Edible Wild Mushrooms

About

Foraging for edible wild mushrooms can seem intimidating, but it's also exciting and rewarding. Before you eat any, it's important to be comfortable with your local varieties and know exactly what you're eating.

On this page you'll find posts on specific varieties, with wild mushrooms identification pictures as well as tips on harvesting, cleaning, storing, cooking and recipes for many different types that are safe to eat.

Helpful Links

| Permethrin: Preventing Lyme Disease | Can you Eat Wild Mushrooms Raw? | How to Spore Print a Wild Mushroom | The Best Mushroom Knives | My Best Tips for Successful Mushroom Hunting 

How to Learn

One of the most common questions I get is how people can teach themselves to identify and cook different mushrooms confidently.

I've designed this website to be one tool out of a few you might use to help you feel comfortable and confident in your ID's.

In Person (The Best)

Learning in the field from an expert is the fastest, and safest way to learn wild mushrooms.

Here's some quick recommendations :

• Finding a local foraging guide and paying for a guided foray or identification class.
• Joining your local mycological society and attending forays.
• Joining Mushroom Facebook groups focused on your area. For example: Wild Food Wisconsin or Foraging Minnesota.

Field Guides

Like this website, field guides can show you images and descriptions of different mushrooms to help with identification.

Occasionally I include graphics like this to help with key characteristics.

Often times the pictures are limited, but guides don't require internet service and are an important tool in your kit. Here's some of my favorites.

Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora

100 Edible Mushrooms by Michael Kuo

If you want to jump to a list of what I think are the best wild mushrooms to eat, check out 35 Essential Wild Mushrooms Everyone Should Know. Or see my list of the Top 10 Underrated Wisconsin and Minnesota Mushrooms.