So awkward, but come on it says right there on the package to wash those mushrooms or whatever it is… You’re not their mom but you don’t wanna eat feces or whatever ended up on the produce. A quick rinse is never going to be perfect but it’s better than nothing.
In the absence of legitimate suggestions, commiseration is welcome too 😉
There are a lot of people who think, largely due to misinformed cooking shows, that you shouldn’t wash mushrooms, just wipe them off.
If you want them washed, maybe say “Hey, I can help out by washing those for you.”
As far as I’ve found, they’re both right. You shouldn’t have to wash your mushrooms, but it’s not a bad idea if you’re not buying fancy mushrooms.
The generic button mushroom variants you’re probably getting at the grocery store are grown in compost, which often contains some manure - ie poops.
But before growing mushrooms it’s pasteurized. Mycelium is picky, and fairly easily out-competed by other stuff, so to make sure you’re just growing mushrooms and not bacteria you basically have to sterilize the medium they’re grown in.
But those mushrooms are often grown in open beds, and harvested by hand. And that means they get that poop dirt right up on them. Will it immediately give you super botulism? Probably not but it’s still kinda ick.
Fancier mushroom varieties from smaller cultivars are the ones that actually don’t really need washed and often shouldn’t be. They’re grown in highly sterile environments and they fruit out of a container, so they never touched the poop. And that’s if they even used compost - lots use straw or wood.
If you do decide to wash your button mushrooms it’s not a big deal, they aren’t actually sponges, and they don’t absorb as much water as some cooking shows say. If they get soggy it probably means they’re old, try putting them in the fridge for a few hours uncovered. It’s basically a dehydrator.
Not only should you wash them, you should also start a sautee with a couple tablespoons of water, then add fats later.
If you add the fat first, the mushrooms are going to release so much liquid that you just have to boil that off anyway.
I sweat the mushrooms in the microwave before I sauté. They release a ton of water, which I use on another dish’s preparation (rice, pasta, kale, etc).
Did the information upthread ruin that method for you? Hopefully that water isn’t all pesticidey and poopy… (I have no insight on that)
Obligatory Adam Ragusea video for this topic
Thank you. I had not seen that before. Love his stuff, and it makes so much sense.
Running mushrooms under water makes them soggy, that’s just reality. You can get them just as clean wiping them with a slightly damp paper towel or cloth without that happening.
From Serious Eats:
“Soggy” is an exaggeration.
It’s not about the absorption. They get soggy/slimy if you don’t immediately cook them
I think you’re about to cook them.
Been washing all kinds of mushrooms for years and I‘ve had the opposite experience. They’re only soggy if they’ve been cooking in oil, soaked it up, then dumped all their water. They don’t get brown as they soak up the oil, and then they dump it all out with the water, meaning you’re just steaming them until you evaporate off all the water.
Best is to wash the mushrooms, slice, cook in a little bit of water until they dump out their water, cook until the water has evaporated, then add oil and brown (or even crisp if you desire).
Perfect mushrooms every time (I’ve dated a lot of vegans so I’ve eaten mushrooms every few days for over a decade).
This assumes you’re going to fry them. If you want raw mushrooms in a salad, it’s going to be a lot more noticeable.
Wash them whole and dry them right after. Contrary to popular belief, they don’t soak up water like sponges with a quick wash. You can easily prove this by just weighing them before and after washing/drying. The weight change is minuscule.
Total water absorption doesn’t matter that much because the significant thing is surface texture. If you’re going to dry them anyway you might as well instead wash them without directly pouring water on them.
A friend of mine solves this by meticulously peeling the caps and discarding the stems. It seems like a lot of work to me. I use a mushroom brush to get the dirt and substrate/manure off and call it good.
It doesn’t matter if they actually absorb water or not. Just try the mushrooms side by side, washed and unwashed. Decide based on what you prefer.
Raw mushrooms are borderline wasteful to eat. We can’t digest the chitin and cell walls so most of the nutritional value passes straight through.
I’ve never had a problem with this, raw or cooked. The insides of my washed mushrooms are always dry.
Just a note that raw mushrooms make people sick all the time and are a very common cause of food poisoning - especially wild mushrooms. You can get away with it with super common crimini mushrooms but some people are allergic even to that.