‘Tis the season! Mushroom lovers and outdoor enthusiasts are combing the woods looking for the elusive morel mushroom. I’m lucky enough to have a whole bag of these earthy, tender mushrooms, currently. It’s been a good year for the mushrooms hunters! We all love a good fried mushroom, but when there’s a bounty, it calls for broadening the horizons! I give you the HIH Stuffed Morel Mushrooms. The filling is creamy with lots of delightful supporting flavors to complement the earthy delicate flavor of the morel. The panko breadcrumbs give that perfect crunch on top for a palate pleasing combination of flavors and textures.
Before moving from Kansas City to our farm, I had only experienced morels on restaurant menus. Usually, sautéed in butter and served with pasta or paired with their seasonal sibling, asparagus. Now I live in prime mushroom hunting territory and my husband will spend hours combing the woods to bring home a bag of mushrooms for me to prepare. I’ll say, the latter is quite a bit more fun! In my early rural days, he would always request the mushrooms be floured and fried. While delicious, in a great mushroom year, I wanted to try some new preparations.
We’ve found some real winners, which I plan to share as HIH continues, but these stuffed morel mushrooms are *chef’s kiss.* AND, they don’t require the mess that flouring and frying can make in the kitchen. That’s a big win in my book! This recipe will scale wonderfully so you can easily tailor to the size of your harvest. We can’t all be so lucky to find bags full, so having a small scale recipe to work from makes it simple to enjoy your harvest, no matter the size.
Keys to Success
- No piping bag, no problem. Don’t let the lack of specialty kitchen equipment stop you from making these stuffed morels! Just stuff a plastic sandwich bag with your cream cheese stuffing and snip off one of the corners and pipe away! It doesn’t need to look perfect, you’re going to cover the tops in breadcrumbs anyway! To easily fill the bag, use a mug or cup like the photos below.
- Press the panko. The mushrooms will shrink and the filling will expand a bit while baking. If your panko is just sprinkled over the top vs. being pressed into the cream cheese, there’s a pretty good chance much of the panko topping will end up on the baking sheet instead of the crunchy topping for your mushrooms!
- Add the umami seasoning to your pantry. I use this seasoning blend ALL THE TIME! I love it! Here on HIH, I’ve used it in the HIH Light French Onion Dip. Click the linked post for all of my tips on where to find umami seasoning.
- To have morels, you must find morels! Or, pay $40-$60/lb…After a less than successful mushroom hunt, I found this recent Outdoor Life blog post with 12 Tips for Finding Morels. I found the tips to be really helpful, even if it was to justify why I spent an hour walking around the woods without finding a single mushroom AND why we found them where we did!
Stuffed Morel Mushrooms
Equipment
- 1 sandwich sized zip lock bag or pastry bag
- 1 fork or small whisk
- Measuring cups and spoons
- 2 small mixing bowls
- 1 Baking sheet
Ingredients
- 8 medium morel mushrooms, cleaned, dried and halved longways
Cream Cheese Stuffing
- 4 oz cream cheese, softened
- 3-4 springs fresh thyme, stems removed
- 1 teaspoon umami seasoning
- 1 teaspoon lemon juice
- 2 dashes Worcestershire sauce
- ½ teaspoon course ground black pepper
- pinch salt
Italian Panko Breadcrumb Topping
- ¼ cup Italian seasoned panko breadcrumbs
- 1 tablespoon salted butter
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F
- In a small mixing bowl, combine all of the stuffing ingredients. Once combined, taste and adjust for seasoning and scoop into the zip lock sandwich bag or pastry bag. Push the stuffing to the exit point. If using a zip lock bag, cut a small hole in one corner to allow the stuffing to be extruded.
- Arrange the cleaned, dried, and halved morel mushrooms on the baking sheet cut side up. Starting with the wider, open end of the morel, fill each well completely with stuffing.
- Once all morel mushrooms have been stuffed, prepare the breadcrumbs by melting the butter and combining with the breadcrumbs until the butter is evenly distributed.
- Press each morel, cream cheese side down, gently into the bread crumb mixture and return to the baking sheet breadcrumb side up.
- Bake the mushrooms for 15-20 minutes or until the tops have browned and the mushrooms are soft. For extra crispy tops, finish under the broiler for 2-3 minutes.
Nutrition
What’s your favorite way to enjoy morels?
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[…] morel mushroom recipes, please! That sentiment echoed after last week’s stuffed morel mushroom post. Thankfully, I was lucky enough to have a bounty with plenty more to prepare and deliver on […]