There really is no substitute for fresh mushrooms in everyday cooking, but we can get pretty close. Of course they can always be pickled for long term storage, but there's another method, almost in between a pickle and a marinade: the almighty conserve. Think of it as the best pickled mushroom you've ever had.
I used to make 80 lb batches of these pickled mushrooms every week at my first restaurant. It was also sold commercially at Heartland Restaurant and Farm Direct Market in its heyday when we had a market full of preserves like pickles, sauerkraut and other ferments, all made in house.
Real quick for the sticklers: I've seen mushroom "conserva" and "conserve" both on the menus of various restaurants. They're generally going to be the same thing, conserva just being the Italian translation.
Don't kill the mushrooms with vinegar
The real magic about this is that it lacks the overkill acidity of most pickling liquids (as well as sugar, which I don't care for in mushroom pickles), but it's still safe enough to can in a water bath.
Kept under their liquid, the pickled mushrooms will stay for a very long time. Some recipes online will say they keep for about a month, let me tell you though, I have kept mushrooms stored like this in restaurants for over a year, having no loss in the quality of the product. Just make sure to keep the pickled mushrooms under their liquid.
PH and Canning Safety
I don't usually can this in restaurants, since there's walk in coolers, but for home use,you want something shelf stable. I did an experiment to test if this could be canned in 2015, I suspected it could, but I wanted to be 100% sure. Here's the skinny: general standards for pickling and canning say that you want to have a PH under 4.6 or lower for hermetically sealed foods.
Canning food in a pressure canner doesn't require a low PH as the temperature exceeds 242F, which is enough on it's own to ward off botulism. Foods canned in a water bath canner (like this can be) only reach 212F (the boiling point of water), and that isn't enough on it's own to prevent botulism, so lowering the PH with acid or vinegar is necessary.
To find a sweet spot PH level, I started with 2 cups of liquid and then started adding vinegar, stirring to incorporate, and then testing the PH at 1 and 2 minute intervals to make sure I got a steady reading.
The moral of the story is that mushroom conserve here, consistently came in at right around 3.6, which is way under what you need to be safe, and adding more vinegar eventually made PH level plateau at right around 3.2, which begs the question of why we would ever pickle something in 100% vinegar, which plenty of mushroom pickles call for.
Anything preserved in 100% vinegar is far too strong for me. The lower amount of vinegar in conserve recipes gives you an advantage in that the mushrooms retain more of their flavor, making them more versatile.
The End-All Mushroom Pickle for most species
I guarantee you, once you try this recipe, you may never want to simply pickle mushrooms again. I used hedgehog and chanterelle mushroom in the pictures here because they're probably my favorite for conserve but you could use a lot of different mushroom species, epecially if they're in the button stage.
If it's a mushroom you can pick, it can probably be conserved, and wild mushroom blends are good too. One thing to know though, is that aborted entolomas and any species of puffball I like to caramelize until lightly golden in oil before the vinegar and liquid is added, otherwise they just don't taste as good, a bit like some cousin of crumpled tofu.
There's a couple things that are good to know about preserving mushrooms this way, and I would give the same advice for pickles. Here are some tricks I've learned after using this recipe for years. At one restaurant, I used to make this in 80lb batches, weekly-- I might know a thing or two about it.
- Only use young mushrooms for conserve and pickles, small tight buttons will yield the highest quality product. Larger, more mature mushrooms are better dried.
- Don't go crazy with the flavoring ingredients. Adding a whole bunch of herbs, garlic and spices will make your mushroom conserve (or pickles for that matter) taste like medicine. Start with my tested proportions and get creative later.
How I Use It
This is how a lot of chefs preserve mushrooms en-masse, and, although they have a little acid to them, and they're in a container of liquid, it definitely doesn't mean that they're to be relegated to a bloody mary skewer or part of a pickle plate. Oh hayll no.
Like I mentioned, wet preservation like this is probably the best way to keep the texture of fresh mushrooms, salting comes in a close second, but then they need to be rinsed and soaked before hand. With mushroom conserve, all you do is pull them out of the jar and warm them up if you want. Easy money.
