This mushroom powder seasoning is our secret to making almost any savory dish taste better. We stir it into soups, stews, beans, taco fillings, and more!
We use mushroom powder all the time. A jar sits next to the salt and pepper in our kitchen. It’s essential. We first tried it after visiting Seattle’s World Spice Merchants. They sell jarred mushroom powder, and it blew us away. The moment we tried it, we knew we needed to figure out how to make it at home. That was years ago, and we’ve been making it for ourselves ever since.
We’ve shared our love for umami packed mushroom powder before and use it in the following recipes: homemade taco seasoning, mushroom stuffing, spaghetti and meat sauce, vegan meatballs, and gravy.
How to Make Homemade Mushroom Powder
Mushroom powder takes a dish that tastes good and makes it taste excellent! The mushroom powder adds a rich, savory umami punch to anything you sprinkle it on. It’s magic. You can buy mushroom powder blends (although it depends on what stores you have available in your area). We’ve even seen a jar sold at Trader Joe’s.
Even though it’s a bit more available today than when we first tried it years ago, we still prefer to make it ourselves. Most of the store-bought options include salt in their blend. We aren’t against salt by any means, but we like to add it separately. I also find that homemade mushroom powder is more flavorful.
If you have a food processor or blender, our homemade mushroom powder is so easy to make.
The base is dried mushrooms, which we have seen in most larger or specialty grocery stores. You can use one or more varieties. We love using porcini mushrooms, which are aromatic and flavorful.
There’s only one step when making your mushroom powder: Place dried mushrooms into a food processor or blender and turn it on. When the dried mushrooms turn into a fine powder, it’s ready.
If you want to get fancy, you can add a few more spices to the mix, but that’s entirely up to you. We’ve shared a few suggestions in the recipe below.
Ways to Use Mushroom Powder
Homemade mushroom powder is a home cook’s secret ingredient for making savory dishes taste amazing. When you’ve got your very own jar of mushroom powder, use it on the following:
- Make beef taste more beefy. Use this seasoning for grilled steak, hamburgers, and beef stew.
- Add flavor to ground meat. I love it with these ground pork tacos and often add some to ground chicken when making lettuce wraps.
- Stir it into soups like chicken noodle soup, potato leek soup, and this homemade vegetable soup.
- It does wonders with tomato-based dishes like veggie pasta, spaghetti and meat sauce, red pasta sauce, and chili.
- Sprinkle over scrambled eggs or add to your next frittata.
- Stir into stir fries and curries.
- Make meatloaf taste better. We use fresh mushrooms in this turkey meatloaf and classic meatloaf. Adding mushroom powder would make them even better.
- Make meatballs taste better. Add a teaspoon to homemade meatballs or these big Italian meatballs.
- Toss with vegetables before roasting or sautéing. It’s amazing with sautéed cabbage.
Basically, add mushroom powder to anything that needs a boost of savory flavor! And that’s it, our essential mushroom powder. We use it every day and hope that we’ve inspired you to do the same.
Essential Mushroom Powder
- PREP
- TOTAL
This mushroom powder seasoning is our secret to making almost any savory dish taste better. We stir it into soups, stews, beans, taco fillings, and more! Keep this seasoning blend next to your salt and pepper. Anytime you find a dish that needs a boost of flavor, add a teaspoon or two and then see how magical this blend can be.
You Will Need
1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms, substitute dried shiitake mushrooms
Directions
1Place the dried porcini mushrooms into the bowl of a food processor or blender. Close the lid, and then blend until a very fine powder. Do not open the lid. Wait for the fine powder to settle before opening or else your kitchen will be dusted with mushroom powder.
2When the dust has settled, transfer to an airtight container. The mushroom seasoning will keep for up to 6 months.
Adam and Joanne's Tips
- You can stir additional spices into the blended mushrooms. Consider the following: 1 teaspoon onion powder, 1 teaspoon garlic powder, 1 teaspoon ground black or white pepper, and 1 tablespoon fine sea salt.
- When blending, don’t be surprised if some mushroom dust comes out of the food processor or blender. A damp dishtowel covering the top of the processor or blender lid can help a little. Even with this, you will likely need to clean up some mushroom dust around the work area.
