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Make a restaurant worthy creamy mushroom pasta dish with ease at home! The mushrooms are roasted with garlic and butter and the pasta is tossed with a velvety garlic sauce, served with creamy, luxurious burrata cheese that makes the perfect creamy garlic mushroom sauce.
This dish is the perfect Meatless Monday dinner or accompaniment to a roast chicken or easy salmon dish.
Can you tell that we are serious mushroom lovers in this house? Yes, it's one of the only vegetables my once not-picky son will still eat, so I take advantage of that as much as possible, we have a lot of mushroom recipes here, y'all. And mushrooms are fabulous; full of flavor, full of umami, meaty texture, and they are super versatile.
This easy mushroom pasta is a great, easy weeknight dinner! You can use all kinds of mushrooms and add them to the garlic butter pasta with fresh herbs. A simple pasta dish made with simple ingredients that serves big impact.
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How to Make Creamy Garlic Mushroom Pasta
This garlic mushroom pasta recipe is super, super easy. I love roasting the mushrooms with butter and garlic (roasted garlic is bae, if you've never made it before you need it in your life) the mushrooms get nice and roasty and then you add the roasted garlic to the sautéed garlic in the pasta sauce, toss in the pasta, and tear apart a bit of rich, creamy burrata for easy garlic butter mushroom pasta.
It's comfort food heaven made in 45 minutes. Shorter if you decide to just saute the mushrooms instead of roasting them, but you'll be missing out on some amazing roasted garlic/mushroom flavor.
INGREDIENTS
Mushrooms. I used some nice wild mushrooms from a Hungry Harvest box I received, but any type of mushroom you like works.
Baby bella, portobello mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, chanterelle mushrooms, white buttons and are really common and easy to find at your local grocery store. Roast them on a small baking sheet or baking dish or saute them in your 10 inch frying pan. Also the amount of mushrooms does not matter! Use as much as you want. The limit does not exist. You can also have roasted or sauteed mushrooms in the hot pan with the oil and butter. And maybe a splash of white wine if you have some.
Whole Garlic and Garlic Cloves. The whole garlic head is roasted in butter and oil, aka the best way to cook garlic, while the garlic cloves are minced for the cream sauce. There's plenty of garlic, but remember: roasted garlic doesn't have the same flavor as your regular garlic dish. The cooking process causes the garlic to become golden brown, mellow, rich, sweet and savory and the cloves become really soft and delicious. They're great to smear on bread for a decadent garlic bread, too.
Oil and Butter. Use an oil with a high smoke point like grapeseed oil or light olive oil (not extra virgin), which helps so the butter doesn't burn. but it can be omitted if you're going the vegetarian route. We're also needing the oil and butter for making our sauce, kinda like an Aglio e Olio pasta sauce in a large skillet, like a 10 inch frying pan, but with a splash of cream and plenty of pasta water for a silky sauce to toss our pasta in.
Pasta. Use whatever pasta style you want, in the photos I'm using pappardelle pasta. Any pasta works well but I would suggest making this with any wide 'noodle' pasta like linguini, fettuccini, tagliatelle, and pappardelle since there's more surface area for the sauce to grab onto. Boil in a large pot of water or large saucepan until the pasta is al dente and make sure the water is well salted. That's the secret to the most delicious pasta recipes, y'all.
Lemon Zest and Lemon Juice. The tart lemon juice cuts through the richness of the sauce, while the zest itself is where all the 'lemon' flavor actually hides, giving our pasta a bright, fresh flavor!
Fresh Thyme. That needed herbaceous note is so, so good here. It's not necessary, but if you have it, it definitely adds great flavor.
A little red pepper flakes never hurt anybody, honey. They elevate the flavor just as much as the lemon and thyme.
Parmesan Cheese. Use the real stuff not that green shaker jar thing! A wedge costs like $3 at ALDI or $6 for a big ole wedge at Costco. Grate it with a microplane grater over the pasta while hot for a yummy parmesan sauce. Honestly, if you can't find burrata or don't want to add it, you can just with a maybe half a cup of the pasta water to make a creamy pasta sauce
Burrata Cheese. You're probably wondering where our 'creamy' mushroom sauce is...it's inside this beautiful ball of fresh burrata cheese. Burrata is like mozzarella's creamier, decadent sister, filled with fresh cream and cheese. That's how you get away with making a creamy mushroom sauce with no cream!
