Chanterelle mushroom season is upon us here on Vancouver Island. That means I am taking my travelling companions into the forest to reap this golden chanterelle bounty. If you need help identifying chanterelles, click here for a great article. You should always double check with someone in the know if you aren’t 100% sure. You can always take a few into a mushroom buyer and ask them to confirm for you. Better to be safe than sorry!
Pro mushroom picking tip #1 : Always cut, never pull.
When you pick chanterelle mushroomss, it’s really important to cut the stems carefully, rather than just pulling them up. The chanterelle mushroom is the flowering part of the fungus, and it’s mycelia, the largest part of the mushroom is underground. This is probably why you will nearly always find chanterelle mushrooms in rafts across the forest floor. By cutting the stem instead of pulling the flower part of mushroom out of the ground, you don’t disturb the mycelia at all. This might mean more mushrooms later in the season or next year. Cutting the chanterelles also helps to keep your harvest cleaner, so it’s less work when you are cleaning them.
Pro mushroom picking tip #2: Use a soft brush to clean
No matter how carefully I cut the stems on my mushrooms, they always have some detritus from the forest loam on them. So when I get them home, I dry brush them with a soft brush, and then carefully wash any remaining dirt off.
While I often dry fry Chanterelles before cooking them in vegan butter, I wanted to try something different with the motherload I picked today.
This delicious, vegan Chanterelle Mushroom Pasta was a little experiment I did that turned out to be an amazing sauce that will go with your favourite pasta.
Although I used fresh chanterelle mushrooms, there is probably no reason you couldn’t use dried mushrooms in this recipe instead of fresh chanterelles.Also, if I had white wine on hand, I would have used it instead of Shiraz, and perhaps enjoyed the lovely golden colour that help to make golden chanterelle mushrooms so appealing.
Chanterelle Pasta Sauce
Equipment
- instant pot for sauteeing
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup Becel vegan butter
- 1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 red oinion Medium, quartered and sliced very thin
- 2 cloves crushed garlic
- 1/4 cup red wine SHiraz or whatever you have
- 1 1/2 lbs Fresh Chanterelle Mushrooms
- 1/4 cup Nutritional Yeast
- 1 tbsp Italian spice mix Find this in the spice aisle at the grocery store
- 1 tbsp lemon Juice
- 1 pinch salt
- 1 pinch black pepper
- 1/4 cup oat milk
Instructions
- Turn your Instant Pot on to the Saute function and wait for the beep to tell you it's hot.
- Melt vegan butter in Instant Pot and add olive oil, stir to mix
- Add onions and cook for 1 minute
- Add garlic and cook for 1 more minute
- Add wine and then chanterelle mushrooms.
- Cook for a few minutes until chanterelle mushrooms soften
- Add oat milk/cream and nutritional yeast and cook lightly until sauce is slightly thickened.
- Mix in Italian spice mix and lemon juice.
- Add salt and pepper to taste
- Serve over your favorite Italian pasta. I used rigatoni, but use what you have handy.
- Sprinkle with vegan parmasan to taste