- The nutrition facts provided below are estimates.
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Folks, if you’re going to fret over a wee bit of grit, then you can’t get there from here using dried shrooms. Your only option is to buy your own fresh, clean them with the usual slightly-dampened cloth or paper towel, allow them to dry, and then dehydrate/dry them. That will get you (mostly) grit-free dried mushrooms which you may then turn around and grind into Shroom powder. I can guarantee without hesitation that the jarred, etc. shroom powders already come with their own grit–at no extra cost to you!
You make a great point! There’s always going to be the potential for a little bit of natural grit when working with dried mushrooms. We don’t worry too much about it, but if you have the knowledge/tools to dehydrate your own mushrooms, you gain a bit more control.
Tried drying my own Baba Porta Bella Mushrooms using your method. My question is does the powder go in the frig, or is it shelf stable. Also how long will it be shelf-stable? Thanks for your great insight
Properly dried mushroom powder is shelf-stable. The key is ensuring the mushrooms are completely dehydrated with no moisture remaining. I’ve never dried my own mushrooms, but if yours are completely dehydrated, the seasoning should last up to a year.
Have you ever tried freezing it?
We have not, but I don’t see any reason why this seasoning could not be frozen.
Have you ever tried freezing it? I will try it and let you know. I was going to make a large quantity of it but when I tried doing it in my new Magimix it took ages! I tried the small bowl and then put it all in the large bowl which was much better. I think I had it going for a total of about 1 hour and I still had a lot of bits, so I made 2 jars – one with powder and one with bits. Yummy xx
That’s a great idea about freezing the mushroom powder! It might help it last longer. Honestly, I keep my jar in my spice cabinet and usually go through it within 6 months.
Hello, First, I want to say, that although I make a lot of things that vegans do, I’m still omnivorous. I recently posted on my new blog about making this. I’m not sure what your policy is, so I’ll refrain from sharing my blog’s URL. I did mention you folks, gave you credit, and included the link to this page. My local grocery store had 500g/1lb of sliced white mushrooms on sale. So, I grabbed them up. Then I went looking fora rcipe and found yours.I sort of, followed your recipe.I started with 500g of sliced mushrooms and dehydrated them. I forgot to weigh them when they were done. I’ll do that when my current batch gets done dehydrating. Then I tossed followed the steps you suggested, however, I also tossed in a TBSP of nutritional yeast. The yield was 50g it filled about half of a 1 pint Mason jar. I’ve done a taste test head to head between this homemade mushroom seasoning and some imported mushroom seasoning. This beats the commercial stuff taste wise, and I KNOW exactly what’s in it, and how much of each ingredient is in it. The commercial stuff is also in granule form. I suppose, that I could blitze it to make it into a powder too, but why bother? The first thing I did with the homemade mushroom seasoning was to enhance some Bolognese-like sauce I’d made with textured pea protein that I’d made out of freeze-dried homemade split pea tofu. The textured pea protein was a substitute for ground beef.The sauce was great before I sprinkled on a few pinches of the mushroom seasoning, but the mushroom seasoning elevated the taste of the sauce. No matter how hard I tried to get all the powder out of the blender jar, it just wasn’t happening. So, I put some water in, lidded it, and shook it. Then I poured the flavourful goodness into the jar that had held the sauce, lidded it and shook it too. Then I poured it into the pan that I was re-heating the sauce with. I don’t like wasting something I worked hard on.I saw my store had the same sale again this week and bought 1kg/2.2lbs of the mushrooms. I’m quite happy with my airfryer’s performance in the dehydrator mode.Thank you very much for this recipe.
I found the best way to grind dried mushrooms was using a coffee grinder!
Interesting! I do love coffee grinders for grinding spices so this makes total sense.
Great idea! Dried mushrooms are a MUST in many of our family’s Polish dishes, and I always have them in the pantry. Just ground some up to try your taco seasoning for tomorrow’s taco Tuesday, I’ll post review for that then. I’ve never said ‘that then’ in a sentence like that before, how fun was that.. huh..Anyways, to folks concerned about the miniscule amount of grit that may be lurking? I cling to that old adage, “you’re gonna eat a bushel of dirt before you die anyway”.. lol.
