I didn’t even realize people brown mushrooms in oil because they’re just so tasty already, but I also know pretty much nothing of cooking and this is the only cooking website I watch lol.
I’ve been gathering, eating and cooking wild and farmed mushrooms for around 50 years. While cooking, mushrooms are like a delicate, young, little child and need your full attention. I have found the best way to cook the cremini farmed type is to start with a pretty hot, dry pan and toss the mushrooms in, sliced or chunked, constantly moving them to prevent sticking but also to allow each one to touch the hot surface and start to brown, even if just momentarily. Seriously, dont look away, dont walk away, keep moving them around in the hot pan. This method seems to lock in the majority of the moisture if done correctly and doesnt burn the food either. As the level of brown gets to my liking, I then make room in the pan off to the side and then add a small amount of oil or butter to this blank area so it has time to heat up BEFORE it is touching the mushrooms. DO NOT put cold oil on semi-cooked, hot mushrooms! And only use as much oil or butter as you think is needed to coat the mushrooms. Turn the heat down as needed to prevent burning. Season to taste and enjoy!
I cook my mushrooms with butter, and I cook them lightly. It more reliably distributes the heat, even when it is absorbed into the hyphae, tastes better than any cooking oil, and by the end it browns super nicely. They taste cooked, remain 2/3 the size, are very juicy, and don’t piss water all over your food. I don’t like wetting them to clean them, because they get slimy. And when they’re slimy like that, they just leak all over and take longer to cook properly.l, in my experience. Give butter a try! 🙂
A similar trick I got from Dan over on America’s Test Kitchen is microwaving your mushrooms first, it produces something similar to the water trick except it’s easier to separate the shrooms from their liquid imo (and you can save said liquid for later to enhance your sauce or something) and as such there’s less “overcooking” But I’m also very much in the traditional camp but only add fat at the start, don’t add more, the fats will just come back out after a while
i agreed with the problems you had with the water method, so i modified it slightly. i use far less water, and i cover and steam the mushrooms, this partially collapses the shrooms, then i add oil to brown, and since the steaming only half cooks them, they don’t get nearly as firm. i work in a kitchen, on a griddle, so i use a squirt of water from the bottle i have on hand (a couple tablespoons), and i put the griddle cover lid thing over it while i get the rest of the sandwich going.
If you add any water then the surface of the pan will cool down significantly and you won’t be able to get any colour on the shrooms. The water they release is enough to prevent sticking and temper the high heat, but you will have to shake and toss them to prevent burning. This will be a very fast cook and you should add oil only after they start releasing water. You won’t need much and it will allow you to enhance them with flavours like garlic, herbs 👌🏻
I suspect this has already been addressed, but when you use the water method, drain the pan after a few minutes on high heat to let them express their internal water, reserving the liquid. If you want a really crisp texture, use the water method and when the mushrooms are at your desired texture, remove them from the pan, toss them with a starch like corn or potato starch or wheat flour and then give them a quick, hot shallow fry in a fat. They won’t absorb as much and they’ll have a crisp exterior. Personally, I have no problems cooking mushrooms on extremely high heat with just a little fat as long as I do it in batches, though I usually use a (functionally non-stick) wok. One final thought on the water-method generally – why use water? Why not add some flavor? I’ll have to try the technique out using things like wine, brandy, stock/broth and maybe even milk or cream and low heat?
Personally instead of water, I add small amounts of stock. I find the mushrooms taste better, and the fat in the stock helps control sticking. By only adding that small amount of liquid and regularly topping it up, you gain a lot of control as to when the browning phase starts and as an added bonus the stock usually creates some fond in the pan which can be deglazed into a nice mushroom sauce.
There’s a third method, usually used for cooking a ton of mushrooms at a time: Put pounds of mushrooms in a deep pot, add a little bit of cold wine and cold water and turn on the heat. Put a lid on the pot and steam the mushrooms until they start expelling water. You can now remove the lid and cook away the water. I’ve seen this method done with ice cubes and wine too.
I make a mushroom based “cheesesteak” in which I use a copious amount of Worcestershire sauce in the first stage of cooking, then add beef tallow for browning to finish. This makes the most savory “cheesesteak” style sandwich I’ve ever had. (I may or may not also use a bit of MSG) But I find that the sponge-like nature of mushrooms to absorb whatever you put in the pan with them is an amazing way to just compound savory flavors.
