What Do Morel Mushrooms Taste Like? (& Cooking Tips)
Morel mushrooms, also called the culinary treat of mushrooms, are expensive, weird-looking, and truly sought out through the restaurant industry. They also carry many health benefits, and you can craft various delicious dishes from them. However, what do these treats taste like?
Morel mushrooms have a very woodsy, earthy, and even nutty taste because they are only found in the wild and aren’t commercially cultivated. Darker morels have a smoky taste because they often grow on burned areas. Unlike its flavor, the texture is meatier than other more slimy varieties.
When we compare morels to other mushrooms, it’s backward. Many mushrooms, such as portobello or cremini, have a meaty flavor, and others have a slimy texture. However, morel’s have a subtle earthy flavor with a meaty texture. This makes morels sought out because they aren’t the everyday mushroom you can get from the store.
In addition to the great flavor and texture of morel’s, there are many health benefits they provide.
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Morel Mushroom Benefits
As delicious as morel mushrooms are, that’s not everything we should think about the food we consume. Health is another major factor, even greater than taste, we should consider on our plate. Are there any benefits from eating morel mushrooms?
Morel mushrooms have many benefits, such as vitamin D helping with bone strength, and are rich in minerals such as iron, copper, phosphorus, zinc, magnesium, and potassium that are beneficial in many ways. In addition, morel mushrooms contain many antioxidants that help the body fight against diseases.
That’s a lot of benefits from an ugly, low-calorie organism of the forest. Now, let’s take a closer look at the benefits of morel mushrooms individually.
1. Low in Calories
The first benefit of morel mushrooms is the low-calorie amount. That on its own isn’t necessarily a benefit, but when considering all the great vitamins, minerals, and nutrients your body will gain from them, it’s quite impressive.
Take a look at the basic nutritional information about morel mushrooms.
| Principle | Nutritional Value | % of RDA |
| Energy | 31 kcal | 1% |
| Carbohydrates | 5.10g | 4% |
| Protein | 3.12g | 6% |
| Fat | 0,57g | 3% |
| Fiber | 2,80g | 7% |
2. Loaded With Vitamins
Vitamins are essential to our bodies in many ways. In fact, there are literally hundreds of things vitamins affect our bodies, from strengthening bones to healing wounds to improving the immune system.
If you look at the table below, you will see that 3.5oz of morel mushrooms have 34% of our recommended daily intake of vitamin D. Vitamin D helps us absorb and retain minerals like phosphorus and calcium. Essentially, vitamin D helps us to build and strengthen bones. In addition, research shows that vitamin D can also help control infections and reduce inflammation.
Riboflavin and niacin are other vitamins found well in morel mushrooms. Riboflavin helps us break down proteins, carbs, and fat for energy, and it helps our bodies use oxygen.
Niacin boosts brain function and improves blood fat levels and skin health, among other things!
If the benefits of vitamin D, riboflavin, and niacin weren’t enough, many other vitamins were still found in morel mushrooms. These vitamins are folate, pantothenic acid, pyridoxine (B-6), and thiamin.
| Vitamin | Nutritional Value | & of RDA |
| Folates | 9ug | 2% |
| Niacin | 2.252mg | 14% |
| Pantothenic acid | 0.440mg | 9% |
| Pyridoxine (B-6) | 0.136mg | 10% |
| Riboflavin | 0.205mg | 16% |
| Thiamin | 0.069mg | 6% |
| Vitamin D | 206mg | 34% |
3. Rich In Minerals
Alongside vitamins, minerals are highly important for our bodies to function and be healthy. From morel mushrooms, you will find iron the most. From 3.5oz (100g) of morels, you can get a whopping 152% of the daily recommended iron intake!
Iron is a mineral required for development and growth. The most important function of iron is to make hemoglobin, a protein found in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to all parts of your body.
Other important vitamins rich in morel mushrooms are copper, phosphorus, and zinc.
Copper is similar to iron in that it helps form blood cells. In addition, copper helps to maintain healthy immune function, bones, blood vessels, and nerves.
Phosphorus has the job of forming bones and teeth. It also helps the body form protein for growth, body maintenance, and cell and tissue repair. Phosphorus plays a role in controlling how the body uses carbohydrates and fats.
Zinc is widely known to help with skin health, but zinc also aids metabolism, digestion, and many other body processes.
In addition to the minerals found in great amounts from morel mushrooms, you can also find calcium, magnesium, manganese, and selenium. What a mineral treat morel mushrooms are!
| Mineral | Nutritional Value | & of RDA |
| Calcium | 43mg | 4% |
| Copper | 0.625mg | 69% |
| Iron | 12.18mg | 152% |
| Magnesium | 19mg | 5% |
| Manganese | 0.587mg | 26% |
| Phosphorus | 194mg | 28% |
| Selenium | 2.2ug | 4% |
| Zinc | 2.03mg | 18% |
4. Plentiful Electrolytes
As we have learned, morel mushrooms are home to many beneficial vitamins and minerals. However, you can find two electrolytes as well: sodium and potassium.
