These delicious home-canned marinated mushrooms are a real delicacy and make great gifts.
They have enough of a pickled taste to give them some interest, but not so much that they will pucker your mouth.
This recipe is from the USDA Complete Guide and also appears in So Easy to Approve.
This recipe is an unusual one, in that it’s one of the few USDA approved recipes for home canning that calls for added oil.
The recipe is very mild on the garlic, probably in order to give it wider appeal, but we’ve included a tip on how to safely increase the garlicy taste for garlic lovers.
This recipe is designed for small, unopened button mushrooms that are 3 cm (1 ¼ inches) in width or less.
You can make the regular version (74 calories, 92 mg sodium per 5 mushrooms) or make it salt-free (74 calories, 7 mg sodium.)
See also: Plain mushrooms pressure canned.
The recipe
Jar size choice: Quarter-litre (½ US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz)
Processing method: Water bath or steam canning
Yield: 9 x quarter-litre jars (½ US pint / 250 ml / 8 oz)
Headspace: 2 cm (½ inch)
Processing time: 20 minutes
Marinated Mushrooms
Ingredients
- 100 g onions (finely chopped. ½ cup / 3 oz)
- 40 g pimento (diced. ¼ cup / 1.5 oz )
- 2 cloves garlic (cut in quarters)
- 3 kg mushrooms (small, whole. 7 lbs)
- 125 ml lemon juice (bottled. ½ cup / 4 oz)
- 500 ml oil (Olive oil or salad oil. 2 cups / 16 oz)
- 750 ml white vinegar (5% acidity or higher. 3 cups / 20 oz)
- 1 tablespoon oregano (dried)
- 1 tablespoon basil (dried)
- 1 tablespoon pickling salt (OR non-bitter, non-clouding salt sub)
- 25 black peppercorns
- chile flakes (optional)
Instructions
- Prep onion, pimento, garlic, and set aside.
- Wash mushrooms well.
- Cut stems off, leaving just ½ cm (¼ inch) attached to cap.
- Put in a pot, along with enough water to cover, then add the lemon juice.
- Put pot on stove, bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes covered.
- Drain mushrooms, discard cooking liquid.
- Cover drained mushrooms to keep warm, set aside.
- In another pot, combine the oil, vinegar, oregano, basil and salt / salt sub.
- Add onion and pimento
- Bring to the boil, then remove carefully from heat.
- In each quarter-litre (½ US pint) jar, put a piece of the garlic, 2 to 3 peppercorns, and optionally, a pinch of salt or salt sub and a pinch of dried chile flakes.
- Fill each jar with mushrooms, leave a generous 2 cm (½ inch) headspace.
- Fill each jar with oil and vinegar mixture, leaving a generous 2 cm (½ inch) headspace: stir the mixture first before adding to each jar to ensure the mixture's contents remain well-distributed.
- Debubble.
- Wipe jar rims well.
- Put lids on.
- Process in a water bath or steam canner.
- Process jars for 20 minutes; increase time as needed for your altitude.
Nutrition
| Required processing time in minutes per altitude | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jar Size | 0 - 300 m / 0 - 1,000 ft | 301 - 900 m / 1,001 - 3,000 ft | 901 - 1,800 m / 3,001 - 6,000 ft | Above 1,801 m / 6,000 |
| ¼ litre (½ US pint) | 20 min | 25 min | 30 min | 35 min |
Reference information
How to water bath process.
How to steam can.
When water-bath canning or steam canning, you must adjust the processing time for your altitude.
For salt substitute, a non-bitter, non-clouding one such as Herbamare Sodium-Free was used.
More information about Sugar and Salt-Free Canning in general.
Australia and New Zealand vinegar strength special notes.
Recipe notes
- There is no option provided for larger jars. And, there’s no point in using a smaller jar, as so few would fit into a jar.
- Freeze mushroom stems for another use, such as soup.
- If you are a garlic lover, you will want to boost the garlic flavour, as it is very mild. You can’t simply add more garlic to the jars, as garlic is a low-acid ingredient and the rule is not to increase low-acid ingredients in these tested recipes. But, you can have your wicked way with the garlic: bundle a few cloves of peeled garlic (your call how many) in a small piece of cheese cloth, tie up, and toss in with the mushrooms while you are blanching them for the 5 minutes. Then, discard the garlic cloves (or freeze along with the mushroom stalks to add to soup) when you drain the mushrooms. In this way, you are boosting the garlic taste without adding low-acid ingredients.
- Instead of pimento, you can use red bell pepper, or any pepper.
- If you run short of pickling solution, top up jars as needed with heated vinegar (you can quickly zap to boiling in a microwave; be careful of surge when removing.)
Recipe source
Marinated Whole Mushrooms. In: Andress, Elizabeth L. and Judy A. Harrison. So Easy to Preserve. University of Georgia Cooperative Extension. Bulletin 989. Sixth Edition. 2014. Page 143.
