Air Fried Mushrooms

This was an idea shared by Justin from Long Beach Mushrooms. They are my local source of mushrooms. They have subscription boxes available for purchase and you pick them up directly at their farm.

Anyway, he said to make a batter of sorts and then dry. You can then just air fry. I made the basic egg and flour process as you would with fried chicken and they are very tasty but I wanted to try other options and this is what I have compiled from recipes all over the internet.

I have made these with lion’s mane and oyster mushrooms and they were both delicious.

Ingredients

1 lb of mushrooms
garlic powder
salt
black pepper
dairy-free milk – I love oat milk as it is thicker, it cooks well and coats well but almond or cashew milk works too.
chickpea flour
white rice flour
cornstarch

Note: You can use just All Purpose Flour instead of trying to hunt down the white rice and chickpea flour. This can also be used in place of the corn starch for the dry mix.

Instructions

Wet Batter
1. In a shallow bowl, add the milk, chickpea flour, white rice flour, garlic powder, salt and black pepper. Whisk all that together.
Dry Mix
1. In another shallow bowl, just add the chickpea flour, white rice flour, garlic powder, salt and black pepper. Whisk all that together.

Breading the Mushroom Pieces

Clean and cut the mushrooms in larger chunks like chicken nuggets.
Start by coating it in the wet batter. Make sure it is fully covered.
Gently move over to the dry mix and coat it in that to make sure it is fully coated.

Air Frying

Preheat the air fryer to 375 degrees F / 190 degrees C.
Once it is ready, add the strips / nuggets.
Set it for 10 minutes.

That is a very simple recipe and can be adjusted to your tastes and what ingredients you may already have. You can use any dipping sauce you want to make. I found a bunch online but that is up to you. I would suggest trying out a few and seeing what you like.

Mushroom Chili

This is a mix of a few different recipes and I did not realize chili could be so complicated but I kept I tried to keep it simple. The first time I made this, I did not even add the dry ingredients: chili powder, sugar, cumin, black pepper or garlic powder. I used a Kroger Original Chili Seasoning Mix and that was tasty. I made this first with ground beef and added the mushrooms to it but the second time around I didnt even add the beef. I have been making it with just the mushrooms after that and the beef was not really missed.

Ingredients

1 lb of mushrooms (I mainly used oyster for this too as it resembles meat more than the others but any thicker mushrooms would work.)
1 Large Onion, Chopped (about 2 cups)
Olive Oil
6 tbsp of chili powder
4 tbsp of sugar
3 tbsp of cumin
1 tsp of black pepper
1 tbsp of garlic powder
1 can of tomato paste
2 cans of diced tomatoes
4 cups vegetable broth
3 cans of beans – this is your choice on beans but drain the liquid before adding to chili. I used kidney beans.

Instructions

Clean and cut mushrooms into 1/4 inch pieces. Set them aside.
Add the olive oil to a pot and cook the onions down until they are clear and soft.
At a medium heat, add the mushrooms to the pot with the chili powder, garlic powder, black pepper, sugar and mix. If you are using the Chili mix from the packet, mix that it instead.
Mix the entire contents in the pot and make sure all of your mushrooms are coated.
Let the mushrooms to cook down and soften a little.
Once they have softened, add the tomato paste, diced tomatoes, the vegetable broth and the beans. Remember to drain all the liquid from the cans of beans before adding to the pot.
Stir everything in the pot and set the heat to low as we do not want this to burn and cook slower.
Leave it on the low heat and simmer for 40 minutes.

That is really it for this recipe. This goes for any of the recipes on my page, please feel free to adjust anything you may think it needs or if scale it back if it does not seem right. I am just giving you a starting point and you can make the recipe your own.

Cream of Mushroom Soup

Welcome to this somewhat mashed up recipe. I combined a few recipes I found online but also checked my cabinet. A note on the heavy cream and evaporated milk. I did not use heavy cream as I did not have any and I wanted to use what I had. Most recipes I looked at said just 1 cup of heavy cream but I ended up adding more chicken broth since I pureed the entire thing. It thinned it out so it was not so thick.

Servings: 4 to 6 servings

Ingredients

1 pound fresh mushrooms (I mainly used Oyster mushrooms but not restricted to just those.)
1 Large Onion, Chopped (about 2 cups)
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cup all purpose flour
Salt and Ground Black Pepper
Diced Garlic Cloves – 3-4 cloves
1 can of ´Evaporated Milk – 12 oz or 1 cup of heavy cream
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth or stock

Instructions

Clean and cut mushrooms into 1/4 inch pieces. The thicker stems are fine if you are going to puree the whole thing. Leave these on the side.
In a large pot, melt the butter with and cook the chopped onions and garlic on a medium heat. Cook until it is soft but not brown.
Add the salt and pepper to taste. I didn’t add much because I did not want it to be too salty or peppery. You can always add more but you cannot take it away if you added too much.
Toss in the mushrooms from step one and raise heat to medium.
Cook the mushrooms until they soften and mix occasionally so they do not stick to the pot.
Once the mushrooms have softened, add in the flour and mix all that to coat the mushrooms.
Drop in the broth and mix that around to coat the mushrooms. It will look like a chicken pot pie mixture and that is fine. You may need to add more broth if you are fully pureeing as I did.
Let that cook on low heat for about 20 minutes and stir occasionally.
I transferred to a large mixing bowl and used the immersion blender and slowly added the evaporated milk.
This is where also added more chicken broth to thin it out as it was thick but that is your preference.
I poured back into the pot and cooked it for another 10 minutes or so.

Well, that is it for the soup. You can now taste it and see if you need / want to add more salt or pepper. This was split into containers and refrigerated as it was too much to finish in one sitting for 2 people.