Nice article @Adam Ragusea. I’m trying it today. One note: Though it sounds counter intuitive, water does not evaporate only at 100 Celsius, it can evaporate under any temperature above its freezing point, only much less so under its boiling point. At low pressures even below 0 C. Otherwise, we would never see clouds without oceans, seas, lakes and rivers literary boil. It does boil at 100 C at 0 m altitude and normal atmospheric pressure.
Whenever I’m browning mushrooms for a soup I start with a bit of oil and salt, then as the oil starts to dry up I turn the heat a bit lower and pour a bit of soup stock into the pan and keep cooking with that. Since the mushrooms are going into a soup anyways it’s fine to remove them from the pan before it all boils away so you can get the desired texture while filling the mushrooms with the flavour of the broth before they go soggy. The best bit is putting the remaining mushroomy broth in the stock I freeze for the next time I make more stock. I’ve found that this method of cooking mushrooms to go in soup works quite well and also elevates the next stock I make.
I eat sauteed mushrooms almost every day, there are some things Adam got wrong here. Here are my 4 tips for the most delicious, juicy, carmelized mushrooms you have ever had. (Dont sautee them in water). 1. Cutting them in much larger peices (For Crimini and Baby Bella I almost always do halves) and starting with a very hot pan will allow you to get a beautiful browned color (Maillard reaction) on the outside while not shrinking the mushroom too much and keeping the center juicy, tender, and flavorful. Add the oil first and wait until it spits when your throw a drop of water into the pan to put them in. Putting mushrooms in a cold pan and adding cold oil will never give you the best results. 2. You should wait until right before you take them out to season them, as Adam mentioned the salt aggresively dehydrates the mushrooms and results in a pan full of water and a leathery shrunken mushroom. 3. I would use a lot less oil here then Adam is using – you really only need enough to barely coat the bottom of the pan to eliminate sticking and transfer heat (on a stainless steel chefs pan). The mushrooms may appear more “dry” in the pan then normal veggies but that is only because the oil has been absorbed into the very outer layers of the mushroom. When you pour them out of the pan and you get a slick of oil (9:55) its a good sign you overdid it. 4. Don’t stir them so much! I see Adam is constantly stirring here, which is disturbing the browning process by flipping the mushrroms and allowing the hot sides to cool off before the browning reaction has occured.
You don’t even need water. Just about every time I make hamburgers, I simply toss some mushrooms straight in the pan after I take the burgers out and cover it. There’s not really any grease left in the pan, but the spices and char left over from the burgers are there. Just cover the pan (to trap the water coming out of the mushrooms) and cook/steam them while stirring occasionally. They also get a nice sear from the pan and take on the flavor from the hamburgers too. All in all, easiest way i’ve found to cook them.
I usually give them a quick dry roast in a non-stick pan with a bit of salt, let them shrink by roughly a third their original size and then hit them up with an appropriate amount of fat. Never had to deal with any torrents of hot oil and water or add too much fat and end up with oil dripping mushrooms.
When I saw this hack, I was sketchy about it and kinda ended up having the same problem. Rather than putting too much and slowly using less, I did the opposite. I figured if I’ve been cooking mushrooms with oil in the past, a worst-case scenario is water spits up like usual. Then, slowly, I added more and more water for the initial process until I felt like I had the ratio perfect. I figure even if you don’t use enough water, you’re still using less oil, and that’s the main goal. I’ve never actually cared about the tiny bit of oil that splashes up. I just want my mushrooms to absorb less oil.
I’m with you on this Adam. Personally nothing beats hot oil and the right amount of time, when it comes to cooking mushrooms. The water “”hack”” makes them feel rubbery and dense. It seems more like something that you’d learn on TikTok as opposed to a good chef. Everyone has a different perspective and palate though, so if it works for you, then by all means do it!
I like the denser texture. I find the softer texture of mushrooms cooked the conventional way to be extremely unappetizing, even if its encased in a more crusty brown surface. I’ll always use the water trick, I love it. I wonder why you didn’t try to just empty the water out before they shrank too much. Fresh mushrooms, especially the white button and baby bella variety have very little flavor anyway, whatever flavor you lost out on by dumping the water I don’t think would be a big deal.