Pro Tip: Serve them Warm
Most of the time, I like to warm these up and add them to a dish, as a garnish to finish a plate, or as part of a warm salad, or appetizer. They can even be an appetizer in themselves.
Baked in a dish with a little liquid and topped with a slice of brie and melted under the broiler in an oven, they're ridiculously good spooned on toast, with a green salad on the side to cut the richness. I'm sure you can figure out plenty of things to do with them, if you don't end up eating them out of the jar standing in front of the fridge.
Wild Mushroom Conserve
Equipment
- 1 wide mouth quart mason jar
Ingredients
- Scant 2 lbs small young mushroom buttons. 28-30 oz will fit a quart jar. Chanterelle buttons are my favorite here
- 3 cloves 7 grams garlic thinly sliced
- ½ cup flavorless oil for sauteeing grapeseed or canola
- 1 teaspoon 5 grams kosher salt a generous teaspoon
- ¾ cup water
- ½ cup white wine vinegar you can also use apple cider vinegar, but it will have a stronger flavor.
- 2 teaspoons fresh chopped thyme fresh only
- 1 dried bay leaf or use fresh
Instructions
- Read through the entire recipe before proceeding.
- Clean your mushrooms by swishing them quickly in cold water while you clean them to ensure they'll have liquid to give up when they hit the heat. Transfer the mushrooms to a tray lined with a few paper towels and allow them to rest and release some liquid. I like to do this overnight in the fridge to allow them to dry out a bit.
- In a wide pan with high sides, or a soup pot, gently heat the oil and the sliced garlic slowly on medium heat until the garlic begins to turn golden. Take your time here, as the more color you can put on the garlic, the better the finished product will taste. Do not burn the garlic.
- When the garlic is perfectly golden, add the mushrooms, salt and herbs, stir so the salt can help draw out the mushroom liquid, then cover the pan, cooking on medium heat, and allow the mushrooms to give up their juice and halt the cooking of the garlic. The mushrooms should give off a good amount of water.
- Once the mushrooms have wilted and their liquid has released, add the water and vinegar, then bring the mixture to a rolling boil.
- Finally, put the mushrooms in a quart jar, pack them down, then bring the liquid back to a boil, and pour the boiling liquid over the mushrooms. Wiggle a chopstick around in the jar to get out air pockets, adding extra pickling liquid as needed. From here the mushrooms can be stored in the fridge and will last for months as long as they're kept under their liquid.
- If you want to water bath can the mushrooms, leave ½ inch of headspace at the top. Depending on the size of your mushrooms, you may have a little pickle liquid and some mushrooms leftover.
- Press the mushrooms down to make sure they are completely covered with liquid--add a little oil to cover if they threaten to pop up, then screw on the lid, then process the jar(s) in a water bath like regular cucumber pickles: 10 minutes for pints, 15 minutes for quarts. Store opened jars in the fridge.
Gina
Hi! I tried your recipe with stropharia, and it worked like charm! Do you think the taste gets better over time, or could you also enjoy them the same day? (I'd like to serve them on saturday but I didn't have enough stropharia this time, so I was planning on making another batch with chanterelles and/or oyster mushrooms from the market, but this market is only on saturday)
Alan Bergo
Oh you can definitely just serve them straight away. Sometimes I use the recipe as a marinade.
Gina
Perferct, thanks a lot!
Michele
Made a batch with some yellow foot chanterelles a couple weeks ago. Served them with grilled pork chops last night… Delicious!! So I am making another batch today (one yellow foot and one black trumpets) but this time I did a water bath to put them up for winter. When you say “Once the mushrooms have wilted and given up their juice” do you mean cook them until there is no juice remaining or just until they are done but with mushroom juice still in the pan? I just cooked them until they were wilted and then added the water and vinegar.
Thanks for a great recipe!!
Alan Bergo
Just cook until they're wilted.
Michael Coppinger
WOW! Just tried this recipe and..I've found a new(favorite so far) way to enjoy my fresh Chanterelles!! I had to cut recipe in half because I only had a little over a lb left after cooking and freezing the others. Next year, I won't be freezing as many! I did what I had in a pint and a quarter pint jar and had to add a little extra water and rice vinegar...but dang!! Super delicious! 👍🏻👍🏻 So glad I came across this recipe for "Conserve" pickled Chanterelles!!