WHAT IS BURRATA CHEESE?
So like I said, burrata is mozzarella's decadent sister originating in Puglia, Italy. It's a pouch made from the pasta filata (pulled curd) of mozzarella, filled with fresh cream and the remnants of mozzarella making, ritagli (rags) which are soft, stringy bits of cheese.
It's made with buffalo milk (some are made with cow's milk and you'll likely find it easily since burrata is now mainstream) and extremely rich and creamy, which is why it makes a perfectly creamy mushroom pasta sauce without having to add any cream while cooking.
You can give each serving a ball of burrata to burst and stir into the hot pasta dish, or have one or two large ones to burst into the pan and rip pieces into each serving.
You can find fresh burrata on Amazon or at Whole Foods for about $6.
Making Garlic Mushroom Pasta Ahead of Time
The sauce does hold well for three days in the fridge, but boil the pasta at time of serving. Keep the mushrooms and sauce in an air-tight container in the fridge and when ready to serve, toss it with the hot pasta and about ¼ cup of the hot pasta water then serve with fresh burrata.
Can I Make the Sauce Vegan?
Yes! Use olive oil instead of butter, use some of the pasta water to make a sauce with vegan parmesan cheese instead of the regular parmesan and burrata. Really easy swaps with really delicious results!
What to Serve with Mushroom Pasta
Garlic mushroom pasta is a great meatless main course any night of the week, mushrooms are often used as a meat substitute for vegans and vegetarians. However, it's also a great side dish for:
Roasted Chicken. I have some really great roast chicken recipes that go perfectly with mushroom pasta.
Garlic Butter Shrimp. They go so well with the flavors of this pasta dish and are quick to make!
A nice steak! A creamy mushroom sauced pasta goes perfectly with a restaurant-worthy reverse seared ribeye or New York strip!
Love easy pasta dishes? Check these recipes out:
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The Best Creamy Garlic Mushroom Pasta
Equipment
Ingredients
- 5 tablespoon 76 g unsalted butter, melted
- ¼ cup grapeseed or regular olive oil, divided
- 16 oz 480 g fresh mushrooms, whole
- 12 oz 360 g dried pasta
- 1 whole head of garlic, optional
- 3-6 cloves garlic, minced (depends on how much you love garlic)
- ½ teaspoon 4 g kosher salt
- ¼ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- 3 sprigs fresh thyme leaves, optional
- ½ cup 56 g parmesan cheese, freshly grated
- Juice of half a lemon
- Zest of half a lemon
- Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper, to taste
- Fresh buratta, for serving
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (205 degrees C).
- Cut the whole head of garlic in half, drizzle on about 2 tablespoon oil over the cut sides, place the garlic top back onto the bottom and wrap the garlic head with aluminum foil and place on your small baking sheet.
- Arrange mushrooms onto the small baking sheet and pour butter over them. Put the baking sheet into the oven for 40 minutes, or until the mushrooms are roasted and golden brown. Pull out and set aside.
- ***OR saute the mushrooms in your frying pan in 2 tablespoon oil over medium heat for 7-8 minutes before Step 6.
- Begin boiling a large pot of salted water around the end of the mushroom's roasting time. Add in the pasta after cooking your mushrooms and cook to al dente (or just under al dente) according to package directions.
- In a cast iron pan or frying pan, heat up the rest of the oil along with the lemon zest, red pepper flakes, and fresh thyme over medium-low heat.
- After a minute or two, add in the minced garlic cloves, stirring with a wooden spoon or heat resistant spatula to ensure the garlic doesn't burn. Cook the garlic for about one minute, it should be very fragrant. Take the pan off the heat.
- Add the lemon juice to your pan, then add the cooked pasta and about ½ cup of pasta water. Add in the parmesan cheese. Toss the pasta and sauce together with tongs to mix everything together well.
- Add in the roasted mushrooms and squeeze cloves of the roasted garlic into the pan, if using. Toss thoroughly again.
- Taste and season with kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper as needed.
- To serve, plate the pasta with creamy mushroom sauce and add a ball of burrata (or tear apart a couple of large ones) over each serving. The cream inside the burrata will add more creaminess to your plates of pasta.
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