Easy Sautéed Mushrooms with Truffle Butter

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I think one of the secrets to having restaurant caliber recipes at home is to know how to make a few basic and easy dishes and learn how to make them to perfection. Going back to the basics is the foundation of any good dish and that will allow you to feel more confident in the kitchen.

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That's exactly what this sautéed mushrooms recipe is. It's basic, easy, quick and we guarantee that it will taste like it was served from a well-praised restaurant. The savory flavors will complement and elevate many proteins, creating a meal that is just absolutely delicious. And, we might even bet that even non-mushroom lovers can get behind this dish.

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Ingredients for the Best Sautéed Mushrooms

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• Mushrooms: I like to use a mixture of different mushrooms so that you can experience a variety of textures and flavors. My typical mixture is oyster, beech and royale trumpet mushrooms, which you can find in most grocery stores, but you don’t have to be limited to only those mushrooms. I would recommend avoiding portobello and button mushrooms for this recipe because they not only have less flavor, but they also tend to contain too much water to get a nice sauté.
• Truffle Oil: With truffle oil, you usually tend to get what you pay for. The good news is that a little goes a long way so you don’t have to get and use much. I tend to use black truffle oil because it is usually a bit stronger flavored and more up front while the white truffle oil tends to be more subtle and fragrant. 
• Stock: The stock is used to deglaze the pan and transfer all the flavor that was developed through caramelization back into the mushrooms. It also provides body for you to the butter into. If you do not have mushroom stock, another stock such as vegetable, chicken, or beef stock would serve as a perfect replacement. If you don’t have any stock, you can use water but just be aware that the butter will not emulsify as willingly into the water.

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Making the Truffle Butter

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While this dish would still be good with regular butter, the truffle butter really is what makes the sautéed mushrooms pop with flavor. In order to infuse the truffle flavor into the mushrooms, you must first bind the oil into another vessel so that the truffle-flavored oil does not leave an oily texture and separate from the sauce. To do this, we first emulsify it into the butter, then mount the butter into the sauce.

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A great tip is making this butter ahead of time since it can be used for many things such as topping a steak or flavoring a pasta dish.

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Sautéing the Mushrooms

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The two keys to being able to successfully sauté are the pan you use and heat control.

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The pan is important because you want something heavy-bottomed that will retain the heat when you add your food to the pan. If the pan is light and flimsy, it will cool down instantly when you add the food to the pan and then you won’t be able to achieve the high temperatures necessary to get the proper caramelization and coloring.

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The initial high temperatures are important to start because they are what sears the exterior of the foods being sautéed. You are essentially flash-dehydrating the outsides of your food, removing the moisture on the exterior, to the point where you reach the sugars in the food that eventually start to caramelize, which result in flavor development. This process needs to happen quickly or else you will end up slowly evaporating the liquid out of the food and will be left with very little caramelization/flavor. When the heat is too low, you will be left with a rubbery texture without any of the deep-roasted flavor you want in a sautéed food item. Once you get the food into the hot pan and establish that initial sear, then you can turn the heat down to medium and let it cook until all sides are evenly roasted. Don’t forget to add a splash or two of oil to serve as a conductor for the heat.

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Mounting the Sauce

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The technique we use here to both infuse the sauce with truffle flavor and make it rich and silky is called Monter au Beurre, or mounting with butter. This traditional French technique is used to finish many of the classical French sauces and is integral in giving a sauce a brilliant richness and gentile viscosity that allows the sauce to coat whatever it is accompanying. While this technique is a foundation in French cuisine, it can certainly prove to be quite difficult for those not familiar with the nuances of finishing butter sauces. I can attest to this having spent many nights lying awake thinking about the previous day’s butt-reeming I had received from my various chefs for letting a sauce that required hours of reduction time to separate or “break”.

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The key to success is understanding why the sauce separates and what will cause it to do so. Here are a few helpful keys to live by:

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1. Make sure the butter is diced into small chunks and that you add it little by little and that the butter is very cold: If the butter is warm it will melt too fast and will not evenly disperse into the sauce. If the chunks of butter are too big the sauce will become overwhelmed by the fats in the butter, causing it to separate as opposed to emulsify. This will leave you with a greasy and bland sauce as opposed to a full-flavored and creamy sauce.
2. Make sure the sauce doesn’t get too hot: If the temperature of the sauce is too hot the butter will melt too quickly and the sauce will separate. You want the sauce to be no hotter than 195 F when you start adding the butter. On the reverse, you also want to make sure that the sauce is hot enough to melt the butter.
3. Constantly stir or swirl the sauce when adding the butter: The stirring and swirling effect is what allows the butter to melt evenly into the sauce and create a stable emulsion. If you stop stirring or swirling while the butter is melting, the sauce will separate. (Think of it as though you are making a vinaigrette).

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And at this point, you might be wondering "What if the sauce breaks?"

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If the sauce does separate, you can try adding a few splashes of cold stock or water, while stirring vigorously, which will help the butter cool down and re-emulsify into the sauce. Then continue adding the remaining butter. Another technique is to add a few teaspoons of heavy cream to the sauce and to reduce that slightly before adding the remaining butter. This will help add protein for the butter to adhere to.

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We guarantee knowing how to make the best sautéed mushrooms will elevate any meal! Give it a try and let us know how it went. Cheers and eat well!