Mushroom Sauce For Pasta

This mushroom sauce for pasta recipe can stand alone as the main course, or can be served on the side for a dinner aimed to please, quite the impressive side dish. In my house, this was our first foray into a meatless dinner, and it has not been removed from our stable of trusty dishes since.

When I prepared this mushroom pasta recipe for the video below, it ran 65 minutes from beginning to end. I feel certain that with a little bit of effort, it wouldn’t be too tough to drop that time under an hour, especially if you used a bit higher heat when cooking the mushrooms down. I believe I used about 40-45 minutes of my total time cooking the mushrooms down, so there should be a little extra time that might be trimmed off.

Feel free to use whatever kind of mushrooms you like, but I normally stick with the store bought sliced buttons mixed with the baby bellas, also sliced, just to make prep work easier and more convenient. The bulk of the total time spent on this recipe will be cooking your mushrooms down, so make sure to get those started just as quickly as possible, and then once they are cooking away, you can double back and start to get all of your other ingredients measured out and ready to go.

Mushroom Sauce For Pasta Ingredients

4 tablespoons butter
3 medium chopped shallots, or 1/2 chopped red onion
1 lb sliced button mushrooms
1lb sliced baby bella mushrooms
6 minced or pressed garlic cloves
3 teaspoons dried thyme, or 4.5 teaspoons minced fresh thyme
2 cups chicken stock (or veggie stock)
1 cup heavy cream
1 lemon juiced
1 box of pasta
3 oz grated Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper

Directions

1. Heat large skillet over medium heat and add butter.
2. Dice shallots or onion and add to pan.
3. Rinse mushrooms and add to pan, mix to coat with butter and add about 1 teaspoon of salt, and cover for about 20 minutes.
4. While mushrooms are covered and releasing their moisture, measure out remaining ingredients and have ready for sauce.
5. Remove lid from pan after 20 minutes and let mushrooms continue to cook until all moisture has been cooked off and mushrooms start to develop dark brown color and bottom of pan is developing some sticky bits, about another 20 minutes for so.
6. While waiting for mushrooms to dry out, heat water for pasta.
7. Once mushrooms are brown and ready, add garlic and thyme and cook for a few more minutes until garlic is quite fragrant.
8. Remove mushrooms from pan and place into bowl and place to the side.
9. Place skillet back on the heat and add your stock, scraping up any brown bits on the bottom of pan, and then add cream.
10. Bring back to a boil and reduce sauce for a few minutes and then add lemon juice and stir to incorporate, and continue to reduce.
11. Cook pasta while sauce is cooking.
12. Add mushrooms back to sauce and slowly sprinkle cheese into the mixture and stir together.
13. Once pasta is done, drain noodles and add to skillet and stir together.