I primarily eat mushrooms raw but occasionally will grill mushroom caps (portobello) topped with pesto and a cranberry spinach salad. The grilled caps can be used as filling for tacos or a hamburger patty replacement in a burger.
Grilled mushrooms are one of the better ways to preserve nutrients when cooking mushrooms.
Hi! I’m a mushroom convert. For me, I hated raw or cooked mushrooms that tasted rubbery or spongy. Still not a huge fan of those little button mushrooms (that are SO popular, like 80% of mushrooms you see!) because of the dense texture, so I usually cut them in a way that is small or thin to get around the density.
I LOVE going to farmers markets and getting the more interesting looking mushrooms. Stores especially Asian marts can have them too. Still not a big fan of the buttony kind, I like the flatter fan like or larger round ones.
Someone mentioned hen of the woods AKA maitake which is delicious, so are chanterelles, oyster mushrooms, morels, larger portobello, shitake. Wood ear mushrooms are so weird looking but have a satisfying crunch even cooked.
The texture irks me so I dice smaller, don’t eat plain as much: button mushrooms, cremini small portobello, enoki,
Lions mane has a crab-like texture when shredded, makes great faux crab cakes and is very good for your brain. Studies point towards it protecting against dementia. Other common “medicinal” mushrooms are Chaga, maitake, turkey tail, oyster, shitake and morels. But the nature of some of these might be better suited for a powder.
Many mushrooms like
You can get powdered mushrooms like porcini that tastes good as a rub on meats or roasted veg. Or Powdered for a coffee substitute. Or in a seasoning jar to sprinkle on anything that needs a little more umami (at trader joes!)
I learned how to forage for the easy to identify/expensive one’s like hen of the woods, morels and chanterells. Always learn ALL poisonous look alike and start with very experienced people because if you make a mistake it could be bad.
Avoid dried- out looking or overly wet/slimy mushrooms (sometimes the cap is a little slick. Thats ok) Don’t wash them too much, as they absorb water. Try to just knock the dirt off and give a quick rinse. Cut the tip of the stem off if its dry or dirty. Cut them in a way that there isn’t going to be big fibrous pieces. Maybe cut the stem in half if it’s long, or rip the tops into bite size pieces.
Now I love plain mushrooms sautéed in butter. The trick is to not overcrowd the pan or it will be too wet and the water wont evaporate well. Put on hot pan with a fat and fry on a lower heat to let them release the water, don’t let them boil in their own juice, as this makes that rubbery feel. Little salt and pepper and cook until very tender. I LOVE a little soy sauce or coconut aminos to bring out a sweeter flavor. I can just eat this on toast maybe with a fried egg 🤤
You can also use them to flavor a really good broth or other foods that need some umami.
Happy mushrooming! 🍄 (don’t eat this one…😳)
The way I cam to love mushrooms is to cook them whole in a chuck roast of crock pot recipe, which completely changes the texture of the mushroom. I have also found that mushrooms taste best when put in sauce. For texture, Portabella mushrooms are very tough if you prefer that, and oyster mushrooms when cooked correctly have a different texture than all of the others.
I like this unfortified nutritional yeast; it’s not mushrooms but I wonder if it has some of the benefits you want. I’m actually not sure if it is great for you or not, but the micros are remarkable.
On the same token, I’m not sure mushrooms should be a staple. Something somebody said somewhere. But I eat some every now and then in case they patch a hole. And what I like to do is mince them as fine as I can and stir them into a vinaigrette (that I sweeten with stevia). Some type of cheese, minced onion, the aforementioned yeast, or pepper rings will help hide them. Put that on minced artisanal lettuce. Some kind of tomato, or cucumber if you want it. They’re nice; they make it richer, and their earthiness is hidden by bitters.
I’m a convert! And it was mostly by mistake.
I used to be the same way, hate the texture but liked the taste. My mom used to make cream of mushroom and I always opted out, but then she started mincing the mushroom really small (almost to the point of blending) and I started eating it more. From there I just loved them more and more to the point that I stopped caring about the texture.
I tend to think we like what we eat more than we eat what we like. If you find a way to incorporate them and enjoy them, you can pretty easily ramp it up over time to make it easier for you to consume.
different species of mushrooms have different textures and flavour, and they can be cooked in different ways too, so maybe its not about the mushrooms as a whole, but what kind of mushroom you are trying to like.
Thats like saying “i dont like vegetables”, but you only try to eat brocoli and you don’t like brocoli.
