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.
Ashley
Absolutely loved this pasta and will definitely make it again. I didn't have a shallot on hand so I used onion, but will try to remember shallot next time as I'm sure it's better. Nice to have a new go-to mushroom pasta dish without heavy cream!
Alan Bergo
Thanks Ashley, glad you liked it.