These spinach and cheese stuffed portobello mushrooms are a decadent meatless meal everyone will love.
Alternately titled, “creamy delicious bites of heaven”. Seriously, this dish came out way better than anticipated. Make it.
In Florida we had this horribly phallic mushroom, apparently called a “stinkhorn” according to Wikipedia, that would occasionally grow in our front yard. As if it’s shape wasn’t bad enough, the smell it would give off was, let’s just say “appropriate” for it’s appearance. If that doesn’t make sense, google it.
How something like this can be related to the amazingness of an edible mushroom like a portobello baffles me. Fungus is a weird one.
I love mushrooms, at least edible ones. When I see grocery stores with a section for all types of wild mushrooms I can’t help myself. This is why it’s probably a good thing that there is no whole foods even remotely close to my house. Mushrooms aren’t cheap and I have no self control.
I’ve been craving a calzone lately and that gave me the idea to basically use the stuffing of a calzone but in a mushroom cap instead when I saw these at the store.
The thing is, I’ve made plenty of calzones at home before and they usually come out disappointingly bland, so I didn’t have incredibly high hopes for this. I shouldn’t doubt myself so much, these were amazing.
First, I just cleaned off the mushrooms and removed the stems. Drizzled them with some extra virgin olive oil and seasoned with salt & pepper.
Portobellos remind me of eggplant. They soak up a ton of olive oil. I was pretty generous with it because of this and I think all that olive oil gave it great flavor when roasting. I roasted them for about 20 minutes at 450°F.
In the meantime I got the filling together.
Added all these goodies plus some sautéed onion and garlic to about one and a half cups of ricotta.
I used whole milk ricotta. Could you use part-skim? Yes. Do I recommend it? No.
Ricotta is one of those things that I don’t think the “low fat” version tastes nearly as good. Mayo is another. There’s only one and a half cups of it, split among six mushroom caps it’s one-quarter cup per serving. That’s not enough to worry about in my opinion. Whole milk ricotta is so incredibly creamy and almost “sweet”. Part skim just doesn’t live up.
By this time the mushrooms should be all roasted and shriveled up.
They lose a lot of water while roasting. If there is any excess water in the pan, drain it out before stuffing them.
Want to know about the perils of food blogging? An ant climbed into the tray while I was taking these pictures outside! I’m a firm believer in the 5 second rule. I figured it was about to get roasted at 450°F for another 10 minutes anyway.
During the last minute or so, I sprinkled some bread crumbs on top to give it a little crunch. And voila!
I think the sautéed onion and garlic really helped bring out the flavors in the filling. And let’s be honest, when there are three cheeses involved it’s hard to taste bad.
This would be a great side to some grilled chicken or eat two and call it a day like we did!
Spinach and Cheese Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms
Ingredients
- 6 large portobello mushroom caps, cleaned and stems removed
- 1.5 cups chopped baby spinach
- 1.5 cups whole milk ricotta cheese
- 1/2 cup grated mozzarella cheese
- 1/4 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese
- 1 14 ounce can artichoke hearts in water, drained & coarsely chopped
- 1/4 cup sundried tomatoes, chopped
- 1/2 medium onion, diced
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- extra virgin olive oil
- salt & pepper
- breadcrumbs, optional
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
- Arrange mushroom caps on greased baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil, season with salt & pepper.
- Roast mushrooms for about 20 minutes.
- While mushrooms are roasting, combine spinach, 3 cheeses, artichokes and sun dried tomatoes in large bowl.
- Saute onion & garlic until softened and then add to bowl.
- Mix to combine all ingredients and season with salt & pepper.
- Once mushrooms are done roasting, drain any excess water and then fill caps with stuffing generously.
- Put back in oven for another 10 minutes.
- If topping with breadcrumbs, do so in the last 1-2 minutes.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Fungi lover? Yes or no?
Gina Matsoukas is an AP syndicated writer. She is the founder, photographer and recipe developer of Running to the Kitchen — a food website focused on providing healthy, wholesome recipes using fresh and seasonal ingredients. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets both digital and print, including MSN, Huffington post, Buzzfeed, Women’s Health and Food Network.
These are insanely delicious. I didn’t have to bake mine as long but I think that’s because I made smaller batches (1-2 at a time).
Thanks for the great recipe!
I LOVE mushrooms too and these look amazing! I also love how crazy mushrooms look when they are growing. My husband and I go for hikes and take pictures of all the crazy fungus we see. Nature is completely fascinating!
3 cheeses?! Must make this immediately! There is truly nothing better than warm, melty cheese.
Definitely! What a delicious creation!!
Happy Friday
I am a mushroom lover too but they can be expensive. Love this idea, I am putting this on my weekly menu.
Portobello caps definitely freak me out lol I’ve never had them before but I would give this a try :)
Looks amazing! As for that ant…well, “ain’t no thing but a chicken wing”
Or an ant wing, in this case.
Well, if ants HAD wings.
haha! Aren’t there flying ants? I swear I’ve seen ants with wings. Love it!
Ooh love portabellas’s meaty substantial feel and never stuffed it with cheese & spinach. Yum! We love almost all kind of mushrooms:).