Thank you Chef!!
Michael
Alan Bergo
Hey Michael, thanks. Glad it worked for you.
Kate
This is the best + my favourite way to preserve chanterelles. Soo delicious. Thanks for the recipe, chef!
Alan Bergo
Thanks Kate! Me too.
Tania Nicol Tasker
I’ve made this a couple of times now and the conserve has turned out delicious every time. I’m now making a batch for friends. Delicious!
Alan Bergo
Glad it's worked for you.
Carrie
I had just a little more then a pound of button chantys mushrooms that were combined late summer/early Fall (season was unusually late for the chanterelles and the summer ones were solid/barely any liquid in them and were like fresh picked after a month). The recent forages of chantys were had more moisture but not a lot due to the unusual long dry conditions we had on Vancouver Island, BC. Given that, when I followed the directions I required to make two more batches of vinegar/water ratio with a bit more salt in each - boiled then added into the 2 pint jars that they fit into. I assured I used a chop stick to remove any dead space in the jars each time. Still not quite enough liquid to cover top of mushrooms so I added grapeseed oil, just enough to cover and assure not popped up. Sealed lids and hot water bath 15 mins for long term storage until required. I hope this will be ok as the vinegar (rice wine) and water ratio with a bit of salt secondarily boiled and added to jars would not have had any of the mushroom water which is the basis of this recipe. x fingers. Any feed back regarding this chef. PS I just discovered your show when I went into this website, Field, Forest, Feast, and looking forward to checking it out!
Alan Bergo
Hey Carrie you'll be just fine. This is the tricky part about wild mushrooms having variable water content due to weather, and why I instruct people to wash them with water even if they're not dirty to ensure there's enough liquid. It's fine to add some extra vinegar water using the proportions outlined in the recipe to help the mushrooms stay covered.
Carrie
Thank you for your response. Did I need to add the oil to the top or should I have just made more vinegar/water? Just so I know for next batch I make.
Alan Bergo
You can do either, but I'd do the vinegar/water combo. I really appreciate you letting me know that there wasn't enough liquid to cover what you had. This recipe will get modified for my upcoming book and now I know I need to have friends test it with their chanterelles this year.
Chefs I know make this a number of different ways too. Another version is to boil the mushrooms with salted vinegar liquid, drain, then simply cover with oil in a jar. This recipe is a hybrid of the pure oil version and a pickle.
Carrie Maier
I have an abundance of button size summer chanterelles (roseocanus) (Vancouver Island, BC) and they are dry, very unlike my Fall/Winter variety forages. Given this, water content is almost nil when I cook them. Advantages of the summer ones, I can keep them in fridge in a container between paper towels for over a month! So, due to lack of moisture, how do I adjust this recipe?
Rhonda
HI Chef
I'm a newbie forager and have heard that Honey Mushrooms can cause gastric upset if not cooked thoroughly. Should I preboil them or follow the recipe as written? Thanks for al these amazing recipes! Making the hericium crabcakes currently.
Alan Bergo
For honeys follow it as written. Do know that they will get mucilagenous and the liquid will thicken.
Evan S
The thickening also happened with my pickled H. coralloides. Is that normal for that species? Taste amazing, regardless!
Alan Bergo
Hey Evan. Each species is a little different. I haven't processed coralloides like this personally so that's gtk. Honeys are def the most mucilagenous I've seen.
Barbara
This is my absolute favorite for chicken of the woods and blewits. I love using rice vinegar here - seasoned rice vinegar gives them a wonderful flavor too. Thank you!!
Alan Bergo
Thanks Barbara. Yeah rice vinegar is so nice and mellow I love it for pickles.
Mark
Alan, I had a quick Q: this recipe calls for 3 cups vinegar, 3 cups water. Several other recipes of yours call for 1 cup vinegar to 3-5 cups water (and champagne vinegar seems milder than regular white) for various pickled mushrooms like your pickled morels, chickens, etc. so my question is: how does the vinegar profile differ?
