Wild Mushroom Sauce

Recently I picked up a bunch of assorted mushrooms that were about to go bad and I couldn’t see them being tossed out. I made 3 dishes this last weekend, here’s the showstopper that stood on its own!

2-3 T. unsalted butter, separated

½ small onion, diced

12ozs assorted mushrooms, lightly chopped (eyeball it)

Salt & pepper, to taste

2 cloves garlic, minced

3 sprigs thyme or ¼ tsp dried

½ C white wine or marsala, deglazing

½ C chicken broth

2/3 C heavy cream

1 T. cornstarch

3 T. parsley, chopped fine (save some for garnish after plating)

Melt butter in medium saucepot, add onion and sauté until translucent (3-5 minutes). Add mushrooms, salt & pepper, cook until mushrooms have released their juices. Add garlic and thyme and cook until fragrant (minute or so).

Add the wine to deglaze and loosen any bits from bottom of pan. Cook until most has evaporated. Add chicken broth and cream, simmer 5-7 minutes until sauce has reduced by half. To thicken more, mix 1T of cornstarch with 2T water or chicken broth, drizzle in and stir sauce (you may not need all of it). Cook 1-2 minutes, remove from heat. Add chopped parsley, salt and pepper to taste.

Serve over grilled pork chops, chicken and steak. This sauce would also be nice over a plate of egg noodles or open-faced burger!

Chefs Notes:

If using white/button mushrooms, you may only need 1 T butter. I used a combination of shitake, oyster, cremini, chicken of the woods, porcini, wood ear, button, which equals less water. In this case, I needed extra butter to cook down these types of mushrooms + they were dried out a bit.

If using fresh thyme sprigs, remove prior to serving. Best to remove the leaves from stem, if possible and add to sauce. If using dried, taste after adding in and add more to taste.

If you don’t want to use any type of wine, substitute chicken broth for the wine.

This recipe can easily be doubled…..it’s very good!