Combines best olive oil with this versatile fungi for enhanced health benefits – particularly for gut health.
Mushroom Recipes With Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Mushrooms themselves are just so versatile. You can use them to make mushroom soup, put them in your bone broth, or pair them with a protein such as chicken or beef and serve them on the side or on top with some healthy oils.
Here are our suggestions for some great mushroom recipes including Morocco Gold extra virgin olive oil:
Italian Vegetarian Stuffed Mushrooms Recipe
Ingredients
- 18 medium mushrooms (destemmed and stems diced)
- Chickpeas
- 2 tablespoons Morocco Gold extra virgin olive oil
- ¼ cup minced small onion (minced)
- 2 garlic cloves (minced)
- Balsamic vinegar
- Parmesan
- Parsley
- Pepper
Instructions
- Start with medium size mushrooms that are wide with large stems. Those are usually best for stuffing. During the holidays, you'll also find them labeled in grocery stores as "stuffing mushrooms". Wipe them clean using a damp paper towel.
- Next, hollow out the mushrooms by popping them off with your hands (keep the stems!). Place on a baking dish and spray with cooking spray. You don't have to use parchment paper, and it's actually best not to so the mushrooms don't sweat too much.
- Now you'll prepare the vegetarian stuffing for the mushrooms. Add the onions, mushroom stems and garlic to a pan with some extra virgin olive oil and cook for a few minutes until fragrant. Then stir in the thyme and walnuts, cook for another minute and then take off the heat. This is where all the flavor in the dish comes from!
- Next, combine the chickpeas, parmesan, parsley, balsamic vinegar, pepper in a small bowl, and mash together to form a paste like texture. You can leave out the balsamic vinegar, but the liquid helps to mash everything and the acidity rounds out the flavor.
- Add the chickpeas mixture with the cooked onions and mushroom mixture and combine well. You're pretty much done making these vegetarian stuffed mushrooms, so yay!
- Spoon the vegetarian stuffing into the mushrooms, sprinkle over some parmesan and bake. It helps to gather the mushrooms close to each other when filling them so you don't lose too much of the filling on the baking dish. This is especially helpful when adding the parmesan cheese.
Hungarian Mushroom Soup
Ingredients
- 4 tablespoons of Morocco Gold extra virgin olive oil
- 1 ½ cups white onions, chopped
- 1 lb. mushrooms, sliced
- 2 teaspoons dried dill weed
- 1 teaspoon EACH: dried thyme AND dried mushroom powder
- Chicken stock
- Soy sauce
- Lemon juice
- Milk
- Flour
Instructions
- Pour the extra virgin olive oil into a soup pot or dutch oven over medium heat and sauté the onions and mushrooms in olive oil for 5 minutes. Then season with the dried thyme, dried dill weed, and paprika and allow the mushrooms and onions to continue cooking for an additional 7-10 minutes. Stir the mixture often, so it doesn't brown too much or burn. Sprinkle the grated garlic and mushroom powder 30 seconds before the mushrooms are done.
- Slowly pour in the chicken stock, soy sauce, and lemon juice and scrape the bottom of the pot to loosen all that stuck on flavor. Allow the soup to gain a simmer and then let it reduce for 5 minutes. This step will help concentrate the mushroom flavor.
- While the soup is reducing, place the milk and flour in a mason jar (with a tight-fitting lid) and give it a shake until combined. Alternately, you can whisk the ingredients in a small bowl until they are smooth. Pour this mixture into the soup and continue to cook the soup for another 8-10 minutes or until the flour mixture thickens it.
- Sprinkle with parsley to finish and serve warm with grilled bread rubbed with a clove of cut garlic!
Mushrooms On Toast
Ingredients
- 1 slice wholemeal bread
- 1 ½ tbsp light cream cheese
- 1 tsp Morocco Gold extra virgin olive oil
- 3 handfuls sliced, small flat mushrooms
- 2 tbsp skimmed milk
Instructions
- Toast the bread, then spread with a little of the cream cheese.
- Meanwhile, heat the oil in a non-stick pan and cook the mushrooms in olive oil, stirring frequently, until softened.