Interesting as always 😊 Although you didn’t mention the difference in taste between the two methods. For me at least I feel that the mushrooms cooked in water first has a much stronger “mushroomy”/umami flavour than the conventional method, why is that? Maybe more of the glutamate in the mushroom is released during the water phase and concentrated on the surface when the water reduces and you fry them in oil, giving a more imidiate umami taste? The mushroom definetly gets smaller and a tiny bit tougher as you mentioned, but I don’t mind that in exchange for the taste😊
Adam, you should seriously try the method I use. I initially add the mushrooms to a pan heated medium high and let them cook until they release their water, flip then wait till all water is evaporated. Then add your oil and brown until they are the desired texture. The advantages of doing it this way is that you use far less oil and you can also make them very crispy if you so chose this way because you push most of the water out.
Ragusea… You can just pour off the water when the mushrooms are at the ideal pt. Thats what i do with them and with meats as well. Like, i like to actually pour off the liquid from ground beef after i pour in a bit of water (or white wine, or for me; vinegar) to deglaze it a bit the first time. I then brown up the meat properly in just my cast iron with whatev residue liquid/oil is left, and then readd the liquid which gets absorbed so much more back into the meat (or mushrooms) I love that method bcuz it gets me juicier meats and shrooms, while also havin crispy browned bits
Beginner’s guide for cooking mushrooms (or anything else) in oil: 1. pre-heat the oil so that it will immediately begin to seal the food surface upon contact, preventing rapid absorbtion of low-temperature oil into the food, which would make it extremely inefficient to heat; like trying to heat a bottle of water on a pan. Mushrooms don’t seal as well as many other foods and will drink oil until they’re fully saturated regardless, but it’s still much more efficient to heat the oil first 2. add the food 2.000001. immediately turn the food, making sure to cover every surface in oil before the oil is absorbed. This way, you’ll never need to add more oil and you’ll also have a thin film of oil conducting heat around the surface of the food – as a result, this is the most efficient way to heat the food on a pan 3. turn the food again when one side’s cooked, or just randomly turn it all the time to ensure that it all has about the same cooking time on average 4. profit
You kinda answered a question I had about mushrooms and washing them in water. I’ve always done this, with the rationale being that they’re already full of water anyway (which is why they wilt down so small) and they’re gonna be cooked, which drives off any excess moisture and allows flavours to concentrate. So is the “Don’t wash mushrooms!” conventional wisdom pretty much debunked at this point? I’d love to see a article on this 🙂
I’m not a huge fan of mushrooms, but my mom is. She’ll often cook some mushrooms to put on pizza that she makes. Rather than doing it in a pan on the stove, she actually puts them on parchment on a baking sheet and bakes them. I wonder if maybe this works because it dries them out a bit more, which might work better with pizza rather than the more oily ones you’d get from a sautee.
So…here’s what I learned from Chef John in his mushroom burger patty article (honestly, the best non-meat burger I’ve ever had, and I’ve had ’em all!): – Start with a dry pan – Low heat – Dump mushrooms in – Add some pinches of salt – Then it’s slow and low until you get to where you want to go. In the case of the burger patty, it’s a good long while. BUT, I also watched Ramsay make an “improved” full English breakfast… and he did the mushrooms the same way except he only sliced them in half. At a certain point, the water is almost all gone and then he drops butter, rosemary and garlic in the pan at which point (he says) the mushroom will suck up the new liquid. I don’t know about that. I could just be coated with the sauce but it’s to the same end I suppose.
ALMOST the way I do it! I never relied on certain parts of instruction taken from internet sources but came to it mostly through experience. In fact, I do not add any water nor oil for the first many minutes cooking mushroom in the pan. Water plentifully comes out of them while cooking – so THERE is the water needed. I add the oil only when most of the water has gone.
I didn’t know cooking mushrooms in oil was even possible, my mom taught me some cooking growing up and when she sauteed mushrooms it was always with water- I just assumed it made the mushrooms too oily or something the other way but never asked. Now it makes sense why ours at home always tasted better 😃
Interesting article, but my exprience explicitly and uniformly contradicts what you’re saying about cooking mushrooms in a dry pan – which is the method I’ve used for a few years ever since I came across it one day and decided to try. This works with zero sticking regardless if I’m using my (well seasoned) carbon steel pan or my larger stainless steel pan: heat the pan to high heat – hot enough that the mushrooms squeak when you move them around in the pan. Add the mushrooms, keep stirring until they soften – which goes very quickly at these temperatures. The pan barely gets moist, as most released moisture evaporates immediately. After the mushrooms are softened to near my desired result, add some oil and any desired seasonings and brown until finished. Near zero spatter, no sticking, no mess, and incredibly quick and easy.