Marinated Whole Mushrooms. In: United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Complete guide to home canning. Agriculture information bulletin No. 539. 2015. Page 6-18.
Modifications made:
- Added idea about blanching mushrooms with garlic cloves;
- Added ideas about adding to the jars a bay leaf, salt sub, and dried chile flakes;
- Increased vinegar a bit as more marinating solution seems to be needed most of the time.
Safety Check
These Marinated Mushrooms had a pH of 3.94, measured 6 months after canning, well below the upper safety cut-off of 4.6.
Cooking with canning
Nutrition information
There will be about 15 mushrooms per jar weighing about 150 g after being drained.
Regular version
Per 5 mushrooms / 50 g:
- 74 calories, 92 mg sodium
Salt-free version
Per 5 mushrooms / 50 g:
- 74 calories, 7 mg sodium
- Weight Watchers PointsPlus®: 5 mushrooms 2 points, 10 mushrooms 4 points, 15 mushrooms 7 points.
* Nutrition info provided by https://caloriecount.about.com
* PointsPlus™ calculated by healthycanning.com. Not endorsed by Weight Watchers® International, Inc, which is the owner of the PointsPlus® registered trademark.
* Better Stevia ® is a registered trademark of the NOW Foods Company.
JoAnne Andres
I cut this recipe in half and got 9 half pints out of it. I found mushrooms on sale at Aldi for 99 cents per pack. I bought a bunch and dehydrated some, too. Also, don’t discard that branching water! Cook it till reduced to about a third of the original amount, freeze it and you have a wonderful starter for a batch of soup! I freeze in non-stick bread pans and pop it out and seal it with my Food Saver.
Kelly
Once the mushrooms are canned, do they need to marinate a certain amount of time before they can be eaten?
Marie
I just came here to check this as well. I made these last year and they were amazing. However I couldn’t remember how long I let them sit. I just made double what I did last year because of how good they were.
Kate
Thanks for the recipe! This is my first time making a mushroom conserve. I filled the mushrooms to a 1/4 inch from the top and added the liquid to the top of the jar, Then I can can boiled it. The seal is intact but it looks now that there is less juice in the jar & the mushrooms are protruding a bit above the juice (about 1/4 inch). Is it sealed properly even though this has happened? Will it keep a year despite this? Many thanks!
Healthy Canning
That’s all very normal. The jars will be fine.
Jennifer L King
The recipe calls for button mushrooms, I ordered 5 pounds of button mushrooms and I received the regular white mushrooms. Can I use them as cut up pieces? I know they won’t be as pretty, but they will still process the same?
Healthy Canning
This response will be getting to you too late to help, but here’s a response for others: we’ve consulted with some master food processors. The small, white button mushrooms will provide the best quality because they will stay firm and give a satisfying, firm texture. Larger open mushrooms are fine to use if you cut them down to button size BUT you will have a softer, less satisfying texture than what you might be expecting, so the quality will not be quite as good.
Alex
Great recipe !
How do you measure Ph ? Do you mince the mushrooms with canning solution ?
Healthy Canning
There is no need to measure pH with tested recipes, but here’s a discussion of how one measures pH. No, don’t mince the mushrooms.
Jeanne cox
I’m canning a spicy pickled mushroom in pints how long do I have to water bath them
Healthy Canning
Sorry we only work with lab-tested recipes and won’t guess at processing times — not worth the legal liability with a wrong guess!
Shannan
I don’t li me to water bath can.
. Am I able to pressure can this? I enjoy my regular mushrooms.
Healthy Canning
This recipe is for water bath canning only. Here are directions on how to pressure can mushrooms (regular, plain.)
Nathan Schwermann
Cool recipe. I’m just wondering about the ph and how you tested it. Since the oil and vinegar do not homogenize the jars look like vinegar on the lower half and oil on top. Does the pH of the entire jar somehow still balance out? Is there a risk for those mushrooms only sitting in oil?
Healthy Canning
Hi Nathan, none of our recipes are our own. We only work with tested recipes from reputable sources. At the top of each recipe page, there’s a mini TOC, and in that there’s a link to recipe source. This recipe is from the USDA Complete Guide and So Easy to Preserve, so they would have done the testing. If we can’t trust the USDA’s testing for home canning, we are all in a lot of trouble! That being said, notice that the mushrooms are first simmered in water and lemon juice. (And remember that bottled lemon juice is even more acidic than vinegar.) Besides helping to stabilize colour and keep the mushrooms light, whenever you see a food thing being simmered in an acid, the simmering serves to drive the acidity deep into the food items. So, the mushrooms are partly acidified (you’d have to test with a pH meter to see how much at that stage) before the brine is even applied. I gather the same thing is done to minced garlic and sundried tomatoes that you buy from (safe) commercial sources. The actual food items are essentially “pickled” before they come in contact with oil. If you want details on the testing that went into that recipe, the records of the test results would be held at the National Center for Home Food Preservation.