Creamy Garlic Parmesan Mushrooms Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Do you saute mushrooms or garlic first? ›

Sauté the mushrooms, stirring occasionally, until they are tender, release their juices, and most of the juices cook away, about 8 to 10 minutes (if you have a lot of water in the pan, feel free to drain it off to speed up the process). Stir in soy sauce and vinegar, then stir in the garlic.

Oil and butter: For the best and richest flavor, cook the mushrooms in a mixture of olive oil and butter.

To thicken this easy mushroom sauce recipe, you can use either cornstarch or flour. If your diet does not allow you to use flour or cornstarch, you can use Xantan Gum. Keep in mind than creamy sauces and gravy made with cornstarch are usually tend to be glossier than sauces made with flour.

Butter is great because it adds lots of flavor and produces a nice golden brown exterior, while adding oil allows the mushrooms to cook a little more quickly at slightly higher heat.

This is the big one: Do not salt the mushrooms too early in the cooking process. Salting too early often draws out too much of the inherent moisture or liquid, which can be a bit overwhelming if you're a mushroom newbie making a large batch.

"Medium-high heat is the way to go with mushrooms. You want their liquids to slowly evaporate while they caramelize," says Norton. High heat can burn mushrooms, while low heat will make them cook in their own liquid, she says. You also want to be mindful of the pan.

Heat oil and butter in a medium to large pan over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms leaving space between. Cook mushroom for 3-5 minutes before turning. Stir and allow mushrooms to finish cooking for a couple more minutes.

Because cornstarch is pure starch, it has twice the thickening power of flour, which is only part starch. Thus, twice as much flour is needed to achieve the same thickening as cornstarch. To thicken sauces, cornstarch is combined with cold water first, which is called a slurry.

Reduce Your Liquid

One way to make your soup or sauce thicker is by reducing it in a saucepan. For this tip, try dividing your liquid in half, then in two saucepans, reduce your sauce to a low heat simmer. Reducing a liquid can also cause the flavors to become more pronounced and vibrant.

The most readily available sauce-thickener is flour. For a too-thin sauce, try adding a slurry (equal parts flour and water, whisked together) or beurre manie (equal parts softened butter and flour, kneaded together to form a paste)—both are ideal thickeners for rich and creamy sauces, such as steak sauce recipes.

How to make cream of mushroom taste better? ›

Add Fresh Mushrooms

One way to enhance the flavor of canned cream of mushroom soup is to add fresh mushrooms. Slice some cremini or button mushrooms and sauté them in butter until they become golden brown and tender. Then, stir them into the soup.

Cook in batches – We're using 400g/14oz of mushrooms in the gravy. However it shrinks down by more than half once cooked. Cook the mushrooms in 2 batches rather than trying to cram them all in at once. If you try the latter, the mushrooms just stew and become watery.

Starting your sauté with onions first has two advantages: it allows you to better control the time the garlic spends on the heat and the moisture released by the onions on the heat provides a buffer, of sorts, from the otherwise dry heat of the sauté pan.

For the Best Mushrooms, Give Them a Good Sear

Cooking mushrooms concentrates their flavor and brings out notes of sweet earthiness from the Maillard reaction taking place. The best way to do this is to sear the mushrooms first in a dry pan.

If sautéing more than one vegetable at a time, what vegetables do you sauté first? Start with the hardest vegetables first, such as sweet potatoes, carrots, or cauliflower. Onions also need quite a while to cook, whereas zucchini and squash need less time, and garlic needs even less.

Do You Sauté the Onions First? To keep the onions from cooking in the mushroom juices, wait to add the onions until the mushrooms have released their excess liquid and almost all of that liquid has evaporated. Once you get there, add the onions and let them sauté and brown in the fat alongside the mushrooms.