I use the water trick for foraged mushrooms that either have toxins you wanna cook out or might have had things crawling on them so you want to make sure they’re well cooked to kill off any nasties. I don’t mind a denser mushroom though. I am literally sat here eating home made mushroom jerky and its delicious!
When I was a kid, about 40 years ago, we used to go on vacation in a forest cabin, from where we would often go mushroom hunting in the woods with my mom and my grandma. Grandma would always boil mushrooms, then remove water using colander and only then fry them on a pan in oil. Back then forest mushrooms where basically the only source of mushrooms, the farmed mushrooms became a thing only in the 1990-s in our place.
An old trick I learned from a cook is to use a wok, heat with high heat oil and swish it around the whole surface. Let it begin to smoke before disposing of the oil in the pan by pouring itn into a heatsafe container until theres just a film of oil, reduce heat to a medium ish then toss in torn up blue oyster mushroom pieces (thats the problem with this method- it wont be nearly as good on mushrooms like cremini or button, it’ll work but it’s best with mushrooms that have a bit of a “grain” to them in their growth, like meat). Keep it moving and let the water start to come out- then it will begin to brown. Let it brown to taste, then turn heat off, give it a sec to not be ripping hot, and optionally finish quickly with sesame oil and soy sauce. This avoids oil saturation, provides browning, and enhances a “meatlike” quality in these mushrooms. For that reason, it’s not how I ALWAYS cook mushrooms, but when I want to enjoy them as is, this is my go to.
Both wrong and snooty…a punchable combination 😂. Truth. Love it. Also can I just say that I tried using my mushrooms that were just starting to go soggy by putting them in water with some other delicious savory things and just boiling them into mush with other savory scraps. I strained them, put the broth into an ice cube tray, and now add the cubes to stuff like Ramen and Asian-inspired soups. I call ’em umami bombs. They’re my secret weapon.
Sinking or not is usually a question of density. Considering you cut them in roughly the same shape, surface tension discrepancy is entirely out of the window. Oil (fat) has a density of 0.9 which is why it floats. When food is being cooked, they’re going through denaturation and then carbonization. I suppose you were right that the water method cooked mushroom sunk the quickest because it was the most thoroughly cooked – denatured to the highest degree. Btw, the so-called “water method” is most famously used for caramelization as water/steam has the highest heat transfer coefficient and thus the most efficient way to denature the food so that it can be ready for caramelization. It’s not just limited to mushroom browning or making caramelized onions, but also in bakery such as making the crust of baguette and various bread.
what mushroom? species have different characteristics, some dense, some airy, some heavy, some light… how is the mushroom cut? how is it cooked? how hot? what oil? water can be used, but how much water? in what manner? soak? saute? vapour shock? i self discovered the water trick 30 years ago, i also accidentally discovered soaking light and airy mushrooms in oil for few days makes them taste amazing? i love your articles, but this isnt grayscale enough
I have never even considered using oil for cooking mushrooms… Seems like it would add a strange, unwanted flavour to them. Butter is the best way to cook mushrooms, because you don’t get that spitting phase, but you also get a beautifully browned, and flavourful mushroom afterward without cooking the living daylights out of the things.
I’ve not cooked mushrooms but if you only want to partially cook in water before browning I would dump the excess water the mushrooms are releasing into a bowl and evaporate what is left quickly before adding the oil to brown. Then the left over mushroom water I’m guessing you can use as a wet umami flavouring for something else.
I just let my mushrooms sit on medium heat in oil, with a sprinkle of salt on them, until they release their water. Then start even trying to actually brown them. I tend to do it similar to caramelizing onions (no added sugar), I think mushrooms reeeally come into their own both texture and flavor wise if they are left on medium until caramelized. I usually don’t have the patience for that, but I still just add salt and then would turn up the heat only after the water is gone.
I add a cup or so of water at the start and boil them at the max setting on my induction stove until the water is (mostly) gone once I’m at that stage I add in butter and saute until slightly crispy and golden brown. This saves me a lot of time as I only need to actively babysit the mushrooms for a few minutes near the end, and I have never had problems with their taste or texture. I sometimes do something similar with eggplant when I want them completely browned and dissolved into the sauce — this also helps thicken the sauce with less flour or starches.
