Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms

When we were in Phoenix for Thanksgiving, my sister made these stuffed mushrooms for an appetizer and I absolutely loved them. It was just a matter of time before I found the perfect occasion to make them myself. I decided to give it a go on Christmas day and served them as an appetizer. They’d also be a great side dish.

As you can see from the photo I super stuffed these mushrooms, stacking extra filling on top. I still wound up with some extra stuffing despite this and they were not the most photogenic or pretty as they could have been, but I figured more stuffing > pretty mushrooms. After later conversing with my sister, she suggested having some extra mushroom caps handy to stuff, as it will be inevitable to have extra stuffing. Good to know!  

Being that it was the holiday season I was strapped for time and so I just grabbed mushrooms at the store that were pre-packaged. In a perfect world I would have gone to a store that sells mushrooms you can pick and I would have sought out some nice big ones. As you can see I ended up with a range of sizes.

The first step is to remove the stems from the caps. They pretty much pull right off, but be careful not to break the caps at all and to remove the stem fully so you can stuff the caps.

Place the caps in a shallow dish and toss with olive oil and marsala wine.

Set these aside for now.

Chop up the stems.

Set these aside for now.

Brown the sausage, breaking it up as much as possible with the back of a wooden spoon. I should have worked a little harder at breaking it up as I think it would have helped when it came time to stuff the caps.

Add the chopped mushroom stems, garlic and green onion.

Add panko bread crumbs. You should be able to find panko in your grocery store in the Asian food section. They are much flakier than traditional bread crumbs and are worth purchasing for this recipe!

Next, add marscapone cheese and combine everything. mmm.

Remove from the heat.

and add parmesan cheese and fresh parsley.

stir stir stir

Now on to the stuffing action. I let the mixture cool just enough so I could handle it. I used my hands to stuff the caps.  Tightly place the stuffed caps into a baking dish.

I baked them for about 45 minutes or so. The recipe called for 50 minutes or until browned so just keep an eye on them around the 40 minute marker. They will shrink up some. You can see how the tops have browned.

Though they may not be aesthetically pleasing, they taste so good and that’s what’s truly important here! The marscapone makes the stuffing so creamy and rich and the panko absorbs all of the flavors from the sausage and cheese as well. These are crowd pleaser, I’m telling ya!

They also smell delicious while they are cooking. Your guests will be anxiously waiting for them. Hope you like ’em!

-E

Recipe for Sausage Stuffed Mushrooms