A simple chanterelle pasta with a light garlic-wine sauce is one of my favorite wild mushroom pastas. Some of my favorite recipes are those from my chef friends, either restaurant staples, or things that they make at home, and I keep track of them whenever I can remember. This one was from my old boss, Chef Andy Lilja.
This is a quick chanterelle dinner he threw together one evening, the sort of thing where you don't measure and just cook by feel.
I took down notes as he told me what he did, stomach growling the whole time, and I have to tell you, it's one of the best chanterelle mushroom pasta recipes I've had. Andy was always fiendishly creative with pasta.
Ingredients
You'll need chanterelles, unsalted butter, shallots, a bulb of roasted garlic, crushed red pepper, parmesan, wine, and chicken stock.
This is a flexible dish you can improvise with, so I'll go over a few notes on how you can make it your own below.
Herbs
A mix of fresh herbs is important here. Use a combination of different soft, tender herbs like basil, parsley chives, tarragon, oregano, etc.
Cheese
Use some good cheese, and an onion of your choice. Andy and I both love pecorino, but some decent parmigiano would be good too. If, however, all you have is that Kraft powder in the green jar though, do yourself a favor, throw that away and buy some real cheese.
Onions
Andy used small pearl onions from the local farmers market, I used shallots. Feel free to use what's available as far as your alliums go: green garlic, leeks, ramps, etc will all be good.
Tips
It's really just a simple mushroom pasta, well, it's chanterelle spaghetti with roasted garlic wine sauce and herbs to be exact, but there's a couple things worth noting.
Washing the mushrooms
Rinsing the chanterelles before cooking while you're cleaning adds water to them, that will come out and help make a delicious pan sauce combined with the roasted garlic paste, without using a drop of cream, which helps keep it light.
It might seem counter-intuitive to expose mushrooms to water, but, trust me, there's a few old French recipes that call for chanterelles to be soaked.
Step by Step
The pasta's easy to make and comes together quickly once you've gathered the ingredients. The images below describe the process.
More Mushroom Pastas
- Pasta alla Checca with Mushrooms
- Mushroom Carbonara
- Chanterelle Linguine with Clams
- Hedgehog Mushroom Pasta
- All Chanterelle Recipes
Chanterelle Pasta with Roasted Garlic Wine Sauce
Equipment
- 1 10 inch saute pan
- 1 Pasta pot
Ingredients
- 4 oz dried spaghetti or linguine
- 1 large bulb of garlic
- Fresh garden herbs to taste, preferably a mix of basil, fresh parsley, thyme, or sage, all chopped together
- ¼ cup white wine
- ¼ cup chicken stock
- 1 large shallot 3oz, julienned
- Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
- 4-6 oz fresh chanterelles depending on availability roughly chopped, small buttons left whole
- 3 tablespoons Grated pecorino cheese or parmesan or to taste
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
Roast the garlic
- Peel the skin off the garlic. Cut the stem end off the bulb of garlic to reveal the cloves and make them easier to press out.
- Wrap the bulb of garlic in foil, then bake at 350 for 20 minutes, turn off the oven and allow them to continue cooking with the residual heat until cool.
- The cloves of garlic should be soft and supple. Squeeze out the garlic, mash to a paste and reserve. From here the garlic can be prepared ahead of time.
Chanterelles and pasta
- Rinse the chanterelles under cold water to clean them and allow them to soak up moisture (counter-intuitive but actually a good technique for them).
- Warm the chanterelles in a dry pan with the shallots, cooking until the chanterelles have given up their juice and are wilted. Add the olive oil, roasted garlic paste and crushed red pepper flakes and cook for a minute more.
- Add the wine and cook down by half, then add the chicken stock.
- Meanwhile, cook the pasta in salted boiling water until al dente, then add to the pan along with the butter and herbs and cook for a minute to reduce, toss to combine and coat the noodles with the sauce.
- Add a splash of pasta cooking water if the pan gets dry.
- Remove the pan from the heat and add half of the cheese. Double check the seasoning for salt and pepper, adjust as needed, then pull the pasta out of the pan with tongs. Twirl the noodles into two warmed pasta bowls. spoon the mushrooms and juices over them, garnish with pecorino or parmesan cheese and serve.
Mandy
Absolutely delicious!! The roasted garlic and fresh herbs really shine! I skimped a bit on both because I was worried they would overpower but I should have loaded up on both. Thanks so much for the recipe, I'll be referencing your site and videos more often.
Alan Bergo
Thanks Mandy.
Cam Goldman
I'm planning to make this with my first ever Chantelle's, and I want to clarify the instructions, please. After cooking the pasta until al dente, do we add that to the pan that already has the mushrooms? Or are we draining the pasta, reserving some liquid and putting the butter and herbs into the pasta pan? The instructions sound as if the pasta would be added to the pan with the mushrooms, but for the fact it says to spoon the mushrooms and juices over the noodles in the pasta bowls. I'd sure appreciate your clarification! Thank you.