Haven’t particularly thought about the science to it, but I always cook mushrooms in salted butter. It’s a mix of water & fat, my mushrooms always turn out perfectly if done for a fair while at a medium high heat. Maybe using butter gives the mushrooms & butter a chance to evaporate their water off together & form enough of a cooked surface that by the time they are cooking purely in butter fat they don’t absorb the oil? Oh & speaking as a Brit & lover of the occasional “full Scottish” breakfast, a “fried slice” (some bread fried in the mixed bacon & sausage fat) is a heavenly though occasional slice of heaven.
Would it be better to cook mushrooms in a pressure cooker? The high pressure lets water reach higher temperatures, and maybe you could cook the mushrooms well enough in just water, or add just a small amount of oil later. I’m a cook noob, so I don’t know if this makes sense, but my first thought after you mentioning the water not getting hot enough was using a pressure cooker.
8:54 — alternative possible explanation: the longer cooking (water, end with oil) ends up with a denser mushroom (more water left in the process of cooking) which explains (at least part of) the higher density relative to water (this presumes the body of the mushroom is denser than water; no idea if that’s true.)
I do a variation on this, I don’t add any water or oil, I just pile them up and microwave them in a huge batch.Then I freeze them and use them as needed. I have noticed that if you cut the mushrooms too thick, then they go chewy. I think the problem is that the outside dries out first. If you cut them thinner, then the moisture can escape from the center and they don’t dry out so unevenly and they don’t go chewy.
I never thought that’s a topic! Everything he says, I figured out on my own. Now I prefer cooking 400g of sliced mushrooms without any added water or oil on very low heat. When the juice comes out, I drain it (and keep it for later – great mushroom taste). I keep cooking the mushrooms until they shran and are completly dry and start “burning” a little bit – you start to smell them suddenly from across the room. Then I add just a little bit of oil (I might try butter). Voila!
It’s almost like I saw this before my mushroom pasta I made last night. I had a medley of different mushrooms. Cut them so that they had good surface area contact (oyster mushrooms need to be sliced like cauliflower for this method) and they all cooked down quite well and browned nicely. Hours later I thought back and was really just impressed with how much better tasting, and better texture it had when compared to chicken, which can be over cooked and get tough, can be undercooked and be unsafe, or might just not absorb enough flavor which can lead you to getting kinda tired of chicken over time. I will be trying different techniques like deep frying the hen of the woods, or oyster mushrooms that have that more intricate growth pattern. Also using it in place of chicken in dishes such as fajitas- I think there’s a lot of potential there
I cook my mushrooms in a dry pan with lots of stirring. Starting with a cold pan gives the mushrooms time to release some of their own water before they burn. And once that boils off they are usually flat enough to get some browning on the bare pan. It’s a little higher effort than using water/oil in a hot pan but the result is great. The mushrooms are tender and flavorful without being saturated with oil.
Mushrooms are fibrous. It is this fiber which allows air pockets and spores. The flavor of a mushroom is predominantly contained in the spores. To maximize the release of the flavor requires an extraction. Does one make tea with water or oil? Covering the mushrooms in water and then boiling it off does 2 things. 1. It breaks down the skeletal fiber and tenderizes it and 2. It basically brews a mushroom tea, which when reduced and then has butter or oil added makes a superb gravy and lovely browned mushrooms.
I really didn’t need to see a mushroom up close and personal like that, thanks Adam. I mostly toss them with onions in a bowl with one teaspoon of oil, pepper, and a bit of black salt, and toss them into the air fryer with whatever I am cooking in there at the 8 minutes left mark, boom, tasty and a lot of the oil is just left in the air fryer tray.
At my house, we will frequently buy mushrooms in bulk from Costco, slice them up, and bag them to tuck in our standing freezer in the garage. Is this the best way of doing mushrooms? Honestly, no, however, when we warm them back up again, they’ve already released a lot of their moisture, so they’re more ready to go to the browning phase. Also, the liquid from the bag is full of the mushroom flavor, so that works for enriching the flavors of the dishes that we tend to do.
Dude! I make my own cream of mushroom for the green bean casserole on Thanksgiving every year and that’s the one side dish there is no leftovers. Use a thin layer of olive oil or butter and cook them very low flipping them every ten minutes. When they are half the size, add salt and up the heat to med low and flip every 3 to 4 minutes until browned. It can take an hour to 2 hours depending on the mushrooms and humidy.I do this for steaks and hamburger steaks when making a brown sauce gravy. I prefer small whole mushrooms with steak but sliced works since it’s faster. Thanks for the article.
