Roasted Mushroom Base

Name: Roasted Mushroom Base
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 1 1/4 pounds or about 3 cups
Ingredients: 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil; 2 pounds mushrooms, sliced or quartered; Salt to taste; Freshly ground black pepper to taste

By Martha Rose Shulman

Total Time: 45 minutes
Rating: 5(497)
Comments: Read comments

At this year’s Worlds of Health Flavors conference in Napa, Calif., Pam Smith, a culinary nutritionist, presented delicious recipes by the chef Clifford Pleau featuring a finely chopped roasted mushroom mix (chefs refer to it as simply “The Mix”), that she combined with beef for a delicious burger with half the meat, and with tuna for a wonderful tuna burger. Inspired, I made up a big batch of my own version of the mushroom base when I got home and had a lot of fun using it all week in adaptations of classic meat or fish dishes with the animal protein cut by half or more and replaced with the mushroom base. I recommend using pre-sliced mushrooms for this – then the mix goes very quickly. It is very easy to make and keeps well for several days in the refrigerator.

Featured in: Cutting Out the Meat With Mushrooms

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Ingredients

Yield:1¼ pounds or about 3 cups

2tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
2pounds mushrooms, sliced or quartered
Salt to taste
Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Ingredient Substitution Guide

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Preparation

Step 1
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment.
Step 2
In a large bowl, toss mushrooms with oil, salt and pepper. Spread in an even layer on baking sheets and bake in the middle and lower racks of the oven for 20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes and switching pans top to bottom halfway through. The mushrooms should be tender and dry when done. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
Step 3
Grind in a grinder or pulse in a food processor fitted with steel blade until broken down into small pieces resembling ground meat. What works best in my food processor is to pulse about 10 times, scrape down the sides of the bowl and then pulse another five to 10 times. Taste and adjust seasoning.

Tip

The mix will keep for about 4 days in the refrigerator.

Ratings

5 out of 5

497 user ratings

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Comments

Danielle R7 years ago

You can slice whole mushrooms with an egg slicer, very fast, fresher mushrooms...

Ruth S7 years ago

What to do with that big package of porcini mushrooms from Costco? I chopped and sauteed the whole batch with onions and froze it. The mushrooms pieces are removable and didn't stick together much. Take out a handful for any dish. Great idea! Wonderful on roasted potatoes or any other vegetable, in eggs, on steak.

DWP7 years ago

I am also confused about the 1/2 pound called for in recipes. Is that 1/2 pound after the roasting process, or does this mean 1/4 of the full recipe? I am assuming that the roasted mushrooms become lighter. Thank you!

Andre7 months ago

the blender was just pureeing the bottom centimeter, but it took almost no time to chop the mushrooms into perfectly controlled crumb size pieces using a chefs knife.

Mike Collins1 year ago

Shocked at how easy this was and how tasty it is. I am dialing my meat consumption way back and this certainly helps.

SoCaler2 years ago

This recipe works really well as written!

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