OMG this is the most wonderful add-in flavouring I have ever come across. Thank you.
Wonderful! We are hooked, for sure!
Can you use any mushrooms for the mushroom powder recipe? Also if drying your own mushroom how many ounces would you need?
Yes, but we do love the flavor of porcini mushrooms.
The recipe calls for 1 oz. of dried mushrooms. If you’re trying to reduce costs of different dried mushrooms, you could mix some of the less expensive with some of the more unique like porcini.
Great tip!
Just wondering if you think a coffee grinder would work for this (using a smaller amount of mushrooms, of course). I have a grinder that is set aside for use with only spices.
Hi Marian, You can use a coffee grinder (although, you might need to make a smaller batch). Keep our tips in mind regarding the dust that can escape and don’t open the ginger for a minute or two after grinding.
Last week when I was shopping in Safeway I noticed that they had a ton of dried mushrooms above the fresh. I was in a rush so I didn’t see exactly what varieties but the were 4 or 5. I’m going to try your wonderful recipe. I follow the spice house on Instagram and they had an Asian spice mix that looked wonderful but at almost $13.50 a jar I thought it was a bit much. Since I own any of the recipes they referenced in the post I think I can mix something similar up and mushroom powder would be a wonderful addition asthey recommended use the mixture ove skirt steak and serving the steak as a rice bowl. Thanks for a great recipe and inspiration.
Hello Inspired Taste,
I’ve wanted to obtain mushroom powder but have not seen it in any stores where I live. I’m excited to try your recipe. Thank you for sharing. I’m just concerned that sometimes when I do buy dried mushrooms and use them in recipes by hydration…sometimes there is grit that gets left behind in the liquid. How might I avoid this when grinding dried mushrooms into powder?
We understand your concern and in this case, since we are not rehydrating, there is no way to remove any grit. Honestly, I don’t worry myself too much about it.
I never worry about the grit either. If it really is an issue, I just read that Shitakes are never gritty, but you will be lacking the amazing taste of Porcini which is what this is all about.
Yes! We love porcini mushrooms for this!
Does the mushroom powder need to be refrigerated? I have a huge jar of mixed dried mushrooms, but I always rinse them in hot water first to get rid of any residue or dirt. If I were making a powder, I wouldn’t be able to clean the dried mushrooms. Any tips? Thanks!
Hi Ann, We keep ours at room temperature, but it wouldn’t hurt to store in the fridge. You are correct, with this recipe, there is no way to remove grit from the mushrooms. We make the mushroom powder anyway and don’t worry too much about it.
We’re on the west coast (Vancouver BC)) and it rains every day in winter. Do you think it may be too humid for air drying. No sun either 🙁 thank you for all the inspiring recipes.
Hi Jenna, We have never dried our own mushrooms before and have only purchased them. You might need to consult someone who is more knowledgable about drying mushrooms.
Try looking up how to dehydrate in the oven. I haven’t done mushrooms but have done sliced fruit and veggies. Mushrooms might need a different time or temp because of the high moisture content.
I actually remove the plastic film cover on my store bought baby cremini mushroom and dump any loose dirt. Replace the shrooms and cover with a damp paper towel and rubber band.Put them in the fridge. They keep for about. 2-3 weeks this way. I dampen the paper towel anytime I take shrooms out. If I don’t happen to use the mushrooms before they start to dry, I just leave them in the fridge drawer (mine are separate from the main cabinet) and let them dehydrate there. Works great but can’t say how many days it takes.
I had always heard, and do with mushrooms is to put them in a paper bag, and to leave the top open a bit. This way they don’t get slimy. The mushrooms 🍄 hold up well for me this way. As long as I don’t forget they are in there! We get the 24 ounce package of them from Sam’s, and sometimes I buy them for a specific recipe, and then forget I have them. But I always put in more than the recipe calls for. There is no such thing as too many mushrooms!
Can you use the dehydrated regular type of mushrooms you buy in the International/Asian department of grocery stores?
Hi Jan, Yes, I’d guess that they are shiitake mushrooms (it should say on the bag somewhere).
Hi, by “dried” do you mean dehydrated? Regards, Leo
Yes.