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Honey Mushrooms

 
Edible honey mushrooms honey fungus, or Armillaria mellea

A perfect cluster of honey mushrooms, you want them before the caps open in a perfect world.

Honey mushrooms (various Armillaria species)  are one of the best fall mushrooms out there, with a caveat or two. If the conditions are right, you could walk out of your favorite patch of woods with a literal truckload of these, it’s all about timing though. When I describe them to people who want to start picking them, I usually say something to the tune of “lookout for patches of mushrooms that grow like an infection”.

Habitat

Honeys are a parasitic mushroom, infecting trees and whole swaths of woods. Even when they’re not fruiting, you can be on the lookout for areas they might like, my favorite variety grows on oaks, so I look for forests with hardwoods filled with dead and dying wood. On a side note, the honey species I like enjoys the same type of terrain as hen of the woods too, and I often find them together.

Honey Mushrooms

You’ll start to see these in the fall.

What gets confusing about honeys though, is that there are a bunch of different species with very slight differences, you could pick some with yellow caps (my favorite) and then a few feet away you could pick some that have dark brown caps.

A Few Honey Mushroom ID Points

  • Honey mushrooms will have rings on their stems, unless they’re Armillaria tabescens, or ringless honeys
  • The will also often have small iridescent hairs on their caps
  • Honey mushrooms love to grow in clusters, fruiting from a central base, like the picture above- a characteristic called growing “cespitose”
  • They could be growing from the ground, or directly from dead, dying or infected trees
  • Honey mushrooms will always have a white spore print
Honey Mushrooms, Armillaria mellea

Honey mushrooms can vary greatly with age. Note the different characteristics of all the honey mushrooms above.

Honey Mushrooms, Armillaria mellea

Very young honeys are the best, note how they’re growing in a cluster here. They may grow clustered, or singularly, depending. 

Different Species

It’s not technically correct, but I usually think of honey mushrooms in a greater sense as being one of two different kinds: conifer honeys and deciduous honeys. I usually see what I assume is Armillaria gallica on conifers in my area, and what I assume is Armilliria mellea on deciduous trees, but that is only a coincidence as A. gallica isn’t relegated to only conifers. There isn’t a real difference in the flavor, but I prefer the yellow capped species compared to ones that resemble the mushrooms below.

Honey Mushrooms

Conifer honey mushrooms on a stump.

Look-A-Likes

Honey mushrooms are great, but there are a few mushrooms out there that could be confused with them that should not be eaten. From my experience, species that could be confused with honeys could be, but shouldn’t be limited to:

  • Deadly Galerina (Galerina marginata)
  • Pholiota Species
  • Sulfur Tufts (Hypholoma fasciculare)
Pholiota mushrooms

Pholiota species

Harvesting

Just like a vegetable, and any other mushroom, you want honeys that are young and tender. The smaller the caps, the more crisp and bouncy they’ll be, and the less chance you’ll see any larvae in them (they love honeys in Minnesota and Wisconsin where I hunt) also, the stems won’t be as long and spindly.

If I do find honeys that have big stems, and they’re nice and bug-free, I may take them if I’m not getting much else. The stems are not amazing by themselves, but they’re ok, and still better than a cultivated shroom anyday. Expect to see size variation here and there, occasionally I see honeys of massive size, say as big as small frisbees when the caps open.

Aborted and non-aborted Entoloma abortivum or shrimp of the woods

Entoloma abortivum, or shrimp of the woods (aborted and non-aborted forms here) are common near honey mushrooms where I live. Keep an eye out for them. 

Bonus find: Entolomas

Where I live, honey mushrooms commonly grow near aborted entoloma/shrimp of the woods. When you find one, keep your eyes peeled for the others, as they might be close by. 

Venison goulash or gulyas with honey mushrooms recipe

Honey mushroom gulyas or goulash is one of the best things these mushrooms can go into.

Cooking

There’s plenty to be done with them. They can be blanched and pickled, roasted to concentrate their sugars and then marinated, sauteed, cooked in cream, dehydrated for soup in the winter, lots of things. There is a lot more to do with them than just treat them like another mushroom though. Honeys are loved in Eastern Europe, as well as Italy, so if you’re looking for inspiration, try looking for recipes for mushroom from those cuisines-there’s a good chance some recipes could originally be made with honeys, but had their names changed due to availability. In Italy they’re known as “la familia”, referring to their generous fruiting. They also make great substitutes for mushrooms in Asian cuisine, where they’re natural thickening property can be used a bit like cornstarch. See below on mucilage for more on that.

