These Creamy Tuscan Mushrooms with Spinach make a delicious vegetarian main course for serving with pasta, rice or gnocchi.
Or serve them up as a flavor-packed side dish for your steak or chicken! They are so easy to make and are packed with garlic, sundried tomatoes and spinach.
Delicious, comforting and all made with real ingredients, you can have creamy mushrooms without the need for cans of soup!
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What are Tuscan Mushrooms?
These Tuscan mushrooms are cooked with plenty of garlic, with sundried tomatoes, lemon, Italian seasoning, spinach, and basil. All finished in a creamy sauce. They are so full of flavor, yet so easy to make!
Using Sundried tomatoes
Sundried tomatoes are usually sold packed in jars of oil. You can buy them as dried halves or as strips.
If you can find the strips that makes the recipe easier as you don't have to worry about cutting the tomatoes up.
To use them use a fork to scoop them out of the oil. Don't throw that oil away, we will use some of it in the recipe, but any remaining oil is wonderful for cooking garlic in for a quick pasta sauce. Or for using at the start of any tomato based sauce.
What to serve with Tuscan Mushrooms
These make a great vegetarian dinner! Once cooked serve them over your favorite pasta shape. Or spoon them over cooked gnocchi.
They are delicious over plain white rice, garlic bacon rice or mashed potato.
Or use them as a topping for a seared steak or pan-fried chicken.
What mushrooms to use?
You can use any mushrooms for this dish. They are going to soak up the delicious Tuscan flavors like a sponge.
I like to try and use Baby Bella or Swiss Brown Mushrooms, as they have a slightly nutty flavor. But just like these photos, you can use regular white mushrooms too! (The grocery store didn't have any brown mushrooms! And I was in the mood for creamy mushrooms!)
Or ring the changes and use slices of portabella mushrooms or whole baby button mushrooms. Any mushroom that is going to cook down then soak up the sauce is perfect here.
The recipe calls for 8 cups of mushrooms! That is around 1.3lb/600g of mushrooms. Don't be alarmed the mushrooms shrink down so much. You can see from the picture below just how much they shrink!
How to make Tuscan Mushrooms
This dish starts with....mushrooms (didn't see that coming did you 😉 )
But unlike many other mushroom dishes, you don't add any fat or oil to the pan. This allows the mushrooms to release their moisture and cook down gently, getting some great nutty color on them.
Once the mushrooms have some color, then the fat is introduced ready to cook the garlic. I use the oil from the sundried tomato jar but regular olive oil will be fine. The mushrooms and garlic are cooked together with the oil until the garlic has softened. Don't cook it for too long as you don't want it to get any color on it.
When the garlic has softened some flour is stirred through. This is what will thicken the sauce, allowing us to use some vegetable broth rather than just heavy cream.
Once the flour has been added, vegetable broth is slowly poured in along with heavy cream, Italian seasoning, lemon zest, salt and pepper, and sundried tomatoes. This is all simmered together for 5 minutes until the sauce is glossy and thick.
Just before serving fresh spinach is added to the sauce so it can wilt down.
The dish is ready to serve, you can add parmesan if you like, but I find the dish is plenty rich enough without the cheese. (And regular readers will know it isn't often I say no to cheese!)
Is this a side or a main?
That is the beauty! It can be either!
The mushrooms have enough flavor to be the star of the show, so you could definitely serve this up as a vegetarian main course. Served over pasta or rice this would be a wonderful midweek meal.
Or you can serve it as a side dish with a grilled steak or chicken breast. Or serve it over gnocchi and add seared steak on the side.
The choice is up to you.
Enjoy x
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Recipe
Creamy Tuscan Mushrooms Recipe
Ingredients
- 8 cups mushrooms - cleaned
- 3 tablespoon oil from the sundried tomato jar or olive oil
- 5 garlic cloves - finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon AP flour
- ½ cup vegetable broth
- 1 cup heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- ½ cup sundried tomatoes strips
- 2 cups fresh spinach
Instructions
- Chop the mushrooms in half or leave them whole if they are small.
- Place a large skillet over medium-high heat.
- Add the mushrooms and a pinch of salt. Cook without any oil or fat for 4-5 minutes until the mushrooms have released their water and are looking cooked and slightly nutty in color.
- Add in the 2 tablespoons of the oil and the garlic then sauté gently for 1 minute.
- Push the mushrooms to one side of the pan and pour the remaining tablespoon of oil and the flour into the skillet. Stir gently together.
- Pour in the vegetable stock, stirring constantly to mix with the oil and flour mixture.
- Stir in the cream and give everything a good mix.
- Add the lemon zest, Italian seasoning, salt, pepper and slices of sundried tomatoes.
- Reduce heat to medium-low and bring to a gentle simmer. Simmer for 5-7 minutes until the sauce has thickened.
- Remove the pan from the heat and add in the spinach leaves so they can wilt in the sauce.
- Serve garnished with fresh basil (and parmesan if wanted)
Nutrition
Recipe Inspired by DELISH.COM
Moses Jones says
This was soooooooo good!!!!
Claire McEwen says
Thank you 🙂
Kushigalu says
Love mushrooms. Drooling over this. Looks fantastic!