More 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 your requests for another morel mushroom recipe. In this post, you’ll of course find a recipe for my morel mushroom + cherry tomato skillet chicken, BUT, I’ve added a surprise bonus recipe at the end. You’ll have to make it to the end of the post to find it!
When I’m lucky enough to have morels to prepare, I want the morels to be the star of the dish! I want to taste the earthy deliciousness and experience their unique texture. This particular recipe makes the morel the star! The tomatoes balance the earthiness with some sweetness and acid and the chicken makes it a meal with lean protein. OH, and it all comes together in under an hour with ONE pan. It feels fancy, but it’s still rustic, the perfect HIH combination.
Keys to Success
- Brown food tastes good. Get good color on your chicken during it’s first time in the pan. Not only will this lock in the juices and prevent dry chicken, but the brown bits left behind in the pan will help develop deep rich flavor in this sauce after deglazing. Brown food tastes good, black food, not so much. Watch the heat to keep things brown, but not burnt.
- I don’t have a shallot…. No shallot, no problem! Garlic to the rescue. 2-3 cloves of minced garlic will do the trick, BUT, you’ll add at a different time. Garlic turns bitter if it burnt and it burns easily. If substituting garlic, add after the chicken has been browned, just before adding the tomatoes.
- Cook with wine you’d drink. This recipe calls for dry white wine. If you’re just not into dry wines, pick the driest of the wines you like. Also, the recipe only calls for 1/4 cup, so if you’re going to open a bottle to cook with you might as well serve it with dinner!
- I don’t have morels! Fresh morels aren’t an ingredient you can find at most grocery stores. You’re more likely to find someone selling a big harvest off the back of a truck! Don’t let this stop you from preparing this recipe! Dried morels are still delicious, and you can order them for Amazon! Portabella mushrooms would also be delicious in this recipe.
Morel Mushroom + Cherry Tomato Skillet Chicken
Equipment
- 1 large skillet
- Measuring cups and spoons
- 1 tongs
- 1 Wooden spoon
Ingredients
- 4 thin sliced chicken breasts, or two whole large chicken breasts sliced to make 4 thin breast pieces.
- 2 cups morel mushrooms, cleaned, dried and halved longways
- 1¼ cup cherry tomatoes, a 10 oz container from the store is just right.
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 shallot, thinly sliced
- ¼ cup dry white wine, or chicken broth
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- ¼ teaspoon white pepper, optional
Instructions
- Pat the 4 portions of chicken dry season both sides with 1/2 the salt and pepper in the recipe.
- Heat the large skillet over medium high heat. Once hot, add the olive oil followed by the thinly sliced shallot. Cook the shallot just until translucent.
- Add the 4 chicken portions to pan with the shallots. Cook about 2 minutes/side until golden brown. Remove from the pan and set aside.
- Add the cherry tomatoes to the hot pan. Cook until the skins blister and burst. Stir occasionally. You can help the tomatoes burst release their juice by gently pressing down using a wooden spoon. Once most of the tomatoes have blistered and burst, deglaze the pan with the white wine. Use the wooden spoon to scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pan.
- Reduce the heat to medium and add the morel mushrooms and sauté until softened. Season with dried thyme, remaining salt and black pepper, and white pepper if using. Add the heavy cream and stir.
- Nestle each chicken portion back into the cherry tomato and morel sauce. Cover and cook for 5-10 more minutes until chicken is cooked through.
Nutrition
Bonus Recipe – Seared Ribeye Steak + Morel Mushroom Steak Topper
After making the skillet chicken, I only had a handful of morels left and they were the teeny tiny ones that ended up at the bottom of the bag. Not enough for a main course or side, BUT, a perfect addition to the top of one of the dry aged ribeye steaks we’d been saving for a special occasion.
The weather here in Southeast Kansas has been BLAH. So blah I don’t even want to go outside to use the grill. Under most conditions you won’t find me cooking a steak inside, but this was the perfect scenario to break out the cast iron and smoke up my house! My husband and I can split a large ribeye for dinner, so I didn’t even have to break out the big one, just one big enough to cook one large steak.
Ingredients – Seared Ribeye Steak with Morel Mushroom Topper
- Large ribeye steak – 16 oz
- Morel mushrooms – 1 heaping cup (or 2)
- Butter – 1 tablespoon
- Lemon juice – 1 teaspoon
- Salt – 1 teaspoon for steak, 1/2 teaspoon to season sauce
- Ground Black Pepper – for sauce
- Dry white wine – 1/4 cup
- Heavy Cream – 1/3 cup
Pat your steak dry with paper towels and liberally salt all sides of the steak. Let the steak sit in the fridge for at least an hour to let the salt do it’s thing. Pull your steak out of the fridge about 20 minutes before cooking. Using almost the highest setting, on your range heat your cast iron until smoking. Add the butter until melted followed by the steak. Sear the steak on both sides and cook to your desired doneness.
Once the steak is cooked, remove from the pan and set aside to rest. Deglaze the pan with the white wine, scraping the steak bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the morels, lemon juice, salt and pepper and sauté until softened. Finish with the heavy cream, stir with the morels and allow the sauce to thicken. Slice the steak, and top with the sauce. Bon Appétit!
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