Alan Bergo
You’re adding the pasta to the pan. This is always how pasta is made in a restaurant. Tk make sure there’s no confusion there’s a video here showing the process embedded in the recipe card-please watch it. If you still have questions leave another comment.
Cheflady
This is amazing! Followed it 100% and added Shrimp and a bit of freshly squeezed lemon. Fantastic!!!! I wish I could add my picture of the dish.
Alan Bergo
Thanks.
Alice
I truly enjoyed both the process and the final effect. Easy to follow, friendly recipe and overall an excellent option for chanterelle season. Worth repeating!
Alan Bergo
Thanks Alice I’m so glad you liked it.
Christine
Didn’t have herbs but I added some chopped mixed nuts and drizzled truffle oil on top. Used onion instead of shallot. Max earthy nutty toasted garlicky goodness!!
Alan Bergo
Sounds great. Glad it worked for you!
Bob
Foraged a few lbs of chanterelles yesterday, along with a few golden oysters and a tiny lactifluus volemus. A quick search for a recipe gave me yours as the first hit. No need to look at the others. Made it tonight for dinner. Used a mix of chants, oysters and the lactifluus. Outstanding dish.
Alan Bergo
Glad it worked for you.
Tony
In September, I picked 6-7 pounds of Craterellus tubaeformis in a bog up in the MN arrowhead. I dried most of them, but used some to make this recipe using fresh fettuccine. We loved it! We've since made it three more times, with rehydrated yellowfoots. It's simple but flavorful, yet it really lets the mushrooms shine through. Wonderful! In the spring I'd like to try it with morels, substituting ramps for the alliums. Thanks!
Alan Bergo
Hey Tony, I just love that pasta. And good on you harvesting those yellowfeet-a lot of hunters in MN overlook them because they're small. They pack a great flavor though. Also, our local, small version is C. ignicolor. C. tubaeformis is the West Coast species that's much bigger. All of them are good though!
Tony
Alan,
C. ignicolor grows in wet hardwood forests, but in the black spruce bogs of northern MN, we also have C. tubaeformis. And unlike their smaller cousins, they are very abundant in the right habitat. It's something people from the Cities don't seem to know about. I'd be happy to send you some photos, if you don't believe it!
Alan Bergo
Well that's news to me! I'd love to see. Shoot me an email, I'll have to update a few things here. alanbergo3@gmail.com
Travis
Made this using fresh foraged chanterelles with a few others we found, like porcini and honey mushrooms. The chanterelles released a lot of liquid. For this reason I boiled my cascatelli pasta for just five minutes (15-18 recommended) and then finished it in the mushroom mixture so that the pasta would absorb the excess liquid and absorb extra flavors. This was very simple and very delicious. The hardest part was cleaning the mushrooms.
Alan Bergo
Yes, cleaning mushrooms can be tedious. That's why it's so important to clean them as you pick in the field. I'm cleaning 10 lbs of Saskatchewan chanterelle buttons today from a commercial purveyor-not my cup of tea.
Cheflady
This is amazing! Followed it 100% and added Shrimp and a bit of freshly squeezed lemon. Fantastic!!!!
Jordan Jacobs
Wow. I made this recipe, had to add more wine and chicken stock as I realized I put way more than 6oz of craterellus fallax and cantharellus lateritius, I added lemon per recommendation of a good chef friend, olive oil instead of butter to showcase the mushroom flavor, and pasta water to thicken the sauce a bit. I had all the girls saying wow! Cheers and thank you!
Alan Bergo
Glad it worked for you, yeah if you want to add more just adjust it, recipes are just a template. Jealous that you have C. lateritius down there!
Dawna Goodwin
Oh so delish!! Served with homemade pappardelle. It was all I could not to lick the plate!
Alan Bergo
Glad it worked for you Dawna.
Tim Jones
I live in Northern Ontario. Made this tonite with chanterelles picked a few metres from kitchen door of our camp, herbs we grew ourselves, and fresh garlic from down the road. Used capellini. Absolutely wonderful meal. Thanks much.
Alan Bergo
Hey thanks Tim. I really like this as it's a great break from creamy pastas. Nice and light for summer, and perfect for capellini too! If you have any extra capellini, you have to try my capellini alla checca in the future.
John M
This was exquisite. All the flavors melded perfectly, i made some fresh bigoli pasta and I tell you, this recipe is just fantastic in every way.
Alan Bergo
Homemade bigoli even? Sounds great.
Ron3
I didn’t have time to roast the garlic cloves so instead I dry roasted them on cast iron before cooking the mushrooms then ran them through a garlic press, worked great. This was an incredible recipe! I’m finicky about mushrooms, but there were no leftovers this night. My girlfriend loved it too.
Alan Bergo
Glad it worked for you.