Simply Pasta is a monthly recipe column in which Best of Vegan contributor Teri-Ann Carty delves into her 20-year experience in fine dining and shares her best practices and recipes for making amazing pasta. In the new installment of Simply Pasta, she talks about her love of mushrooms and shares her simple yet decadent vegan morel mushroom pasta recipe. If you can get your hands on morels, it’s a must-try this summer!
There are many ingredients I feel that I couldn’t live without, but one of the main ones is mushrooms. I think I have made that abundantly clear over here, as several of my blog posts have been centered around them. Well, I am super pleased to say I am back with yet another mushroom recipe but today’s mushroom is the gorgeous morel.
Morels have a honeycomb appearance and look like little sponges. Up here in Canada, they grow everywhere, but the ones from British Columbia (where they sprout up after the wildfires) are especially delicious. People travel from all over the world to forage them, trying to make a buck. If you are lucky, you can make many, many bucks, but the morels need to be found first. I go to my local farmers market, and if I am lucky, I grab a couple of baskets, pay way too much but smile from ear to ear because, well, pasta.
Ingredients
- 400 grams linguine
- Salt
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- Pinch of chili flakes
- ½ onion - small dice
- 2 garlic cloves - minced
- 7 asparagus spears - cut into 1” pieces
- 1 small bunch of broccolini
- 1 pound morels - rinsed and dried thoroughly
- ½ lemon - juiced
- ¼ cup vegan butter - divided
- Pasta water
- Vegan parmesan
- Sea salt and cracked pepper
Instructions
- Place morels in a sieve and rinse with water. Place them on a clean kitchen towel and dry thoroughly. Cut large morels in half and keep smaller ones intact. Trim off any woody ends.
- Boil water, and add 1 tbsp salt. Cook pasta until al dente. Reserve 1 cup of pasta water.
- In a large pan or Dutch oven, heat olive oil and chili flakes over medium-high heat. Add onion and cook until translucent. Add garlic and broccolini. Add a splash of pasta water to get things moving and to help steam the tougher stems. Cook for several minutes.
- Add in asparagus. Season with salt and pepper. Add in mushrooms and toss to combine. Cook for 2-3 minutes until morels start to soften. Add in half of the butter. Toss in pasta and lightly toss into the veggies. Add in the remaining butter and a splash of pasta water to emulsify. Grate cheese and toss again. Check for seasoning and serve immediately.
Notes
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Recipe, text, and photography by Teri-Ann Carty.
If you loved this vegan morel mushroom pasta recipe, you might also like…
https://bestofvegan.com/simply-pasta-vegan-spaghetti-alla-noce-e-funghi/