The water method is better for whole button mushrooms, not sliced. I add the water a little at a time, cook it off, add more. Cooks them good and slow while I focus on the main dish. Each time they let out more juices which brown when the water dries up. Then when I add more it deglazes the pan. I usually add garlic before the last splash of water and let it get fragrant. Salt and oil/butter go in at the end. I still get good color and flavorful mushrooms.
I’ve found that Champignons don’t like too much surface area. I just toss them into the pan without cutting them into pieces, just removing the stem. Some oil, a little bit of garlic at the end, just brown them how you like them. They come out way juicier and less greasy. I chop up mushrooms only when I am making a sauce or I try to blend them with other ingredients. Mushrooms are really delicious raw, too. Just chop them up and throw them into a salad. My favorite way of eating mushrooms.
I put a cover on the mushroom pan, with a little salt. As the water releases, drain it off into a side dish (usually 2 drains, maybe 3). Ideally, remove the mushrooms reheat the pan adding oil or butter and the mushrooms to crisp them up, but you can just heat in the pan too. That mushroom water on the side will make an excellent addition to the dish, or can be the basis for a quick mushroom sauce.
As a mushroom farmer/self taught chef, here’s my take. I never go with water for the same reason you stated, too thoroughly cooked. What I do is start with a med high heat pan, add oil or unsalted butter, add mushrooms…….and here’s the trick…..don’t touch them. let them saute as is until you see the edges browning. Stir. Don’t touch them again. stir. Don’t touch them again. Your mushrooms will be beautifully browned. Salt only at the very end and enjoy. Love your articles!
I think that cooking mushrooms in oil or water collapses the hyphae the same way. And its not completely collapsed…at least at first. When they’re cooked I think there’s still a little bit of space that’s occupied by either oil or water. In the water cooking method you finish off by evaporating all of the water and that includes the water inside the mushroom and as it boils off it pulls a vacuum internally and that further collapses the mushroom structure. In the oil cooking method the internal space filled with oil doesn’t evaporate and thus doesn’t fully collapse and retains its lighter texture
Coincidentally, as I am perusal this, three days after being published, I have picked up some nice fresh wood blewits while walking the dog in the morning and I will be preparing them with my new favourite wild mushroom delivery system; pizza. No worries about water. Thanks for the tips, as always an informative article.
I used to cook fresh mushrooms for taste until i tried resturant deep frozen mushrooms. And heres how i got immense flavour from the mushroom. Cook them in some butter, low temp and let the water flood out. Let em cook till your preferred colour then add some butter at the end when theres still water left. A lot of the butter will stay in the pan/water but some goes in the mushrom. The mushroom taste A LOT and even teh water/butter left in the pam serves as an awesome starter for mushroom broth or sauce.
If you feel like it over cooks evaporating on the pan you can empty out the contents into another container, dry if you want, then evaporate everything in the pan. You can then proceed with really hot oil like normal and give it a good brown (mind the spitting). If the oil isn’t hot enough to evaporate almost all surface water immediately it’ll proably mix with the oil and won’t give a great browning. Golden sure but not the deep tasty charring. This applies to everything fried
I put olive oil, Worcestershire sauce, red wine vinegar, salt, pepper, and garlic powder, first. Then, I wait until most of the water of the mushrooms combines and then cooks off, which creates a savory delicious mushroom syrup to coat them in. A lot of times, I end up putting the mushrooms to the outside of the wok so that they drain their moisture into the sauce, and then the heat is focused on concentrating the sauce. Then I mix the mushrooms into the sauce once its boiled down to my preference. The mushrooms are pretty much fully collapsed by that point, but I don’t mind the texture in this case, because the flavor is so good to me.
How about this? Pour a little oil on your hands, then rub the sliced mushrooms to transfer a small film to them. Then fry in a very hot pan. Or, use whole mushrooms, same thing with the oil, but put them in the oven. Takes longer obviously, but great results. Plat around with the size of the mushroom and oven time.
