Mushroom Ragu Pasta

This is a rich, deeply savoury Mushroom Ragu pasta built on dried porcini, red wine and a good splash of umami from anchovy and parmesan. It is comforting and luscious like a beef ragu which takes hours to slow cook, whereas this takes just 30 minutes on the stove.

Mushroom Ragu Pasta

Mushroom Ragu is exactly what it sounds like – a rich savoury sauce that is built on mushrooms. It’s hearty and comforting like a slow cooked beef ragu, but made with earthy mushrooms instead of meat.

The recipe I’m sharing today is actually based on the Mushroom Lasagna recipe I created for Nagi’s first cookbook, Dinner. It became one of the signature recipes in the book, and I’ve always thought the mushroom ragu was too good to live only between layers of lasagna! So today, I’m giving that ragu a recipe of its own, tossed through pasta.

What I like about this one is that like all ragus, it tastes like it’s been quietly simmering away on the stove for hours with an almost meaty flavour, but really, once your ingredients are prepped, the whole thing comes together in well under an hour.

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Ingredients in Mushroom Ragu Pasta

I use anchovies and chicken rather than vegetable stock to bring out the full potential of the mushrooms. But to make it vegetarian, simply use vegetable stock instead and an extra 1/4 cup of parmesan instead of the anchovies. If you don’t eat parmesan and want to go fully vegan, stir through 1/4 cup of nutritional yeast instead for that same salty, cheesy depth.

1. The Mushrooms

• Cup mushroom – Also known as white button mushrooms. A whole kilo might sound like a lot, but they’re the main part of the ragu, and they cook down significantly, so you need that volume to start with. You could also use Swiss Mushrooms (cremini). You could really make this with any mushrooms, even wild mushrooms, just chop and slice so you get a similar texture to mine.

• Dried porcini mushroom – Small but important ingredient here. Porcinis are prized for their strong, earthy mushroom flavour and just a small amount (20 grams) brings a lot of savouriness to the sauce. You can find them at some large grocery stores (I got mine from Coles), and fresh produce stores like Harris Farms here in Sydney where I live. Nagi said she’s also bought them from Aldi.

  If you cannot find them, substitute with dried shiitake or other dried mushrooms instead (like chanterelle and wild mushrooms) though I would use double to make up for the difference in strength of mushroom flavour.

2. everything else for ragu

• Red wine – Brings flavours into this sauce, both through soaking the porcini and later deglazing the pot. As usual, I like to use Pinot Noir, it’s light and fruity without being too tannic. That said, don’t feel like you need to reach for anything fancy, a cheap bottle works just as well since the wine cooks down and its flavour concentrates and changes anyway, so save the good stuff for drinking alongside dinner. 😊

  If you’d rather skip the alcohol altogether, swap it for a non-alcoholic wine or extra chicken stock.

• Anchovy – Also known as “umami bomb”, they melt away into the base. It doesn’t make the dish fishy, just brings a savoury depth underneath everything. As I mentioned above, if you don’t eat anchovies or you want to skip them, just replace with an extra 1/4 cup parmesan.

• Tomato paste – Cooked until it lightly caramelises, this is another key flavour builder in this dish

• Chicken stock – Adds savouriness to the sauce without masking the flavour of the mushrooms. If you have homemade chicken stock, even better, it’ll take the sauce to another level and make your Mushroom Ragu restaurant-quality. You can also use vegetable stock if you prefer, though the sauce does lose a bit of the depth of flavour that only meat-based stocks can bring to dishes.

  I don’t recommend using powdered chicken stock, it wouldn’t do justice to a dish like this.

• Parmesan cheese – Adds saltiness and richness into the sauce.

• Onion and garlic – Aromatic base every good ragu starts with.

• Flour – Plain / all-purpose flour, your thickener here.

• Thyme and bay leaves – Classic herb aromatics combo.

• Olive oil and butter – Used together for cooking, and unsalted butter comes back again at the end for that final glossy finish.

• Salt and pepper – Cooking / kosher salt and black pepper.

3. pasta

I like using mafaldine pasta, that lovely long flat pasta with curls and ridges that the sauce grabs onto beautifully. But you can use any pasta you like though long thing pastas like spaghetti and linguine because the sauce won’t hold onto it as well. Short pastas like orecchiette or fusilli (spiral pasta) would work better.