- Spoon in the milk, remaining cheese and the mustard. Stir well until coated. Tip onto the toast and top with chives.
What Are Mushrooms?
Although they’re actually fungi, mushrooms are lumped in the vegetable category for cooking purposes. Mushrooms allow you to add extra taste without sodium or fat. For many years they’ve been used for their unique ability to add flavor in lots of different cultures’ cuisines.
The most common types found in grocery stores are:
• shiitake
• portobello
• crimini
• button or white mushroom
• oyster
• enoki
• beech
• maitake
They each have a unique look and taste
Poisonous mushrooms can be hard to identify in the wild, so you should always buy from a reliable grocery store or market.
Mushroom Stacking
Mushrooms are having a health moment. They’ve been used in medicine for thousands of years all over the world, especially in regions like Europe, Asia, and Mexico.
One of the latest focuses of Wellness is ‘Mushroom stacking’. This involves combining medicinal properties of mushrooms with other adaptogens and antioxidants (stacking) to enhance the benefits. This is why combining the antioxidant polyphenols in Morocco Gold extra virgin olive oil with mushrooms makes such a potent combination.
Gut-Brain Connection
In Japan, kinkatsu is the practice of incorporating foods created by microorganisms, especially mushrooms, into the diet for better health. Over the last five years or so, we’ve also seen a huge spike in patients now experiencing mood disorders, depression and anxiety, and often this is also related to their gut.
There is a network of around 100 million neurones lining our gut. It is so extensive that many scientists refer to our gut as our “second brain”. This multitude of neutrons is called the enteric nervous system and produces more serotonin (our happy hormone) than our actual brain. This is why the gut-brain connection is key in maintaining good health and preventing disease.
Here in the U.S., mushrooms are riding the popularity of functional foods — ingredients with health benefits beyond their nutritional value, such as reducing inflammation or the risk of disease.
And for those who focus on more traditional nutrition, a recent study showed that adding a serving of mushrooms a day can add a hearty dose of micronutrients, plus vitamin D, to our diets without any additional sodium, calories, or fat.
The best part of jumping on the mushroom health bandwagon? There are dozens of both cultivated and wild edible mushrooms to choose from. While the fungi selection in your local grocery store will undoubtedly be much smaller, there’s still an opportunity to select from favourites like meaty portobellos, flavour-enhancing maitake, and versatile shiitake mushrooms.
Health Benefits Of Mushrooms
Mushrooms have many health benefits. They’re good for your gut health because they act as a prebiotic, which promote the growth of healthy gut bacteria. They are both low-calorie and low-fat, so they can help with weight management if, say, substituted for a food that’s higher in calories and/or fat. For instance, replacing a burger beef patty with a portobello mushroom. They are known for having a really great antioxidant profile and are also high in fiber. One of the things that people don’t realize about mushrooms is that they even contain a little bit of protein — more than your average vegetable (though technically they’re fungi).
Mushrooms contain more than a dozen vitamins and minerals, including the B vitamins niacin and riboflavin. They’re also a good source of vitamin D2 when exposed to UV light, which helps bodies absorb calcium and is good for bone strength. And many mushrooms, particularly wild varieties like porcini, contain glutathione, an antioxidant that helps eliminate fat-soluble toxins from your body.
Along with their role as a prebiotic, many mushrooms are known for other healing properties such as balancing blood sugar — high levels of which can lead to heart disease.
More and more mushrooms are making their way into U.S. functional medicine, a form of medicine that addresses the root causes of diseases.
Most people tend toward the more common button mushrooms, which unfortunately don’t have the most nutrients in them. To really experience the health benefits of mushrooms, look for those that may seem a little more exotic, such as shiitake mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, and the large, shaggy-like lion’s mane mushrooms. These varieties of mushrooms have a lot more of the healing properties associated with fungi. Shiitake mushrooms have a rich and meaty flavor and you can easily incorporate them into a lot of different recipes.
Olive Oil And Mushrooms
One thing to remember is that mushrooms are healthier cooked than uncooked. This is because mushrooms have a really tough cell wall that’s not so digestible when they’re raw, but a little light grilling or sauteing helps to break down that wall, increasing their antioxidant levels and releasing all of these wonderful nutrients.
