Bacon & Blue Stuffed Mushrooms - Makes 6
Note: The bacon, stuffing, and meat will need to be prepared individually, so make sure to have your ingredients for each step.
Ingredients
Bacon
Blue Cheese
Stuffing
Ground meat
Melted butter
Portabella Mushroom Caps
Hull out mushroom caps with a spoon & remove stems. Careful not to rip or tear them, they are a bit delicate. Save the insides (guts) of the mushrooms to add later into stuffing mixture. Use basting brush to coat the insides and outsides of the mushrooms. Set cap-side down in baking pan/casserole dish.
🥓 Prepare your bacon - whether store-bought or home cooked - have 1/2 cup on-hand
🍞 Stuffing
6 oz cubed stuffing
(sage & onion was my preference)
2 Tsp Butter
1/2 C onion
1/2 C celery
1 C broth (depending on your meat filling, if using meat, this will vary; for this recipe, because I made beef, I used beef bone broth)
In a medium saucepan, over medium-high heat, melt butter. Add onion and celery, cook until just tender. Add broth and bring to a boil. Remove saucepan from heat & add stuffing, gently mixing to absorb liquid until light and fluffy. Cover, leave slightly vented & set aside for later use.
🥩 Ground meat
1/2 pound ground meat of choice (turkey, beef, finely chopped pork)
Salt & Pepper to taste
1 Tbsp Tsp Cooking Oil - I actually use avocado oil for everything
Heat a medium skillet on medium-high heat, drizzle with cooking oil. Place crumbled meat in skillet, season to taste with salt & pepper. Brown meat. Drain off oil.
🧀 3 oz crumbled Blue Cheese
Additional (optional) ingredients
1 C shredded Monterrey Jack cheese
2 Tbsp finely chopped fig (fresh or dried)
Preheat oven to 350°
In a large bowl combine all the stuffing, all the meat (I chose to use ground beef), mushroom guts, bacon, and blue cheese (also, if using Jack cheese, mix in only 1/2 C & figs). At this point, I sprinkle a little more Jack to cover the bottom of each cap, fill each ‘shroom to just full of stuffing mixture, and sprinkle a little more Jack cheese on top.
Cover, making sure lid or aluminum foil does not touch the cheese. Bake in oven for 8 minutes. Uncover and bake until cheese is golden brown.
*This dish can also be grilled over a low-medium flame uncovered for 10 minutes. This is what I chose to do this time.
I served this on a bed of spinach & arugula...your sides are optional. Asparagus, artichoke or Brussels sprouts would be great choices as well.
Despite the multiple steps of this dish, surprisingly, it really only took about 30-40 minutes from preparation to platter.
Now, on to the good stuff...the booze!! I initially wanted to try a blueberry oatmeal stout with this dish & feel it would have absolutely been the best choice, but, without finding this particular beer in my neck of the woods, I opted for what was available: Cabernet Sauvignon & Juniper Berry & Sage Double IPA.
Going into this, I totally had the expectation that the beer was going to be the clear winner here...I had in my mind just how satisfying beer is when I have a bacon & blue cheese burger. But that was just not the case here. The double IPA was way too hoppy and completely overpowered the savory richness of the entire dish. Although, it is a delicious IPA, I wasn’t able to pick up the juniper berry or sage as its namesake indicates. I will say though, I would totally serve this beer with a bacon avocado burger and sweet potato fries!
The Cabernet Sauvignon was definitely the finest option for this fungi. I allowed the bottle to aerate for about 15 minutes before serving. Upon the first sip of this vino, the flavors of the dish were not washed away or drowned out; they remained intact and actually melded together on the tongue and each element was very subtly amplified. I thoroughly enjoyed this wine choice to accompany the flavor pairing of the bacon smokiness & piquant of the blue cheese.
Please feel free to leave your comments, questions, or any feedback you may have. I hope you’ll join me for the next recipe...I promise it will be shorter, but full of flavor!
I appreciate you all!
Hasta la próxima! Salud!🍷
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