One of my favorite recipes is Stuffed Mushrooms. There really is not an event where you can’t serve these! I have made this recipe for just about every occasion. Mind you, this is not a health food, but as a side dish who can it hurt?

There really is only two things that are a must in this recipe, first the mushrooms. The mushrooms need to be as fresh as possible and as large as possible. Your supermarket should have stuffing mushrooms in their vegetable isle. These are just basic white mushrooms but they are very large. They need to be as big as possible so they can fit the stuffing. You want them fresh so they do not fall apart or become mush when you cook them. DO NOT use canned mushrooms, it just will not work with this recipe.

Second, you need good hot Italian sausage. Not breakfast sausage, not Jimmy Deans, nor any sweet sausage. Preferably you should get the links. Although this recipe could be adopted using sweet Italian sausage, I cannot be held responsible for the taste. 🙂

This recipe is for two trays (15 X 10 casserole dishes)

Ingredients

• 1 pound of hot Italian sausage. The links are better. Remove the sausage from the skin.
• 1 large white onion chopped.
  
• 3-4 cloves of garlic minced.
  
• Plain Bread crumbs (just buy one container of it).
  
• Half a ripe of provolone cheese. Either shred it, or chop it into small pieces.
  
• 1 bag of the shredded cheddar cheese.
  
• Olive Oil.
  
• Red Wine (Preferably Cabernet Sauvignon). This CAN be omitted if you are just out of wine.

Preparation

Remove the stems from the mushroom and chop them up as small as you can. I usually use a food processor because you end up with a lot of stems.

In a large sauce pan, add enough olive oil to coat the bottom of the pan. Heat on med/med-high. Once warm, add the minced garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes.

Add sausage and break up with a fork for a couple minutes.

Add onions and continue breaking up the sausage. The idea is to make the sausage as small as possible so it is easy to stuff into the mushrooms. Do this for 3-4 minutes.

Add the smashed mushroom stems and mix them into the mixture while breaking up the sausage. Let it cook for a while until the sausage is done and the onions are clear. The stems should be well cooked too.

I usually leave the grease in, but you can drain it if you want, but you will need to replace it with olive oil. It tastes better with the grease.

Add the provolone then add cheddar to taste. You can really use any of your favorite cheese here. I usually use provolone and cheddar, but have used mozzarella from time to time. Usually the cheddar cheese comes in 16 oz packages, I normally dump about half in there. It is really up to you.

Mix until all is melted and combined.

Add bread crumbs one cup at a time until it gets to a thick consistency. Probably about 3-4 cups will do. This just holds the stuffing together. It really depends on how much oil/grease is in the mixture. You should be able to make little meatballs out of it when finished.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Take your mushroom caps and with a spoon, place the mixture in the caps liberally and pack it in their good. Place into the casserole dish as you fill them.

After you fill the dish(s), pour the wine over EACH cap. There should be about a 1/4 inch of wine on the bottom of the pan when you are finished. Cover with tinfoil and bake at 400 for 40 minutes.

If the mushrooms are really large, you might want to bake them a few minutes longer.

When they are done, you may want to remove them with a spoon and place into a container with a ridged bottom to let excess oil/grease drain off.

You can freeze the remaining stuffing if you have any left over.

Modifications

This recipe is very flexible. The cheeses used are not set in stone. After you have tried this recipe once, the next time perhaps try different cheeses or certain flavored bread crumbs.

Wine is not necessary, but really mellows out the hot in the Italian sausage. If you are going to omit wine, you need to place some kind of liquid in the pan, or grease lightly with olive oil.

This is the basic recipe plus some of my favorite flavors. No two taste buds are alike, so by all means, change it to the way you like it! In fact, post here on your successful modifications 🙂

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