This is a recipe I have made approximately 10,000 times. When we lived in the United States, we used to entertain all the time for the nonprofit that we ran, so I kept a short list of easy-to-make hot hors d’oeuvres in my repertoire.
This recipe works best with the biggest white button mushrooms you can find, but it also works with smaller ones, and it also works with portobellos. If you use it with little button mushrooms, you don’t have to cook them for very long. If you use it with portobello, you can slice it up to eat it like a little pizza when it’s hot.
As usual, I don’t have specific measurements, just proportions, which means it is easy to adjust this to whatever quantity you want to make at the moment.
Ingredients:
- cream cheese
- grated Parmigiano-Reggiano or Grana Padano cheese
- Vegetable(s) for filling: I prefer either diced marinated artichokes, or diced green onion, with both the whites and greens
- Spicy element (for spicy hot mushrooms, add cayenne to the filling. For less spicy, dust with cayenne on top only pre-baking. For not spicy at all, dust with paprika on top pre-baking)
- salt and pepper
Preheat the oven to 425F or 215C.
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Clean the mushrooms and pull out the stem.
Mushrooms stuffed and ready for baking
Mix the cream cheese, grated cheese, and spices until well blended. Be careful not to add too much salt, since the grated cheese is salty (you may not need any salt, depending on your taste). When I make this filling with sliced green onions, I use both the whites and the greens raw, and mix it all in together with the cheese. When I make this with artichokes, I put them in at the last moment and only gently mix so as not to have them disintegrate — you still want nice chunks of artichoke in there. Of course you can use both. I like to fill the center completely, then use a spoon to round out the top in a dome. Then I sprinkle either cayenne or paprika on top and bake.
Bake until the tops get a nice brown color, you will start to smell the mushrooms when they are nearly done.
This is a very popular dish and really easy to make.
Buon appetito!