Honeys love soup

Honey mushrooms love, love being cooked in soup and broth, and their natural mucilage will help give body to soups. See below on mucilage for more on that, or refer to my hot and sour soup, or honey mushroom gulyas for examples. 

Always Cook Honey Mushrooms Thoroughly

 Many mycological societies ban the serving of honey at mushroom gatherings and cookouts since some people have become ill after eating them. The biggest thing to remember is that they need a bit of extra cooking to make sure that they don’t give you any gastric upset.

Apparently some people are more sensitive to certain species too, so start out serving small amounts to check for allergies. I’ve also heard people say that the suspect species that can give intestinal upset is not the complex of honey mushrooms that grow in deciduous woods, but the coniferous species, Armillaria gallica. My advice is just make sure to cook them all completely through.

Don’t be scared though-I’ve seen more people become sick after eating thoroughly cooked black morels than I have honey mushrooms. When properly cooked, the Honey mushrooms are delicious and rich, with a slightly sweet finish.

Edible honey mushrooms honey fungus, or Armillaria mellea

A few nice honeys, notice the caps aren;t open yet.

The Honey Slime

Yay for mucilage. Have you ever cooked okra? or Cactus paddles? Honeys, along with other mushrooms like amanita, lactarius and fried chicken mushrooms give off mucilage when cooked in liquid. To avoid this, blanch the honey mushrooms in salted water before adding to a pickle liquid, or dehydrate them. People around the world have been enjoying honey mushrooms regardless of the mucilagenous qualities for years though. Packed in pickling jars they can be a little snotty, if they aren’t blanched first, but if you cook them in something like a soup or broth they will thicken it nicely, which means you can add them to soups almost like roux, or okra.

I should mention, when possible I like to serve honey mushroom caps whole, or if they’re really large, halved or quartered, they just look better, and taste better like that. The long stems can be reserved for duxelles or broth, etc.

Preservation

Like most other mushrooms, honeys should cooked before freezing, they also dry well, but I like to cut the caps into 1/4s or halves to ensure they’re not tough. Blanching in lightly salted water and freezing with butter or oil is probably my go-to.

Beef and honey mushroom runzas or bielbocks

Honey mushroom duxelles make a great addition to beirocks/runzas.

Honey Mushroom Recipes

    • Honey Mushroom Gulyas
    • Honey Mushroom in Sour Cream (a classic)
    • Runzas with Honey Mushrooms
    • Sweet and Sour Venison Soup With Honey Mushrooms
    • Honey Mushrooms Cooked With Their Stems
    • Mushroom Duxelles
    • Wild Mushrooms With Garlic and Parsley

More Honey Mushrooms

 

Edible honey mushrooms or Armillaria mellea

Previous Post: « Spring Morel Consomme
Next Post: Lobster Mushrooms »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Esla

    September 28, 2016 at 11:16 am

    Thank you for this information. If I dry honey mushrooms and want to use them in a soup, etc., how long should I soak them to reconstitute them? And after doing so, is it still necessary/recommended to parboil or caramelize them before adding them to the soup, or would you not to be because the mucilage is what thickens the soup? Thank you!

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      December 6, 2016 at 9:33 am

      Just soak them until they’re soft, it should take about 30 minutes. I cannot speak to the mucilagenous quality of dried honeys, haven’t tried it yet, I suspect you can just throw them in though.

      Reply
      • Traci

        September 23, 2018 at 10:42 am

        Some nice info here, but please study these before going out and picking them. There are other mushrooms that are tannish and yellowish that are toxic to humans. Also, be sure they are growing from wood in a cluster. Also know they are a fall mushroom. You need to get to know your mushrooms before you start seeing the defining features. Once you gain some experience, these are a great mushroom to hunt:)

        Reply
        • Alan Bergo

          September 25, 2018 at 9:50 am

          They are a great mushroom to hunt. Thanks for contributing.

          Reply
        • Kenny R

          October 5, 2018 at 1:35 am

          Kind of a strange comment. There are other brown mushrooms that can kill you, aka “deadly Galerina”. And all the ones that I’ve found pretty much year round were never told that they were supposed only come out in the fall.