Sodium is an electrolyte that helps us with nerve impulses, balance water and minerals, and contract and relaxes muscles. Sodium isn’t often a difficult electrolyte to reach. One dash of salt contains 155mg of sodium, whereas 3.5oz (100g) of morels contains only 21mg, 1.5% of the daily recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for an adult.
In contrast, potassium helps with muscle contraction and nerve function, as does sodium. There are 9% of potassium in 3.5oz (100g) morel mushrooms from the recommended daily intake, so that’s a decent amount given that potassium can be gained elsewhere, such as potatoes, lentils, avocado, and a dozen more!
5. Anti-tumor properties
Research shows that morel mushrooms have not only anti-tumor benefits but also anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory bioactivities. This is fascinating and welcoming to the body. However, is it a surprise when looking at all the nutrients morel mushrooms provide?
Morel mushrooms won’t substitute real medicine, but you can still get beneficial nutrients from morel mushrooms, as we can see.
How to Cook Morel Mushrooms?
Considering morel mushrooms are delicious and beneficial to our bodies, the next logical question is how to prepare them. As all mushroom lovers know, some can be quite dangerous if cooked improperly. That said, how to cook morel mushrooms?
You can cook morel mushrooms the same way as other regular mushrooms, such as champions, chanterelles, and creminis. The best way to cook morels is to fry them on a hot pan with oil or oil and butter mix. However, just butter will often burn before the morels are fully cooked.
The way you should process the mushroom is any way you prefer. You can slice or dice them or put them in an oven and eat them big and chunky! There are many more ways to prepare morels for a delicious meal, but more on that shortly.
I like to put a dash of salt and nothing more for seasoning. Morel’s are a treat on their own so hiding their flavor with a ton of spices isn’t something I’d recommend. A small dash of salt to enhance their flavor is the way!
A final thing you should consider is the number of liquid morels will evaporate. When you sear morel’s on the pan, I’d recommend a high heat because that makes the morels properly seared, not mushy and sloppy as they will be if they are cooked on their liquid. You should also pour the liquid off the pan when it builds up.
Now, it’s perfectly fine to eat morels as they are without anything else. However, if you want to make a full meal out of them, we need to examine some of the best dishes out there!
How to Eat Morel Mushrooms?
Now that you know how to cook morel mushrooms the right way, it’s time for the best part. How should you eat morel mushrooms to get the most taste from them, and what are the most delicious meals to prepare? Here are my seven top recommendations (click for a recipe).
- Morel Mushroom Risotto
- Wild Morel Mushroom Sauce
- Morel Mushroom Stew
- Morel Mushroom Toasts
- Mixed Mushroom Pizza
- Morel Quiches
- Beef Tenderloin With Morel Cream Sauce
If you had a chance to browse those recipes, I’m sure you got saliva up and running in your mouth. Try them all to find your favorite! My favorite is the morel stew because morel mushrooms are treats from the wild, and stew always reminds me of great earthy food.
Here You’ll Find My Favorite Kitchen Equipment.
Thanks for reading this article! I hope that it brought you real value that you can benefit from in your personal life! Here is my top kitchen equipment that I seriously couldn’t live without, and I think they could ease your life as well as they do mine.
- Knife set: As a chef, I can’t stand dull, poor-quality knives without any design. My absolute favorite kitchen knife set is the Gangshan 3-Piece Knife Set. It comes with a handcrafted 8″ chef’s knife and a 3.5″ paring knife. What I love even more than these flawless knives is the walnut knife block which is incredible and unique.
- Skillet: In addition to knives and my unwillingness to bargain with its quality is the cookware. My favorite skillet is Le Creuset Enameled Cast Iron Skillet. This particular skillet is 9″ in size, it is heavy, it gets very hot, which is what is required to get a good sear, and it is just beautiful, as are all Le Creuset products. Le Creuset doesn’t need an introduction as a brand, as it is one of the world’s rated brands.
- Food processor: I remember when I hadn’t a food processor at home. It wasn’t easy! But now, when I use my Ninja BN601 Food Processor, I can make anything super fast, which saves me many hours per week. This food processor has 1000 watts of power and four options, including chopping, slicing, dough, and purees. I also like the middle-sized 9cup (2.1l) bowl as it is big enough yet not too big to look unfitting in my kitchen.
- Tweezers: Dalstrong Professional Cooking Tweezers are like tongs but much more elegant, thin, and easy to use. They are great for virtually anything, but flipping, turning, and grabbing with them is easy and makes cooking much more fun! These Dalstrgon tongs are titanium coated and very durable. Also, I like the black color instead of the everyday steel.
