Mushroom jerky recipes!

Cafe Society
1

This stuff is the BOMB, if you like jerky. I first encountered it in packages from a local farmer’s market mushroom seller, and decided to try making my own, and it was yum!

The basic idea couldn’t be simpler: slice some fresh flavorful mushrooms (I used shiitake and chestnut, but a lot of recipes recomment oyster and/or portobello), marinate them 1-24 hours, drain and slow-roast about 2 hrs in a 250F oven, turning once.

The marinade I used was 3.5 Tbs soy sauce, 2.5 Tbs apple cider vinegar, 2 Tbs olive oil, and 2 Tbs dark maple syrup. Flavored with some black & red pepper, a spice mix containing more salt and pepper plus lemon peel and garlic and onion powder, and some cut garlic cloves.

It’s delicious, but I might try easing off the salt a little further by lowering the soysauce proportion and not adding any salt in solid form. I’m also interested in trying balsamic rather than apple cider vinegar. Most recipes seem to advocate adding “smokey” to the flavor profile with smoked paprika or some such, but I don’t really need my mushrooms to taste smoked, so I might not bother.

Do you jerk your mushrooms? (Um, that sounds like an unnecessarily personal question.) Any brilliant flavor hacks or other recipe tips to share?

2

I didn’t know such a thing existed having never seen it in the wild. I will definitely try it and let you know how it goes.

3

What @dolphinboy said. Sounds yummy, with a very high deliciousness to amount-of-work-needed ratio. My kinda food!

4

Great! Tell me if you have any insights about how to store them, I can’t seem to leave any uneaten for more than a day or two so the storage question has been moot, but I might want to at some point.

5

I’ve had them, and liked them, but run into the same problems I have with beef jerky, price.

Budget-wise, I haven’t been able to get even top round on sale for less than 3.99 a pound (normally 4-5.99). Bellas at my local store generally run about twice that. So yeah, sadly, when I make jerky these days it’s pork, which works surprising well with a soy / hoisin, sweet/hot thai chili sauce, or green chili marinade.

But next time I can get some bellas on a steep sale, you’ve reminded me to do it again!

Back to fixes, flavors, and hacks. I like smokey, so sometimes add a few drops of liquid smoke. I love black pepper, garlic with malt vinegar as an option (and just a smidge of daaaark brown sugar to balance the flavors). Also, for something a bit spicy, you can try fine blended cilantro, serrano peppers and garlic (add just enough rice wine vinegar and fish sauce [very conservative amounts] to bring together).

I add salt to all of them at the last minute before adding 'shrooms. I find if I add enough salt to the marinade so it tastes really salty, but not to the point of being uneatable on it’s own does the trick when I marinate the shrooms. But by doing so at the last minute, I am not stuck with oversalting if I use a salty ingredient like soy, liquid aminos, or fish sauce.

ETA - I’ve only used the pepper/garlic/malt/sugar option specifically on portabellas, the others are adapted from my various jerky forays, including turkey, tilapia, and salmon. I just picked the ones that I thought would work well.

6

I use worchestershire sauce in beef jerky and in sauteed mushrooms, so I’d use it in a mushroom marinade, too (probably not with sugar, though).