          Reply
  2. Liz Terrance

    November 7, 2016 at 7:12 am

    If I may suggest, can you add a link to Galerina species as a potential look-alike? They are very similar, and Galerinas are deadly, would like to get the word out about the dangers of them.

    Reply
    • Traci

      September 23, 2018 at 10:49 am

      Here’s a good link for galerina mushrooms that can easily be mixed up with honeys by inexperienced mushroom hunters:

      https://www.mushroomexpert.com/galerina_marginata.html

      Reply
  3. Scott Czubkowski

    September 24, 2018 at 10:20 am

    What is the best way to preserve them?

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      September 25, 2018 at 9:47 am

      I prefer duxelles

      Reply
  4. Jannette Pazer

    October 10, 2018 at 6:06 pm

    From what I’ve read, A. gallica isn’t limited to conifers. Here in NY, they’re all over the place, and my woods are mostly oak, beech, hemlock and maple.
    https://www.mushroomexpert.com/armillaria_gallica.html

    Reply
  5. Chris Leone

    October 16, 2018 at 11:20 am

    Elko and thank you for the Info. I am brand spanking new at foraging, I came across what I think are honeys, they grew In clusters, have brown caps, a ring around the stem and the gills are growing into the stem as well, I did a print and cane out white, though they didn’t grow off a trunk or dead wood, that is my last concern.

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      October 18, 2018 at 12:31 pm

      They don’t necessarily have to grow directly on dead wood, they can grow terrestrially/from the ground.

      Reply
      • Eidolon

        November 17, 2018 at 3:20 pm

        Honey mushrooms vs. Deadly Galerinas:

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnISn8MtPAE

        Reply
        • Alan Bergo

          November 17, 2018 at 3:28 pm

          Yes, a good video. Adam and I finally go to meet at the Wild Harvest Fest last year-his video series is great.

          Reply
  6. Sam

    October 5, 2019 at 6:46 pm

    Actually cooking honeys without soaking them in salt water and not producing slime is possible.

    You have to cook them hard (high heat and very well done) on a skillet or some kind of pan that holds heat with some butter.
    Cook them until they are browned and the edges are a little cripsy, it will knock out the mucus and give that deep roasted flavor!

    By the way i love your page, keep up the great work

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      October 7, 2019 at 9:26 am

      Thanks. Soaking any mushroom in salt water is a pervasive old wives tale I can’t support though.

      Reply
  7. L.H. Shoemaker

    October 31, 2019 at 10:16 am

    When you say that to preserve, the honeys should be blanched first in lightly salted water then frozen with oil or butter, do you mean that you saute them in oil or butter, and if so, how long? Otherwise, how do you freeze them “with oil or butter”? Thanks much for you great page. New to mushroom foraging, I check it often!

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      November 1, 2019 at 11:25 am

      Either way could work, but I blanch honeys specifically to reduce the amount of mucilage they can add to things. They should be blanched for around 2 minutes, until completely cooked. They should also be cooked after they’re thawed. Sauteeing them is not ideal as they can lose moisture and dry out, if you add some liquid or are very careful they can be cooked on the stove. I add fat afterwords to help against freezer burn.

      Reply
  8. michele gbesso

    November 3, 2020 at 6:14 am

    5 stars

    can you say if these are honey mushrooms?

    thank you for your help

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      November 3, 2020 at 8:50 am

      I don’t allow images in comments for a number of reasons. Send these to my email [email protected]

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Hunting Saffron Milkcaps in Minnesota says:
    April 17, 2014 at 10:50 am

    […] After a bit of research on his part, it appears traditional Laotian cuisine definitely features the Armillaria gallica, or conifer honey […]

    Reply
  2. Fried Chicken Mushrooms, Lyophyllum Decastes says:
    May 24, 2015 at 10:07 am

    […] With so many fun mushrooms to hunt and play with, I forgot about them, and didn’t put much effort into seeking them out. You won’t find online diatribes praising their aroma or flavor, like you will their cousins in the greater Tricholoma family: Matsutake and Honey Mushrooms. […]

    Reply
  3. Honningsvamp-spiselighed - bionyt.dk says:
    October 22, 2018 at 10:35 am

    […] https://foragerchef.com/honey-mushrooms-the-pride-of-eastern-europe/ […]

    Reply

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