Stuffed Portobellos
Let’s get this out of the way… I don’t know whether to write portobello or portabella. As far as I can tell both are right and used frequently. If anybody knows the difference though, post a comment and give us all the wisdom. For this recipe though, I’m going to say portobello because that’s what the original recipe uses.
I usually like stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer, but when I saw this dish it just called out to me. Stuffing portobellos with spinach, goat cheese, and more mushrooms just can’t be bad. These stuffed portobellos make for an earthy vegetarian dish that’s very filling and flavorful.
Stuffed is an understatement.
Just to add a bit more flavor to the dish, the mushrooms are marinated in quick balsamic marinade and roasted. Good stuff.
Stuffed Portobellos
Yield: 6 Stuffed 'Shrooms
Prep Time:
Total Time:
Ingredients:
Marinade:
6 large portobello mushrooms, washed and stems removed
1 Cup olive oil
1/2 Cup balsamic vinegar
1/2 Cup low-sodium soy sauce
2 garlic cloves, pressed
4 sprigs fresh thyme
Big pinch of salt and pepper
Stuffing:
1 10 ounce box of frozen spinach, thawed, chopped
1 pound button mushrooms plus stems from portobellos, diced
1/2 sweet onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 Tablespoons olive oil
5 ounces soft goat cheese
6 Tablespoons Parmesan cheese
1/4 Cup unseasoned bread crumbs
Directions:
1) Whisk the marinade ingredients together and pour it over your cleaned mushrooms. Pour the marinade in the gill side of the mushroom. Let them rest for at least an hour in the marinade.
2) Roast the mushrooms, gill side down, on a baking sheet at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes until they start to soften slightly.
3) For the stuffing, thaw the frozen spinach. Wrap the spinach in a paper towel and squeeze out as much moisture as possible. Then roughly chop up the spinach.
4) Heat oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Once hot, add onions and button mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms are soft, a few minutes. Season with a pinch of salt.
5) Let your mushroom/onion mixture cool, then stir in your spinach and goat cheese.
6) Divide the filling evenly between the six mushrooms. There should be a huge mound of filling on each mushroom. Then sprinkle each mushroom with bread crumbs and some grated Parmesan cheese.
7) Bake these at 400 degrees for another 15-20 minutes until they are slightly browned on top.
8) Serve immediately!
Adapted from Bon Appetit Jan. 2009.
Prepping the Portobellos
The portobellos for this recipe are really flavorful due to the marinade.
Good flavors.
Whisk up all your marinade ingredients and then pour it over your cleaned mushrooms (remove the stems, save them for the filling, and rinse off dirt). When you pour the marinade over the mushrooms, put them gill side up that way gravity will help pull the marinade down through the mushrooms.
Tasty.
You could do this up to four hours in advance, but I only let mine marinate for about an hour. Next, take your mushrooms out of the marinade and put them on a baking sheet, gill side down. Roast these guys in a 400 degree oven for about 15 minutes or until they start to soften. Don’t worry about the marinade left in your dish, there will be plenty on the mushrooms.
Baking the caps
After 15 minutes, pull your mushrooms out of the oven and flip them over. They are officially ready to stuff.
Ready for some stuffing!
The Stuffing
The stuffing for these guys is very easy. First, thaw your frozen spinach. If you wanted to use fresh you could, you’d just want to blanch it and then wring out as much liquid as possible.
I recommend frozen though since there’s so much other stuff going on in the dish. Anyway, thaw your spinach and then wrap it in a clean towel or a few paper towels and wring out as much liquid as possible. You don’t want the filling to be too wet.
Then roughly chop it up!
Frozen is cool here.
Next, heat your oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Once it’s hot, add your onion and mushrooms and saute everything for a few minutes until the mushrooms are soft. I added a pinch of salt here also.
Even more mushrooms...
Let your mushroom mixture cool for a minute or two and then mix it in with your spinach and goat cheese. This is a seriously delicious filling.
Goat cheese is key.
Finishing the Mushrooms
These almost can’t even be called stuffed. They should be called over-stuffed. If you use all your filling (which you should), there will be a very large mound of filling on each mushroom. Just divide it as evenly as you can between the 6 portobellos.
