It was a banner fall for mushrooms and I have tons of dried porcini burning a hole in my pantry. The first thing I wanted to make were a few easy dried porcini pasta recipes. In this post I'll walk you through two porcini mushroom sauces for pasta: a simple creamy mushroom pasta, and a rustic version without cream.
Fresh, Frozen, and Dried Porcini
Porcini / King Bolete Mushrooms are versatile in how they can be preserved. Like other mushrooms they can be cooked and frozen. But, unlike many other wild mushrooms, porcini can also be frozen raw without ruining their texture (Chicken of the Woods) or flavor (Hericium).
If your mushrooms don't have bug damage, freezing is the way to go. If you don't pick your own mushrooms, wholesalers like Foods in Season and others sell frozen porcini mushrooms year round.
Drying porcini concentrates their flavor and is the best way to preserve the mushrooms if they're older, have mature pores or bug damage. I use dried porcini in the recipes here, but you could substitute 4-6 oz of fresh porcinis for the 1.5 oz I call for in both recipes.
One of the best parts of dried mushrooms is their soaking liquid, and the dark, rich nectar is perfect for soups and pasta dishes. Fresh mushrooms will have a much milder flavor.
If you have lots of dried mushrooms you'll also want to check out my Italian Mushroom soup-it's one of the best ways to use a lot of dried wild mushrooms quickly.
How to Cook Porcini Mushroom Pasta
Both recipes start out the same way. First you rehydrate dried porcini mushrooms, roughly chop them and reserve the soaking liquid.
I like to start the pan off with a little pancetta or cured, meat, which is optional. After the fat's rendered you add chopped shallot and garlic. The images below describe the process for both versions.
Creamy Porcini Mushroom Pasta Sauce
Dried porcini liquid is rich and loves to be amplified by cream. Try this version first if it's your first time.
Rustic Porcini Mushroom Ragu
In this recipe, the cream is replaced by chopped, peeled tomato. I also like to add crushed red pepper flakes and a fresh herb like mint at the end.
Variations
- The mushrooms can be lightly toasted in 325 F oven for 5-8 minutes or until lightly golden for a slightly different flavor.
- Both sauces are good for fresh pasta like tagliatelle with porcini and can also be used to dress ravioli.
- If you buy dried porcini mushrooms they may have a much stronger flavor than the ones I use in this post. Feel free to use half the amount of porcini along with 4 oz of chopped fresh mushrooms.
- If you're wondering about adding dried mushrooms directly to pasta dough, I have a recipe for that, but it's more for color than flavor.
More Mushroom Pastas
- Cauliflower Mushroom Farfalle
- Chanterelle Pasta with Roasted Garlic-Herb Sauce
- Shrimp of the Woods Fra-Diavolo
- Hedgehog Mushroom Pasta
- Ramp and Morel Spaghetti
Dried Porcini Pasta
Equipment
- 1 Large pasta pot
- 1 10 inch saute pan or skillet
Ingredients
- 1.5 oz dried porcini mushrooms or king boletes
- 2 cup meat stock such as chicken stock, preferably homemade
- Kosher salt, to taste
- 2 oz shallot (1 small) finely diced or minced
- 2 oz pancetta or bacon cut into tiny cubes or finely chopped
- 1 large clove garlic finely chopped
- 1 tbsp unsalted butter
- 4 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese to taste
- 1 tbsp cooking oil like light olive oil
- 5 oz dried pasta such as spaghetti or tagliatelle
- 1 splash dry white wine
Creamy Porcini Pasta
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 1 tbsp chives, sliced or chopped parsley.
- 1 small handful fresh spinach leaves stems removed
Instructions
Build the Sauce
- Have a large pot of lightly salted boiling water to cook the pasta al dente.
- Soak the mushrooms in the chicken stock until softened, about 15 minutes.
- Swish the mushrooms in the liquid, squeeze dry and remove. Roughly chop the porcini and reserve separate from the soaking liquid.
- Heat the pancetta or bacon in the oil in a large, wide sauce pan.
- When the fat renders from the pancetta, add the shallot and garlic, cook for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add the chopped mushrooms, stir, and cook a minute more.
- Add the wine to the pan and cook until evaporated.
- Add the mushroom stock and reduce by half.
Finishing and Plating
- Add the cream, spinach, and hot pasta and bring to a gentle simmer, stirring the noodles gently in the sauce to coat them. Add the butter and cook until the sauce thickens.
- Adjust the consistency with splashes of pasta water to help keep it juicy.
- Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning for salt if needed. If your stock was seasoned it may not need salt. Turn the pan off and remove from heat, add the parmesan, stir and serve.
Video
Notes
Variations
- The mushrooms can be lightly toasted in 325 F oven for 5-8 minutes or until lightly golden for a slightly different flavor.
- Both sauces are good for fresh pasta and can also be used to dress ravioli, too.
Rustic Porcini Ragu
Ingredients- 1 large roma tomato, blanched, peeled, seeded and chopped
- Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
- 3 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon sliced mint leaves
- ½ cup pasta cooking water
- Follow the directions for the pasta above, but substitute the chopped tomatoes for the cream and omit the spinach.