I cook my mushrooms in a bit of butter and olive oil low and slow and you get a slow release of the water and they end up browned but also juicy. Most of the browning takes place in the last 10 minutes or so as the pan starts to dry out and the oils are released back into the pan. It usually takes about 40 minutes. I used to cook them at a higher setting for less time but found they dry out and get an oily coating instead of a moist glaze by the slower method. My two cents. 🙂
I cook mushrooms like this: very little water, about 1/2 the height as dry mushrooms in the pot. Added butter. Added garlic, a tiny bit of salt. Boil until water is gone – the mushrooms will have fully cooked and sunk into the butter/water/garlic/salt mixture and just turn into a saucy mushroom bit. Just before they’re ready to plate, sometimes add some herb depending on what you prefer – cilantro, oregano, basil, whatever you like. They always turn out great and don’t need much care with this sorta method.
My simple way to cook mushrooms, is to heat a little olive oil in the pan. Then put the sliced mushrooms in. Stir for a very short time. Put a lid on the pan and turn the heat off. Wait for the mushrooms to sweat. Remove lid and turn up the heat to evaporate most of the liquid. Drain and serve. Delicious
I usually just keep the heat high enough so any water gets evaporated instantly so you’re never really cooking the mushrooms. It helps if you cut your mushrooms into quarters instead of slices and toss them as soon as they hit the pan so all sides get some oil on them. Stop tossing or stirring immediately and don’t add salt nor pepper. You will nevertheless reach a point where there’s no oil left in the pan, there’s probably some steaming going on but the contact points are still being seared and getting color. I usually resist the urge to add more oil until the mushrooms release some of the oil again, but I do lower the heat once the moisture is gone.
I got tired of having the mushrooms in my fridge go slimy because I’d not used them in too long. I only use them in omelettes, and I don’t always cook omelettes for breakfast. So I bought a pound of dried mushrooms. Which turned out to be a lot. So, I melt butter in my pan, drop in some dried mushrooms, then pour in the eggs just before the butter has disappeared. Then add some cheese as the eggs start firming up.
yeah it’s mostly the question of the amount of mushrooms. Ideally they must take only the bottom with some space between them – it’s very easy to cook then. You just need to heat your pan red-hot and sear the outside of the mushrooms to trap all the air and liquid inside of them. At least it’s my favorite way to cook them. Of course it’s almost impossible to cook the ideal amount of mushrooms, well then do this in batches if you have time. But the wet method deserved to be experimented with ) thanks!
When handling mushrooms always keep in mind personal taste, recipe, and convenience. I love foragong wild mushrooms, and while some varietis like the many different kinds of boletus are susceptible to get waterlogged and must be cleaned with a cloth, other varieties are fine with water as long as you don’t leave them floating in there. For example i clean lactarius by scraping the top under the tap and washing the spores with water just before cooking them, because i don’t want to season my dishes with the sand that gets stuck between the spores and i neither want to spend the whole day cleaning them. As long as you are washing the whole thing (before cutting) and you do it just before cooking them you should be fine.
There are different types of mushrooms and they all cook quite differently. Chanterelle mushrooms have a ton more water than other mushrooms and benefit from a dry saute first, otherwise they turn into slimy. I don’t put any pull in it until the water is gone. What are your opinions on other mushrooms? I can’t imagine adding water to an edulis or Chanterelle
I do this method, except, I don’t overcook the mushrooms trying to brown them, once they cook down to about 1/3rd their size and release their water. I quickly flip them into a bowl, then dump the water in the pan, then pan back on the stove, little bit of oil and mushrooms back in the pan, all together the mushrooms are off the heat less then 15 seconds. Brown them like normal and avoid the spitting stage.
watching this, I got to wondering if, when you get to the point during the cooking (with water) – where as you say, the hyphae structure has collapsed but there is no browning yet – How would it work if you drained the water from the pan (reserving it for the sauce later) and added oil to brown and continue in the preparation process of your recipe? Hybrid solution? Might make them less leathery? Just my very amateur suggestion! 🤣
Thanks for the article! Really interesting. I might start a few tests with very little water the next time I make them. I usually put the lid on at first to quickly steam the mushrooms and than put butter or oil (depending on the dish) in the pan to brown them. Just one comment from a non-American: that’s not bread you’re showing there 🙂
7:00 is there a reason you can’t drain the water from the pan? Cook the mushrooms in water until they shrink just a bit, drain the water, and finish browning in oil? If the mushrooms hold on to too much of the water from the first step, causing them to spit when put in the oil, maybe they could be cooked for just a moment in the pan between the water and oil step. I’ll have to do my own experiments I guess
The method I use is to just put them in the pan at very low heat no water, no nothing, the wider the pan the better…. they “sweat” their own water slowly. Keep there moving frequently until they are to the dry point you want. The water evaporates quickly, and the “flavour” left behind coates the mushrooms. That way you keep all the good stuff in the pan. Once they are to the point you want, add oil / garlic higher heat you can and saute until brown. Try it, I think it’s the perfect way.
