Mushroom Substitutes for 4 Kinds of Meats
Mushrooms are a great choice for substituting meat because they are inexpensive, nutritious, and very tasty. They are also versatile, and can be used to replace many different meats. They make great faux barbecue, crab cakes, steaks, ground beef, and even pork pieces. Here are some ways to use some of our favorite mushrooms.
White Button Mushrooms
These are used quite a bit by the plant-based chef. You can use these when you want to just sauté some mushrooms and onions to put it inside of a pasta sauce.
These are great to put it in stroganoff. White mushroom buttons are never going to fail you. It’s your basic Mushroom. Anytime you need a little mushroom, just throw this in your dish and you’ll have mushroom gratification. These are great process together with walnuts to make a delicious ground beef substitute.
Shiitake mushrooms
Buying de-stemmed shiitake mushrooms will be your best bet, if you are wanting to throw them into something like a stir-fry or mushroom gravy. You can pick them up sliced and de-stemmed from many supermarkets.
If you are not interested in de-stemmed, sliced, and packaged shiitakes found in traditional grocery stores. Full shiitake mushrooms can be found at the Asian market as well. The thing about a full shiitake mushroom is that the stem is very tough. It’s a tough stem and it’s not worth eating. However, you can definitely make a great mushroom stock with the stems by boiling them in water.
Otherwise, it’s a lot of work buying a whole shiitake mushroom. The whole cap is succulent when sautéed or steamed, so you’ll have to weigh whether you want the full experience of the full cap or the convenience of sliced, packaged, and ready to prepare. These are great to replace pork in dishes like étouffée or fried rice.
Portabella
Grilled Portabella Mushrooms
Portabella mushrooms have very big caps. They are sometimes the size of a saucer. The stem is not too tough, but it is is thick. It can be diced and used as a beef or a sausage replacement in dirty rice or Ragout.
You can marinate Portabella with just garlic and olive oil and broil it and the whole mushroom cap could be eaten as a steak.
Portabella can be sliced and grill fried into a philly. Thinly slicing it and marinating it with liquid smoke, maple syrup, garlic and soy sauce will broil into a nice bacon. It’s a very meaty and versatile mushroom.
Oyster Mushrooms
Vegan Chicken and Waffles made from oyster mushrooms
Many people are making cool Fried Chicken substitutes, fried fish substitutes, jerk chicken substitutes and veggie crab cakes and they’re using oyster mushrooms.
They have fuzzy things on them. They have little nodules on them. They may feel a little wet when you buy them. For these reasons people don’t know if these are good should I keep them?
Beware that oyster mushrooms are ugly. That is the normal look of it. All mushrooms are fungi and looking at an oyster mushroom will certainly remind of that.
Oyster mushrooms are also delicious when double battered and fried in oil. They are delicate and juicy like little chicken pieces. Some members in our facebook group have even used them to make vegan chitterlings.
Baby Bella
Potato and Mushroom soup made from Baby bella and Portabella mushrooms
Baby Bella is a small version of the Portobello. It is also a browner version of the white button mushroom. It has a deeper mushroom flavor. You can use them so many different ways. Mixing them with white button, shiitake, and Portabella to make mushroom bruschetta is a crowd favorite. It’s easy and it feels very special as an appetizer.
King oyster mushroom
The thing about a king oyster mushroom is it can be super tough. They are great shredded into a barbecue sandwich. This mushroom is great for make imitation chicken nuggets that are kid-friendly. many cut them into medallions to make vegan scallops.
Lion’s Mane
Add Shredded Lion’s Mane to rice to make “crab rice”.
This mushroom makes a really great vegan crab cakes, but they are difficult to find. If you go to boutique farmers’ markets You may find real farmers who grow and pick these mushrooms. The same thing with Chestnut mushrooms.