- Add hot pepper and fresh mint leaves at the end of cooking.
- You'll need to add a little extra pasta water to help make a pan sauce.
Jane
Super recipe, fantastic combination and great tips to make the dish. Thank you, Alan 😃🙏
Alan Bergo
Hey thanks Jane.
Jeremiah
Made the creamy one with some Boletus pallidus. Turned out great. We added pecorino instead of parm for a little extra kick.
Jorge Vilanova
Hello Alan,
I'm jealous of your bountiful mushroom collection this year. I may suggest this would be a good opportunity to try the fricando recipe I sent you some time ago. A couple of weeks ago I made a batch using dry porcini mushrooms because I had run out of the saffron milk cap mushrooms. I can no longer get any from my usual source because I believe they are sourced from Russia and because of the war trade is not possible.
The fricando I made with the porcini was wonderful. Give it a try and let me know what you think.
Thanks,
Jorge Vilanova
Alan Bergo
Thanks Jorge. I'm trying to get around to it. I have a lot on my plate.
Andrew
Made the creamy version of this with a mix of dried yellow boletes, birch boletes, and porcini. Paired extremely well with your fresh ramp pasta. One of the best pasta dishes I've made in a long time, can't wait to try it again.
Alan Bergo
Hey thanks Andrew. It's so simple-fun way to highlight the mushroom.
Pete
Thanks, Alan. I love porcini but have only found a few in many years of searching. I hit a bolete mother lode last fall but was just unsure enough about whether they were edible/choice that I passed on them. Any thoughts?
Alan Bergo
Hey Pete. Depends on what type they were. Feel free to send a pic to my email.
Roman
Great recipe Alan, only problem is that first step!
'Have a bumper harvest of porcini'
Happily, I too found plenty this year, including Boletus subcaerulescens for the first time. Amazing mushrooms, and I'm grateful for your previous post for helping me to id them.
My only question is, have you found porcini can come up in back to back years? Conditions permitting I mean.
Alan Bergo
Hey Roman. Yeah they can be tricky but this year was insane for me. Porcini can definitely come up in back to back years if the conditions are right. It varies from patch to patch. Some patches I pick I've only harvested from them once. Some I can go to dependably every year.
Allan Gaudette
Hi Alan, why is store bought dried mushrooms stronger than yours, your,s may be fresher? Allan
Alan Bergo
Good question, and unfortunately not an easy one to answer with the information we have right now. Many dried porcini, especially imported ones are so strong that you might not want to use them as liberally as I do here. It has to do with the exact species of mushrooom that is being used. Porcini / Boletus edulis is a species complex, meaning there's many, many different mushrooms that can be within the group that taste similar. Most commercial dried porcini like you'll find in regular supermarkets under the brand Melissas, for example, are a dark colored, very strong tasting type of porcini. Confusingly, I was just in Tuscany eating loads of porcini from the estate, and they were mild tasting-near identical to the ones I harvest in MN and WI. Basically, if you're picking your own mushrooms and using them in the recipe, you don't have to worry. If you use dried porcini from a store and the aroma is very strong, you might want to cut them 50/50 with other dried mushrooms or with some fresh ones.
Krista
Sounds delicious! How much wine for instruction #7? I don’t see it in the ingredients. Just a splash? Thanks
Alan Bergo
Hey thanks just a splash.
Carla Beaudet
Hi Alan, ya got 'yer wine missing from the ingredients lists. It caught my eye, and at first Sav Blanc seemed a little incongruous with either the cream (where I would have reached for a chardonnay) or the tomatoes (where my first inclination would be a Chianti, although I understand you probably didn't want to color the dish), but made more sense the more I thought about it. So rather than blather on about what I was thinking, I'd rather ask: can you tell me why you chose a sav blanc to deglaze, and whether you also drank it with the dish, and was that a good combo?
Alan Bergo
Hey thanks, yes I caught that, someone else mentioned it too. Appreciate your vigilance. Sav blanc is usually what I have around for general cooking. It's just a splash, you're not going to be picking out the nuances of it. I also can't drink due to the Lyme disease and used to have my sous chef do all my wine pairings. Needless to say, wine, and the details around it aren't high on my list of priorities.
Carla Beaudet
Oh, wow. I poked around and I guess if you have had the disease long-term and are on long-term antibiotics for it, it's probably a good idea to avoid alcohol. I have had Lyme twice, but caught it quickly both times with the Doxycycline. I appreciate your post about using Permethrin correctly; I've used Picaridin (which, unlike Permethrin can be applied safely to skin) with good results, but have not yet tried Permethrin. Wine is probably a little higher on my own priority list; I organize collaborative tastings with friends based on a Great Courses lecture series.
Alan Bergo
It's tricky. It isn't Lyme itself that caused the reaction for me, it was the Lyme interacting and exacerbating pre-existing neurological conditions I had. Two small tolerations I had quickly become full-blown, chronic problems overnight. It was crazy.
Tammie Lee
Yum, both look so good. Thank you.
Alan Bergo
Thanks Tammie.