I have done multiple pickles in 50/50 vinegar/water for things like cauliflower, but it still seems like it'd be a pretty pervasive vinegar element to add those back into a dish of something, whereas the 4:1-ish of your other recipes seem perhaps more hopeful? Thoughts?
I know i should just make a couple jars of each but am not sure how many jars of mushrooms i anticipate getting, so i wanted to hedge my bets a bit...
Alan Bergo
Sorry if this seems like a non-answer, but the vinegar profile is exactly as you described here. More vinegar=stronger acidity. Less vinega=less acidity. This recipe is the exact proportions we used at Heartland during my tenure there, and it's very popular. I also brought the recipe to my first restaurant and made it in 50lb (or larger) batches of mushrooms at a time, which I served with every steak that went out the door (warmed up). It's important to note that while this may appear to be a 50/50 ratio of vinegar to water, it isn't really. Chanterelles, which are what most people will use to make this, hold a lot more water after washing than others, which gets transferred to the pickling liquid. Originally I had the same ratio as the other pickle recipes, but with safety and user error in mind, I switched the ratio to accommodate that extra liquid. I hope that makes sense.
Martha
I made these last fall and put them in my fridge, the jars upside-down. I was afraid of them, I really don't know why. I finally tried them yesterday with a few other foragers and oh man, they are SO GOOD!!
Alan Bergo
Hey Martha, glad they worked for you. Yes, pickling is something people need to be comfortable with. I share my method to be as honest as possible about exactly what I do, but, it is a learning curve. If it makes people nervous it is very easy to water bath process. I hope now that you've tasted the finished product you'll make some more. It's one of my all-time favorites.
Corinne Carey
Wow, I am so excited about this recipe. I am cooking a special mushroom-themed meal for Valentine's Day for 20 people and I was looking for a way to incorporate mushrooms in a salad. I am going to serve them alongside greens, beets, shredded carrots, tofu, and figs... I was wondering if you could recommend a nice, light dressing that might be perfect. I don't want to overdose on the apple cider vinegar, which is what I used in the conserve, but usually my go-to dressing is a light vinaigrette made with apple cider vinegar. Maybe black garlic?
Alan Bergo
Corrine, personally, I would remove the tofu and figs if you're going to add the mushrooms, that many ingredients sounds a little busy to me. As for the dressing, I'd probably use something very light, like nice olive oil and a little fresh lemon juice. If it were me, I'd also add some fresh herbs, a little torn basil or mint, or at least some whole leaves of flat leaf Italian parsley. A
Stu
Great recipe. Even friends who aren't excited about mushrooms live it. We pressure can ours because we are able to and it adds a little comfort for squeamish friends.
Alan Bergo
Glad it worked for you.
Rich
Have you done this recipe with the Matsutake? I just found quite a bit and want to try this recipe out. They tend to be a drier mushroom. Would you recommend soaking first?
Alan Bergo
They should be fine as is.
Heidi
Hi there! I would love to try this recipe but do you think I could pack in 250ml jars instead of 1L? If so what would the processing time be?
Alan Bergo
I can't speak to that. You'll have to research canning pickles in those containers.
Lori
I’ve got a lot if lactifluus hygrophorus on my hands suddenly. Would this be good for the milk caps?
Thanks for all your adventurous work by the way!
Alan Bergo
Any and all mushrooms will be fine here. Enjoy.
Zach Rampulla
Hi Alan,
First off, this recipe is a true gem, the detailed foresight made it very easy to follow all the way through. I've made this recipe with 3 different types of buttons so far this summer after I was stoked on agaricus bitorquis. Since then I've used this recipe for boletus rubriceps, and polyozellus complex with similarly excellent results. Thank you!
I've read through a bunch of your recipe/ articles and it's sustainable, you have really done your research, as an avid forager and previous chef I really appreciate the detail. Is this website your full-time gig or do you still prepare food for the public as well?