Grind them and use it as a paste in soups and sandwiches. To change the flavour, saute a bunch of halved, sliced onions but dont caramelise them. Add largish cubed tomatoes to the pan till it becomes a kind of mush. You can also grind this mixture. This is a base for many indian dishes, so you cn add it to pretty much any vegetable. I like matar mushroom (peas and mushroom sabzi). Take a dollop of the onion tomato mush approximately the size of the second knuckle of your fingers. Boil a handful of peas till they become soft. Saute 2-3x mushrooms with water. Then add the dollop. Once that mixture cooks a little add the peas. Add salt, a pinch of turmeric, cumin powder, amchoor powder. Stir for a minute. Add more water to prevent burning/sizzling. Cover the pan with a plate. Let it cook in the steam for another 2-4 minutes. Stir it again. And youre done. Youll find many more variations of matar mushroom sabzi on yt. Sanjeev kapoor, ranveer brar and tarla dalal have recipes in english.
I hated mushrooms for the first 45 years of my life. I would ask for no mushrooms on a “combo” pizza and if the restaurant forgot, I would say I’m allergic and make them re-do my pizza. (I’m not allergic.) Thanks to a relative, I actually tried them and I slowly learned to really like them. I now add them to stir-fry, pasta and salads. I sauté them to eat with steak or chicken. I love the earthy flavor and don’t mind the texture at all.
As in the texture of raw mushrooms?
Throw them in a skillet or pan with some boiling water just barely covering them. Let evaporate on medium-high heat. Keep them moving when evaporated, add oil, sauté, serve.
I hate mushrooms for texture too but I’ve learned there’s certain types I can tolerate. I still can’t do a portobello or any of the major ones but I’ve become a little more tolerant to the texture if I accidentally eat one. Recently I ate an entire mushroom sweet potato taco without gagging and it was sooooo good. I would suggest trying to incorporate unique mushrooms and see if that works. Something like an oyster mushroom or enoki is where I started. If you slowly incorporate small portions of the texture into things you like (like putting enoki in ramen or something), it’ll slowly become tolerable. Then you can start introducing more and more.
I’ve put them in a chicken stir fry before with a nice sauce. They soak some of the sauce If you let them sit in it and become softer. They are much better as leftovers bc I almost prefer it to meat since meat can dry in the microwave but the mushrooms tend to get softer and I think are a better substitute!
Try roasting them, gives them a crunchier texture. Slice them up, shake them in some avocado oil, spread them on a cookie sheet, sprinkle nutritional yeast on top, 30-45 minutes in the oven @ 375-400, bam.
Chop them really fine, then use them in place of ground beef. I like to 50/50 the two and cook them together in things like shepherds pie or stroganoff. Once they’re mixed with the beef and cooked, the taste/texture is incredibly like beef.
That’s how I get my kids to eat mushrooms at least and they never notice or complain. My husband says he can’t tell unless I tell him
I used to hate mushrooms and find it really hard to swallow them if I found them in a meal. However I loved foraging and didn’t want to not like a common ingredient so I kept trying them over and over. It took about 6 months but now they’re one of my favourite foods!
What helped me:
I started liking mushrooms when I started putting them on top of my steak, mixed with the onions and cheese. Texas Roadhouse ones are really good imo. I was way against them before hand, always thought the flavor was too earthy or dirty or something.
Not a fan of them until I was 26… now 32…
Best ways I enjoy them:
On a pizza, fresh ones that are cooked to a nice consistency. BJs pepperoni and mushroom pizza is my go to example.
In a cream based pasta, again fresh and then sautéed is best.
Stuffed mushrooms, filled with seafood, Red Lobster has very good ones. I’ve also made them at home with sausage and cheese filling.
I don’t go out of my way to prepare mushrooms in any other way.
Grilled portobello top my list of favorite ways.
At Asian markets, you can find a variety of dried mushrooms. I rehydrate them for soups or sauces. I don’t know why, but the dehydration, rehydration process gives the mushrooms a chewiness I have not found elsewhere.
Where vegan food is sold, you can sometimes find mushroom jerkey. It has a texture and flavor similiar to other smoked jerkeys.
I love making mushroom tacos. I chop mini portobellos, sauté them and spice them heavily with chili powder, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and pepper. When they’re very dark in color and have shrunk quite a bit, that’s when they’re ready. Eat in taco shells and it’s delicious
Just cut them up really small so they disappear into other things like sauces and such. They don’t really have a flavour but I agree when you get a huge chunk of slimy mushroom in anything it puts you off.
My husband is mostly in the same boat, but he one time asked me if the chanterelle stems that I’d put in a hotdish were pork.
I don’t know whether it was the ingredients or the prep steps that were most crucial for the effect; all I remember doing extra was just dicing them fine. But I agreed with him that somehow the texture was sorta crispier and meatier.
I’d say, look into cooking them in a way that makes them crispy; I haven’t tried this way, but, it might be a start.