This is a mushroom pasta that’s nice and juicy, in no way dry and dull even though it’s not made with a tomato or cream sauce like this Creamy Mushroom Pasta. It’s buttery and garlicky, and it’s 6 ingredient magic at its best.
Plus my little trick to make extra buttery mushrooms using LESS butter!
Mushroom Pasta
Anyone who has sautéed mushrooms will know that the minute mushrooms hit the skillet, the bottom layer of mushrooms soaks up the oil, leaving the top layer dry.
So I used to think that the best way to sauté mushrooms was with loads and loads of butter or olive oil. As you sauté the mushrooms, they start to leech water, creating moisture. But still! That first layer of mushrooms lucky enough to hit the skillet first stole all the butter, leaving the remaining 80% of mushrooms butter free!
In a bid to even out the butteriness of mushrooms, my solution is to reduce the amount of butter melted in the skillet, add a bit of olive oil (so you can heat the butter more without it burning and get the mushrooms browned faster). Then AFTER the mushrooms are golden (i.e. water leeched so they are no longer butter-sponges), add a small knob of butter.
Boom! A big skillet of mushrooms that look and taste WAY more buttery than if all the butter is melted at the beginning! See??
What you need for mushroom pasta
Here’s what you need for this mushroom pasta. You can use any type of long strand or even short stand pasta you want (like orecchiette, penne, ziti, macaroni). Also, the parmesan is not just for serving. Tossing the pasta with parmesan before serving is a little trick I like to use for an extra flavour boost!
How to make mushroom spaghetti
Here’s how to make this mushroom pasta:
The two key steps here are:
-
Butter added later – Hold back some of the butter until AFTER the mushrooms are golden – for extra buttery mushrooms with less butter!
-
Pasta cooking water – Use some of the pasta cooking water to toss with the spaghetti and mushrooms. The starch in the water will emulsify (thicken) with the butter in the mushrooms, creating a slick juicy transparent “sauce” that clings to the pasta strands. Classic Italian cooking technique used for all pastas.
If you do this key step of tossing the pasta with some of the pasta cooking water, people will think you’ve made a mushroom pasta sauce. That’s how juicy and “saucy” it seems!
I know I keep going on and on about how juicy and slick this pasta is! It’s because this is hard to capture in photos and I feel like people see pastas like this one without a large pot of sauce and assume it’s dry and boring. When in actual fact, this is about as far from that as it can be!
If you’d like to add some extra greens into your meal, try this with a classic (super quick) Rocket/Arugula Salad with Balsamic Dressing. Otherwise, a juicy tomato salad, fresh crunchy cucumber salad, or have a browse through my Vegetable Sides and pick something using vegetables you have!
– Nagi x
PS If you want to indulge in a special Italian pasta meal, add a side of Garlic Bread or Cheesy Garlic Bread, and finish with Tiramisu. Sheer perfection!
Watch how to make it
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Mushroom Pasta
Ingredients
CHOOSE pasta
- 200g / 7 oz short pasta like orecchiette, penne, macaroni (Note 1)
- 160g/6 oz long pasta - spaghetti, fettucine (Note 1)
Garlic Butter Mushrooms for pasta
- 400g / 14 oz mushrooms , sliced 1/2 cm / 1/5" thick (Note 2)
- 50g / 3 tbsp unsalted butter , separated
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves , finely minced
- 1/2 tsp each salt and pepper
- 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese (or 1/4 cup store bought grated)
To serve
- Parsley , finely chopped
- Parmesan cheese , grated
Instructions
Pasta
- Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Add the pasta into the pot when you start cooking the mushrooms.
- Cook pasta per packet instructions minus 1 minute. RESERVE 1 mugful of pasta cooking liquid, then drain pasta.
Mushrooms
- Melt half butter and all oil in a large skillet over heat.
- Add mushrooms and cook until water has leeched then evaporated, and the mushrooms start to turn golden around edges - around 5 minutes.
- Halfway through cooking, add salt & pepper.
- Add garlic and remaining butter, cook for 2 minutes until mushrooms and garlic are golden.
- Add pasta, about 3/4 cup of reserved pasta water and parmesan. Toss gently or until water reduces and thickens into a saucy glaze that coats the pasta. If the pasta dries out, add more pasta water.
- Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.
- Remove from stove and serve immediately, garnished with fresh parsley and parmesan cheese.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Originally published October 2016. Updated with sparking new photos and video!
🍄MUSHROOM LOVE 🍄
LIFE OF DOZER
I have a 4WD car. It’s pretty big. Dozer is bigger. 😂
And from the original publication date:
There is no such thing as a peaceful lunch in this household. Always eyes on you.
Cooo… that was rather yummy! I did replace half the mushrooms with leeks because we had leeks that needed using. That’s another easy and satisfying mid-week meal for the list. Hubby highly approves. Thank you 🙂
soo good! I don’t cook and follow recipes often, but this has gotta be the best pasta I’ve ever made! thanks for the amazing recipe!
Oh my goodness, this is beyond yummy. It’s mushroom season at the moment and I’ve used this recipe a few times for guests with mushrooms that I’ve foraged from pine forests just outside of Sydney…it’s a specific type of mushroom that has a distinctive flavour (and colour – bright orange!) and I think I keep using this recipe when inviting people to taste it as the recipe really does ensure that the mushrooms are the star of the show (rather than drowned out with tomato sauce etc.) A big thank you to Nagi who shows time and time again that simple is quite often more than enough!
Great recipe! I’ve made this quite a few times always comes out great!
That’s amazing Giovanna!! Enjoy! N x
Made this tonight, my hubby was a little underwhelmed when I told him it just had mushrooms in it. I followed the recipie to the T it was delicious 😋 the only thing I found was that when cooking the mushrooms a lot of the liquid didn’t evaporate, not sure were I went wrong but it was delicious anyway as are all your recipies Nagi ❤️ I only ever cook using your recipies . . . . Can’t wait for your book to be published. Your the best 👌 xx
Try cooking the mushrooms on a slightly higher heat so the liquid cooks out Michelle! N x
Thank you Nagi will try that next time. I did use a wok type pan as I didn’t have a skillet big enough. Xx
This was delicious but I had to change the cooking of it a little. I cooked the mushrooms in oil and butter and waited for the released liquid to evaporate but my mushrooms (baby Bellas) just kept producing more and more liquid. I eventually drained the liquid and added it back in at the end.
ok, made this for dinner tonight and it was SO good. The family hoovered through the whole lot. I did add my own flare and used about 1/4 cup of sour cream as it was left over in the fridge and I didn’t want to throw it out. I only had grated pizza cheese but as there was Parmesan in it I improvised and garnished with spring onion (another item in the fridge I want to use up). Will definitely make this again. Great for the novice cook.
Too easy!
Great subs Linda and I am glad that you liked it!! N x
Awesome recipe! It was super quick and I had all the ingredients on hand! My husband asked for seconds and I was able to make a baby-friendly version! Thank you!
Fantastic Theavy!! I’m happy you all enjoyed the meal! N x
This was surprisingly good and easy! I did add a bag of baby spinach in step 4 and used more garlic. Worked out really well.
Thanks for those tips Theresa!! N x
Great idea. I will keep that in mind for next time.
Nagi, my daughter is dairy intolerant but loves mushroom, is there a white wine/stock version of this you can recommend?
This dish is easy and tastes absolutely Devine! Thanks Nagi
This was absolutely fabulous. All the richness without the cream. Served it with an arugula and walnut salad. Thanks for your creativity.
I just made this and I’m in heaven, it was delicious! Tasted like a fancy restaurant dish and it was so easy to make! Thank you so much
Prepared as described and it was delicious. Almost magical given the rather modest list of ingredients! Surpassed all my expectations. Will go into the “rotation” for sure.
Nagi, this is delicious! The first few times I made it, it was perfect. Today, it was still delicious, but the cheese became clumped & chewy. Do you know what I may have done wrong? I used all the same ingredients that I used previously when it turned out without clumps.
Thank you!
Hi Annie – was it the same brand of parmesan? Grated in the same method? N x
Thanks for the reply Nagi! It was a different brand (coles own) but I grated it the same way.
I hope the book is going well! Can’t wait until it’s published x
I had the same problem. Is it because there is not enough liquid in it? or because it’s not hot enough?
I don’t know what happened to cause it.