Asian-style Marinated Mushroom Recipe

An Asian-style marinated mushroom recipe makes a great side dish. It also works well as a topping for rice, noodles, and salads.

There’s lots of room to be creative depending on which flavors you want to highlight. Add sake for a more Japanese style, or increase the amount of soy sauce and sesame oil for a different taste. You could even add some fish sauce or tamarind.

The recipe below will get you started, but feel free to experiment to suit your tastes.

Recommended mushrooms: Any of the edible mushrooms, but this often works best with white buttons from the grocery store. (Or the other take on the same species: the delicious cremini mushroom!)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb mushrooms
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1/2 cup rice wine (sake) or vinegar (white)
• 1 tbsp sesame oil
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tsp ginger, minced
• salt to taste

Clean the mushrooms with a damp cloth and slice them into medium-sized pieces. You can remove the stems if you like, but I find they work just fine in this recipe.

Place the mushrooms in a container with the soy sauce, rice wine/vinegar, sesame oil, garlic and ginger. Let them marinate for at least an hour, preferably overnight.

Place all the ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil, adding some water if more liquid is needed. Cook for 5 minutes. If a crisper texture is desired, sauté in a skillet instead.

Remove mushrooms and place in a dish. Continue to cook the marinade until it has a thicker, more syrupy texture. Pour over mushrooms and serve.

Variations:

• Add a chopped red chili or 2 tsp of chili powder for some extra heat.

• Add a tsp of lemon or lime.

• Chop and saute half a red onion to add to the finished mushrooms. Alternatively, you can add some chopped green onions as a garnish.

• Alternatively, you could make a sweeter marinade by replacing the sake/vinegar with mirin, a condiment similar to sake but with more sugar. But take note that this will change the flavor of the dish. (I prefer a more vinegar taste myself!)

• A tsp of fish or oyster sauce will impart a saltier flavor.

• I like to cook the mushrooms in an actual skillet for a bit first but cooking everything together is fine too. If you give the dish some time to sit afterwards the flavors will meld together even more!