Then sprinkle each mushroom with some bread crumbs and also about 1 Tablespoon of good Parmesan. This will add some saltiness to it and the bread crumbs obviously give it some good texture.
High and Deep!
Add these back into your 400 degree oven for 15-20 minutes until they are warm through and the cheese is melted and the mushrooms start to brown a bit on top.
Yum.
I really love dishes like this. I served it with a small salad and it was a very warming and filling dinner. Not to mention that it really isn’t a hard dish to make.
I quess it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that if you stuff goat cheese and other flavorful things in a marinated shroom and top it with Parmesan cheese, you’re going to end up with something awesome.
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Stuffed mushrooms make great appetizers. These look great!
[Reply]
ouuuu these look good, nick!
what would you suggest using instead of goat cheese though? .. can’t do it!
[Reply]
Nick replied: — March 29th, 2010 @ 11:21 am
Well… if you can’t do dairy at all, then I’d say you could just stuff them without any cheese. They’d still be tasty.
If you just don’t like goat cheese, I’d say you could grate up some mozzarella and mix that in!
[Reply]
elle replied: — March 30th, 2010 @ 8:57 am
i can do dairy, i just can’t do goat cheese!
thanks though… there are so many recipes of yours i’m looking forward to trying!
[Reply]
I’m so glad that I’m not the only one with the portobello spelling conundrum. Not sure that I have found an authoritative source either.
These look excellent. The only addition I would make would be some bacon but that goes without saying, right?
[Reply]
Nick replied: — March 29th, 2010 @ 8:13 pm
Haha… definitely!
[Reply]
I’m definitely loving this app/or meal. Fantastic pics. Stuffed mushrooms are always a great crowd pleaser. I’m going to take your suggestion and add goat cheese to these.
Thanks
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Our favorite way to eat stuffed portabella mushrooms is to put them on a bun, just like a burger. These look like they’d be fantastic candidates for that application! YUM.
[Reply]
Nick replied: — March 29th, 2010 @ 8:13 pm
Whoa… awesome idea. Stuffed mushroom burgers!
[Reply]
MK replied: — March 31st, 2010 @ 10:05 am
Now there is an idea for the upcoming weekend. :)
[Reply]
Do you think these can be made a day ahead and then just do the very last step of baking them prior to use? I think these will make a great dish this weekend for Easter, but need to prep ahead. Any thoughts?
[Reply]
Nick replied: — March 29th, 2010 @ 8:14 pm
OH yea… that would work fine. Just save the final baking step until right before you serve them!
[Reply]
These look delish! I came across this Mollie Katzen recipe for portobellos yesterday:
http://www.cookstr.com/recipes/portobello-pizzas
Not so noteworthy in and of itself, but it calls for the “Mushroom Treatment”, a fairly significant pre-cooking similar to your pre-baking. Always a good idea. I generally pre-cook fairly dry, though, and poke some holes in ‘em to facilitate drainage. I will have to come up with a non-cheesy portobello something… I am thinking chorizo… mmm….
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I really love goat cheese desserts, their are awesome. If I have guests, I just make goat cheese deserts and they love it. Are there any other good uses for goat cheese?
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@schafe: Surprisingly, no, there are no good uses for goat cheese besides serving it as a dessert. It's just a one trick pony. Sorry to disappoint.
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Pingback:meatless mushroom monday! « does that make sense?
I made these tonight but had an enormous amount of liquid come out of the mushrooms and onions. I had to drain them after cooking them. They are very very yummy though. Any ideas on what I did wrong?
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Funny, I see I posted here 2 years ago (didn’t actually make these then).
When I search for recipes I typically do a couple things…first bon appetit and epicurious, then I search my fave food blogs. Yours always comes out on top! I am making these tonight (just bought some portabellas at the market this weekend) as my fiance has two of hi colleagues coming over tonight for dinner and we thought these would be good. Thanks again!
[Reply]
Nick replied: — June 25th, 2012 @ 6:44 am
Thanks Chloe! Yea… these are old school Macheesmo but very tasty. Glad you re-found them.
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