How to clean your mushrooms before cooking? What is the easiest way to clean them? Should you use water?
Everything you need to know!
Should You Wash Mushrooms?
No, you cannot immerse your wild mushrooms in a bath! Your mushrooms may become waterlogged before cooking, but also and above all the aromas of your mushrooms may be diluted and therefore be lost! Your mushroom recipes will be less tasty! But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t rinse the mushrooms a bit!
If you absolutely want to use water to clean your wild mushrooms before cooking, in this case, we recommend that you pass them quickly under a stream of cold water or clean them with a spray of water ! But it must be fast! Too much rinsing could harm the quality of your mushrooms!
Pre-clean Your Mushrooms In The Forest!
Mushrooms grow on the ground, and the ground is made up of dirt and other messy things like leaves and insects. So there is no way of putting a mushroom still full of sand or dirt in your basket! Indeed, the dirt will mix in your basket and make cleaning your mushrooms very complicated once you get home.
So how do you pick your mushrooms correctly to avoid dirt?
Grab the mushroom stem and carefully cut the base. Once your mushroom is picked, be sure to remove the dirt on it. Use a small brush if necessary.
Following these tips will remove more than 50% of dirt in seconds and with minimal effort.
If you use our regional Mushroom Maps to find the most favorable areas for mushrooms, you will come back often with baskets full of mushrooms and therefore lot of work at home! Make the most of cleaning in the forest, you will save time!
Finish Cleaning Your Mushrooms At Home!
Now comes the time to refine your cleaning! Be aware that the difference in the way you clean your mushrooms is mainly in the shape of the mushroom! We explain you step by step how to clean each type of mushroom:
How To Clean Boletes
The mushrooms concerned are porcini and more generally all edible boletes! These are full with fairly simple shapes.
- Brush your entire mushroom: the cap and the stem
- Remove the tubes under the cap of your bolete if necessary! In general, if the pores are white to slightly yellow, that’s fine! If they are, remove the pores.
- Identify and remove the wormy parts from the healthy parts. To do this, take a good look at the holes in the mushroom as well as the slightly oxidized areas. You can peel and remove any parts of the cap and stem that you don’t like.
- Cut your boletes into strips, lengthwise for a final visual check!
If you want to know more about cleaning boletes and porcini mushrooms, then discover this article on the subject: How to clean a bolete?
Clean Other Mushrooms.
Mushrooms in this category are larger! These have more complex geometries with hard-to-reach areas. We can mention the following mushrooms: Chanterelle, Morel, Milk Cap, Black trumpet, …
- Brush your entire mushroom: cap and stem
- If your mushroom has large hollow parts, do not hesitate to cut it along the length of the cavity for easy access
- To refine your cleaning we strongly recommend that you invest in a small kitchen brush or ideally in a bulb blower!
Good ! Your mushroom is clean thanks to a little elbow grease!
Check Out Our Mushroom Maps!
Find out where to look for edible mushrooms (Morels, Porcini mushrooms, Chanterelles, Black trumpets, etc.), check out our Mushroom Maps here!
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