Mushrooms Are 2024's Latest Food Craze—Here's How to Cook With Them
If you cook more with one ingredient this year, let it be this one.
Monica Bertolazzi/Getty Images
This past year, it seems like many people have been getting more on board with a plant-based diet—and for good reason. Many veggies and herbs can help support your immune system and provide other health benefits, such as reducing inflammation in the body.
Mushrooms are said to be a big stand out ingredient for 2024 in part because of their nutritional value. Functional mushrooms, like chaga, tremella, and lion's mane, in particular, have surged in popularity this past year. And demand isn't slowing down anytime soon. In fact, the global functional mushroom market is expected to be worth over 19 billion dollars by 2030. With benefits like gut and heart health support, blood sugar regulation, and plenty of important vitamins and minerals, we're not surprised these adaptogenic foods are becoming a staple in kitchens everywhere.
Related: 3 Benefits of Eating Mushrooms—and Recipes to Get You Started
Not only are mushrooms a nutritional powerhouse, but their hearty texture helps fill you up, and they're a versatile ingredient to incorporate in many dishes for an extra boost of flavor.
To feed the demand, we've seen this plant-based item pop up on restaurant menus far and wide, with featured dishes like creamy mushroom pasta, mushroom risotto, and oyster mushroom steaks.
Take New York City’s East Village neighborhood for instance. A pop up called &Beer opened over the summer, which was so successful, it turned into a permanent space, with “a menu focused entirely on mushrooms.”
Fast food chains have also gotten on the mushroom bandwagon with places like Checkers & Rally’s offering Fried Mushroom Buford and a side of fried mushrooms last spring.
If you want to try incorporating more plants in your diet, it's easier than you think to prepare tasty mushroom dishes you and your family will love.
Mushroom Recipes You Can Make At Home
Whether you’re a plant-based eater normally, or are new to the game, you may or may not have cooked with mushrooms in your kitchen. Either way, it’s always nice to learn new dishes to whip up at home, and there are so many to try when it comes to cooking with mushrooms. Here are a few of our favorites to try.
Mushroom Pot Pie
This recipe for mushroom pot pie takes everything you already love from this comfort food, but removes the beef and replaces it with both dried porcini mushrooms and fresh mushrooms to give it a flavorful “woodsy” taste.
Mushroom White Pizza
For an elevated take on your everyday pizza, this mushroom white pizza will surely do, made of a cheesy base of ricotta and shredded mozzarella that's topped with sautéed mushrooms and garlic. It's filling enough to be an entree, but also classy enough to offer as a shareable appetizer at your next dinner party.
Crispy Roasted Sliced Mushrooms
When you’re looking for an easy side dish to pair with your steak, these crispy roasted sliced mushrooms will feed that hankering. Plus, there's hardly any prep time, and you can have these on the table in about half an hour.
Mushroom Coffee and Tea
We can’t highlight how versatile and popular mushrooms are without discussing drinks. Mushrooms may not be the first thing that pops into your head when you think about a coffee drink or a cocktail, but perhaps now that it’s 2024, it should.
Mushroom coffee uses a mushroom powder that adds a touch of earthy flavor while helping cut down on acidity from coffee. If you're more of a tea drinker, mushroom tea is worth a try. Made with either whole or ground mushrooms, this type of tea is not only warm and delicious, but it can also help reduce inflammation and stress.
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