And don’t forget to salt the pasta cooking water!

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How To Make Mushroom Ragu Pasta

Almost every step here is about concentrating flavour through reduction. You’re reducing the wine, reducing the tomato paste down until it caramelizes, reducing the mushroom liquid until it’s nearly gone. Nothing is rushed, but once you start cooking, it takes less than 30 minutes but gives you a sauce that tastes like it’s been simmering for hours like a Beef Ragu.

Use a food processor to slice and chop the mushrooms if you are feeling lazy (Nagi does it). (Nagi here: ONLY SOMETIMES!!! 😅)

1. Soak and prep the porcini – Soak dried porcini in red wine for thirty minutes. This softens them and lets them release some flavour straight into the wine you’ll use later, so nothing is wasted. Once softened, strain them, gently squeeze out the excess wine, and finely chop the porcini. Set both mushrooms and reserved wine aside.

2. Build the base – Heat olive oil and melt the butter in a large, heavy-based pot over medium high heat. I use a 26cm/10.5″ pot (it needs to be large for the volume of mushrooms). Then add the onion, garlic and anchovy. Cook for about two minutes, just until the onion starts to soften. The anchovy will kinda melt away here, you won’t taste it as fish, just a savoury depth underneath everything else.

3. Cook tomato paste – Stir in tomato paste and cook it for about two minutes until it darkens slightly and lightly caramelises. This step matters, that light caramelisation is an important part of the flavour buildling.

4. Cook down mushrooms – Add the sliced mushrooms first. There’s a lot of volume here, and adding everything at once would overcrowd the pot. After a couple of minutes when it cooks down a bit, add the chopped cup mushrooms, chopped porcini, salt, thyme and bay leaves. Cook for around ten minutes, stirring occasionally, until the liquid the mushrooms release has mostly cooked away.

5. Deglaze with wine – Pour in the reserved red wine and bring it to a simmer, cooking for about six minutes. Stir well at the start, scraping up all that fond stuck to the bottom of the pot, which is pure flavour. As the wine reduces, you can stir less often. You’ll know it’s ready when you can drag your wooden spoon along the base of the pot and the path briefly holds before the sauce flows back together.

6. Thicken with flour and stock – Add the flour and stir it through, cooking for about thirty seconds to cook out the raw flour taste. Add the chicken stock, bring everything to a simmer, and cook for a couple of minutes until it thickens into a gravy-like consistency.

7. Finish the sauce – Stir in pepper, parmesan and remaining butter. Keep stirring until the butter has fully melted through and the sauce turns glossy and silky.

8. Cook your pasta in salted water for one minute less than the packet instructions suggest. It’ll finish cooking through as it mixes with the hot sauce, so this keeps it from turning mushy. When they are ready, scoop out 1 cup of cooking water, then drain.

9. Toss it together – Add the pasta straight into the pot with the ragu. Add 1/4 cup of pasta cooking water and toss well until every strand is coated in that glossy sauce. If the pasta starts getting sticky, just add more of the pasta cooking water, that’s why we take out extra.

10. Finish and serve – Plate it up and grate a little extra fresh parmesan over the top before serving. Enjoy!

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How To Serve Mushroom Ragu Pasta

Serve it hot straight from the pot, while everything is still glossy, piled into bowls with an extra grating of parmesan on top. It doesn’t need much else because it’s rich enough to carry the meal on its own.

If you want to round it out, a simple rocket salad with a sharp vinaigrette would be a great contrast to the richness of the sauce, and a piece of homemade crusty bread on the side is never a bad idea, especially for mopping up whatever sauce is left behind.

Great one for a cosy dinner any day of the week, and easy to scale up if you have unexpected guests. A glass of good red would be good with it. It’s been on our lunch table all week and we absolutely love it! So I really hope you do too!

Bon appétit! – JB

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Watch How To Make It

Life Of Jaffle

If Jaffle decides he has to be involved, there is nothing you can do. Today he sneaked his head while shooting to make sure everything was in frame. I don’t think mushrooms are really his thing, but the smell of anchovy and probably parmesan clearly had him curious enough to investigate. Of course, I couldn’t resist stopping to give him a pat before getting back to work, priorities, right!?