I just mix mushrooms with salt, let them reject water, soak it with a paper towel l then broil the mushrooms with salt in my smallest oven for a few minutes to dehydrate them just enough and break some cellular structures, let them cool and when ready to cook put them in a bowl with oil, mix well and pan them. The oil is then evenly distributed on every surface and they brown perfectly and have a very meaty texture when panned. You then do a “déglaçage” with soy sauce with water and chilly sauce for Asian dishes or a mix of balsamic vinegar / lime juice, red whine salt and pepper for European foods, at high heat and you enjoy the happiness. Same technique works with firm Tofu, zucchini or eggplants which are also a sponge. It is all about dehydrating and replacing the inside with flavour but not overdoing it to avoid eating just salt lol
I normally put all the mushrooms in the pan at max heat without any oil, then stir the mushrooms withouth pasue until all the water has left the mushrooms and vaporized from the pan. Then I set them to side for a few minutes and then put them in a pan with oil and brown them until perfect. (Butter gives mushrooms a awesome taste!)
Yeah, same thing goes for eggplants (aubergines? idk I’m Italian, sorry). they are kinda difficult to sauté because they soak up the oil, but cook them enough and they’ll spit it back out. In my family We say that they “tornano in olio” meaning “they come back in oil”, and that’s basically when you know that they’re done cooking. Anyways, good quality olive oil is good for you, unless you have issues with your pancreas or some other health issues, but yeah, if you cook with seed oil it’s better to let them spit it out and you can even dab them with a paper towel to soak some oil away. Another good method would be to finish cooking them in an oven over a grid to let the oil drip away while they finish cooking, but that’s a lot more time consuming, and less efficient if you turn on your oven just for that.
Did you tried to cook mushrooms without moving them around the frying pan ? I just pour some oil or clarified butter on heated pan and then just toss chopped champignons (only kind of mushrooms you can buy in shops here) and leave it as it is for a while. Not on full heat of course. After it fry a bit then I stir it to make sure it is evenly cooked. No salt as it will make mushrooms release even more water.
Chitin – the same stuff an insect’s “shell” is made of. Fungi and arthropods, two VERY different lineages, evolved the ability to make and rely upon chitin. They are 100’s of millions of years removed from a common ancestor, and chitin is a complex structure, yet both organisms have it. Extinctions will wipe out so many useful material from mankind’s “tool box”, and it takes millions of years to produce the incredible substance that is chitin.
I cover the mushroom-filled skillet and turn up the heat (7/10) for about 5 minutes to get the mushrooms sweating, and continue covered until I maximize the moisture removed (and still in skillet). Then I carefully pour the moisture into a Pyrex measuring cup to cool. While still hot I add pinches of salt, pepper, cumin & turmeric, or what ever I need for the dish I may be making. Cool it and store it. Then I throw the mushrooms out… ok just seeing if you were still paying attention. 😉
We always wash mushrooms. In fact, we wash every vegetable we get from the market, no matter how clean they look. Maybe we don’t need to, but it just feels more hygienic that way. Funny thing, there’s a mushroom that’s native here… it grows on rotten rice straw I think? It tastes wonderful, but I’ve always seen my parents clean it by first peeling away the thin dark outer layer on the cap, then washing it in hot water, and then squeezing the water out. I’ve tried it once unwashed, but maybe because I don’t have a ‘trained’ palate, I didn’t notice any difference in the taste. The washed one didn’t have sand in it though.
Question: At 6:20, if letting all the water evaporate during this phase overcooks the mushrooms, why not just… toss the mushrooms in a strainer and throw away the extra juice (or keep it to make a sauce)? That way your mushrooms aren’t leathery overcooked nor soggy/oily anymore. Otherwise, use less water? Personally, I just use a trickle of oil on very high heat to sauté them, as if they were eggplants. If you put too much they’ll always end up soggy, so just don’t. (Also I clean the mushrooms under a thin dash of water cuz I’m too lazy to scrape the dirt dry but shh)