Miso Butter Mushroom Pasta in 15 minutes

Miso butter mushroom pasta can be on your table in 15 minutes! Perfect as a side to a beautiful ribeye or an entree for the pasta lover. Simple, quality ingredients treated well can become a star in an otherwise, understated dish. Button mushrooms sautéed in butter, aromatics and miso paste become a lovely foundation of flavor and texture. Adding parmesan, cream and lemon creates a rich, bright pasta. This rustic recipe is worth knowing by heart.

Mushroom Tips

Mushrooms can be incredibly delicious or slimy and unpleasant. To avoid that, here are a few suggestions:

1. Do not wash your mushrooms. They absorb water like a sponge (along with anything else). Instead, wipe with a rag. Restaurants prepare mushrooms in this way. I am okay eating a bit of compost. Ask your mushroom source about their growing practices and what they advise to do before cooking if you are hesitant.
2. Do not overcrowd the pan to ensure mushrooms brown, not steam. A huddle is fine, not a dog pile. A 15 inch braiser is recommended for this dish.
3. Add mushrooms to a hot pan. Preferably into hot oil or butter, which is flavor! This will avoid any potential of slimy mushrooms and will instead, brown them beautifully. If mushrooms are truly slimy before cooking, they are most likely rancid. Do NOT eat them.

Sourcing Mushrooms

Mushroom farming has become more popular in the last few years. Many specialty mushrooms (Ex: Shitake) come from China. That is a six-thousand-mile journey to my plate. I am happy to highlight and support local (Mid-west) sources that provide shrooms year-round.

Golden Gills Mushrooms– Sustainably cultivated gourmet mushrooms grown in Lake County, Illinois. (Click the link to see all the good they are doing)

River Valley Ranch Mushrooms– (Pictured to the right) Pesticide, preservative & growth enhancer free Portabella, Cremini, Oyster, Shitake & white button mushrooms. Located in Southern Wisconsin, available throughout the Chicagoland area.

Bloom Shroomery– Family run business growing specialty mushrooms (Ex: Lions mane, King, Oyster). I was happy to stumble across their booth at a farmers market near my home.

First things first.

The key to making this quickly is to be organized. Heat a pot of water for the noodles to cook in. While the water is coming to a boil, prep your veggies and slice the mushrooms. Mushrooms should be sliced thinly to avoid unevenly cooked chunks in the sauce.

Begin the sauce.

Butter melting in a pan is a great way to start just about any sauce in my opinion. Kerry Gold is a widely available brand of quality butter. Zeal Creamery is a Missouri based company offering high quality dairy products straight from their herd of Jersey cows.

Once butter is melted, the shallots can be added to the pan. Shallots have a milder, often sweeter taste over other onion varieties. The butter and shallots are creating a bed of flavor for the mushrooms.

When the mushrooms are first added to the pan it may look like there isn’t enough butter, but there is. Coat the mushrooms in the shallot butter, don’t drown. Garlic, miso and salt can be added at this stage. Cooking in the warm butter will bloom their flavor. White or yellow miso can be used. Miso gives the sauce a deep, umami flavor. The mushrooms are done when they are browned, and the bottom of the pan is begging to be deglazed.

Deglazing is simply adding a liquid, white wine in this case, to a hot pan to get all the brown bits off the bottom. This adds more flavor to the dish. Nonstick would prevent this from happening, therefore, I recommend stainless steel or enameled cast iron. Choose a dry, white wine such as Pino Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc. Once the wine is mostly evaporated, turn the heat to low.

By this time, the water should be boiling. Season your water with a scant palm full of salt. This is prime time to season your noodles. Plus, some of the cooking water will be used in the sauce, so it’s important seasoned well. I used whole wheat spaghetti noodles. Whole wheat is best eaten al dente. They should have a bite to them.

Wrap things up.

Now that the mushrooms are set to low, add the cream and parmesan. The heavy cream should come to a gentle simmer. Once noodles are done (but not too done) transfer to the sauce, along with about 1/2 cup of cooking water. All that is left is to add herbs, chili flake and lemon to balance out the richness.