All the best,
Zach
Alan Bergo
Hey thanks Zach. I'm jealous you've made this with polyozellus, man are they good. To answer your question, 2020 changed a lot for everyone, for me, it meant managing my various media, consulting and literary projects into a strange self-employment machine. I am doing this full time, which is kind of a dream come true. If I go back to running a restaurant is a good question, if I do it it would be with a talented EC doing the day-to-day things for me. I have no desire to return to the chef schedule after tasting freedom, something I'm sure you can commiserate with!
Juineve
Hm. I feel like I must be doing something wrong. I'm on my second swing at this. First was with COW, some mixed boletes, and golden chants - and it just seemed like there was a lot of water from the wash... and the liquid is fairly cloudy.
I'm giving it another go with a giant haul of small hedgehogs and again, they seem to be holding a lot of water from the rinse and are basically boiling in it. It's not done yet but it's going to take some time to reduce all of the water.
Alan Bergo
Juineve, if you're doing large batches of mushrooms than what I outline here, it may take longer. With 2 pounds of mushrooms, it doesn't take long to cook the liquid down. To clarify too, you are not soaking the mushrooms, only rinsing or swishing them one at a time to clean them. If you're mushrooms are fresh and clean, you can probably get away without washing them. I'm going to rework the recipe here when I get a chance for clarity, how it will work is this: cook the mushrooms and garlic, etc, when the mushrooms give up their liquid and are totally cooked, you remove them and pack in jars. Once they're in the jars, measure the liquid that is left over, and use 1 cup of liquid to 1/2 cup of cider vinegar, bring that to a boil, pour into the jars to cover the mushrooms, then process in a water bath.
Christina Akins
In the recipe above, you describe 1/2 water and 1/2 cup vinegar but your reply here states 1 cup water. Should I stick with the measurements in your original recipe?
Alan Bergo
Christina, you're misunderstanding me a bit, so let me try to explain here: to fill one wide-mouth quart jar with cooked mushrooms, you will need about 1-1.5 cups of acidified cooking liquid. Ideally, this is at a ratio of about 3 part water to 1 parts vinegar, and that's about what you should have left over after cooking 2 lbs of chanterelles or similar mushrooms, but, as water absorption and innate water content can vary due to everything from environmental factors to how long someone submerges them for cleaning (a quick swish is all you need) to how long the mushrooms have sat in the fridge on towels, if at all, I have to allow for some wiggle room here. Proceed with the recipe exactly as it is stated in the post.
Christina Akins
Can you use avacado oil to satuee the chanterelles?
Alan Bergo
Yes.
Michael Coppinger
WOW! Just tried this recipe and..I've found a new(favorite so far) way to enjoy my fresh Chanterelles!! I had to cut recipe in half because I only had a little over a lb left after cooking and freezing the others. Next year, I won't be freezing as many! I did what I had in a pint and a quarter pint jar and had to add a little extra water and rice vinegar...but dang!! Super delicious! 👍🏻👍🏻 So glad I came across this recipe for "Conserve" pickled Chanterelles!!
Thank you Chef!!
Michael
Virginia Wilson Toccalino
I used a white vermouth in place of the vinegar or white wine..... delicious... my mushrooms lasted right through winter until I used up the last ones in May
Alan Bergo
Great. Glad it worked for you.
Tatjana
Hi! Can I use morels with chanterelles in this recipe?
Alan Bergo
Yes
Michael Coppinger
Chef, I made this recipe again with 4lbs of Chanterelles!! I'm hooked on this way of preservation! I did well this season with 22lbs foraged so far since July 29th-Aug. 13th(just out one day a weekend).
Two questions Chef:
1. I canned my left over liquid/brine...can I use that for anything..if yes what do you recommend?
2. Will this same brining technique work for Maitake mushrooms as well?
Sure hope so...
Thank you in advance!!
Michael
Alan Bergo
Hey Michael, sorry it took me a bit to get to this. I just moved. It's better to have too much brine than too little. Add some to a sour soup, or use it to marinate vegetables. It also definitely works with maitake.
Debz
I am very new to the preserving realm. If the jars of mushrooms are not placed in a water bath, can they be stored at room temp if unopened? If so, for how long? Thanks
Alan Bergo
No. To store at room temp you MUST water bath process.