Garlic Sautéed Mushrooms

Garlic Mushrooms

Whether you are looking for a great side dish to serve with steak on the weekends, a ham at the holidays or a healthy grilled chicken dish, these garlic sauteed mushrooms are a fantastic side dish.

Mushrooms are a hearty and healthy vegetable that can pair with just about any protein. Not only are they a wholesome dish, they are quick and simple. Sauté up these mushrooms with some olive oil, garlic and top with parsley for an easy 20 minute recipe.

• steak
• ham
• grilled chicken

Making perfect garlic mushrooms

The perfect garlic sauteed mushroom should not be too mushy. Make sure not to burn your garlic either. Because a mushroom will soak up every flavor and you don’t want it to taste acrid due to any burnt garlic.

Mushrooms lose a great deal of moisture as they cook and to get a nice sear on them you need to make sure it evaporates off quickly.

How to make the best mushrooms

With sauted mushrooms, you need to be mindful of a few things. Mushrooms are wonderfully flavorful but they can become slightly slimy if not cooked properly. However, the good news is this is easy to avoid if you stick to a few handy rules of thumb.

Tips or cooking mushrooms

Make sure to use the right sized pan for the job. A nice wide and flat saute or braise pan is best. It can be cast iron, stainless, or non stick. Just make sure it has plenty of surface area. You want the pan to evaporate the water out quickly as possible.

Get your oil nice and hot but not so hot it begins to burn. Getting a nice sear on the mushrooms helps prevent sliminess.

Don’t add salt until the end of cooking the mushrooms! If you add salt early on, like when you pop them on the oil, the salt draws out moisture. If too much water comes out too early, then it will prevent the mushroom from searing properly.

Add the garlic to the oil as it is heating, but take the garlic off of the heat before it browns or burns. You kind of have to watch it carefully. Chopped garlic burns all too quickly. You can add it back when the mushrooms are about halfway done. That way the mushrooms get plenty of garlic flavor, without the garlic burning. The garlic infuses the oil with flavor too, and the mushrooms soak that up quickly.

How to make the best sauteed mushrooms

Garlic and mushrooms go together like peanut butter and chocolate, wine and cheese, steak and potatoes. In other words, they are pretty much just meant to be paired.

But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for one more thing to make them especially awesome. Parsley, nice fresh, chopped (but not too finely) parsley.

I highly recommend using very fresh parsley. Chop it coarsely, and toss it in at the very end. It will cook ever so slightly from the residual heat, but not overcook.

Not only does chopped parsley add a great herbaceousness, but also a very nice dash of color as well.

The best kind of mushrooms to use for sauteing

For this dish, I recommend using white mushrooms which are also known sometimes as “button” mushrooms. Guess what though? Button and white mushrooms are the exact same mushroom as a brown crimini… and even a big giant brown portabella mushroom.

That’s right, those are literally all the same variety of edible mushroom. (Agaricus bisporus if you need to know the Latin name). A white or button mushroom is the youngest, then it browns and becomes a crimini, and fully grown it is called a portabella.

So, I guess that means if you don’t have white mushrooms handy, then crimini or portabella will work just as well!

Can other mushrooms be used for sauteing?

Sure, any edible mushroom works with this recipe, so feel free to substitute if you’d like. White mushrooms are very easy to find, and they are a perfect size to cook quickly. But these days, there are actually plenty of readily available options when it comes to mushrooms.

Mushroom side dish or main course

When it comes to garlic sauteed mushrooms, most people probably assume it is a great side dish. But mushrooms do have a decent amount of protein, plus folates, vitamins A, D, and B2.

So, if you want to enjoy them as a simple vegetarian style main course, they would be great paired with a cup of tomato soup or served with a slice of grilled honey goat cheese pizza.

• tomato soup
• grilled honey goat cheese pizza

More mushroom side dish recipes

If you love mushroom dishes and want some more ideas to put in the recipe bank, then I have some suggestions. Whether you like a classic mushroom risotto or a creamy mushroom beef soup, I have you covered.

Maybe you want to try something like a Korean beef bowl with mushrooms or creamy mushroom pasta? There are so many great way to enjoy hearty mushrooms!

• mushroom risotto
• mushroom beef soup
• Korean beef bowl with mushrooms

Serving: 1 g | Calories: 96 kcal | Carbohydrates: 7 g | Protein: 3 g | Fat: 7 g | Saturated Fat: 1 g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 6 g | Sodium: 36 mg | Fiber: 3 g | Sugar: 3 g