This is a mushroom pasta that’s nice and juicy, in no way dry and dull even though it’s not made with a tomato or cream sauce like this Creamy Mushroom Pasta. It’s buttery and garlicky, and it’s 6 ingredient magic at its best.
Plus my little trick to make extra buttery mushrooms using LESS butter!
Mushroom Pasta
Anyone who has sautéed mushrooms will know that the minute mushrooms hit the skillet, the bottom layer of mushrooms soaks up the oil, leaving the top layer dry.
So I used to think that the best way to sauté mushrooms was with loads and loads of butter or olive oil. As you sauté the mushrooms, they start to leech water, creating moisture. But still! That first layer of mushrooms lucky enough to hit the skillet first stole all the butter, leaving the remaining 80% of mushrooms butter free!
In a bid to even out the butteriness of mushrooms, my solution is to reduce the amount of butter melted in the skillet, add a bit of olive oil (so you can heat the butter more without it burning and get the mushrooms browned faster). Then AFTER the mushrooms are golden (i.e. water leeched so they are no longer butter-sponges), add a small knob of butter.
Boom! A big skillet of mushrooms that look and taste WAY more buttery than if all the butter is melted at the beginning! See??
What you need for mushroom pasta
Here’s what you need for this mushroom pasta. You can use any type of long strand or even short stand pasta you want (like orecchiette, penne, ziti, macaroni). Also, the parmesan is not just for serving. Tossing the pasta with parmesan before serving is a little trick I like to use for an extra flavour boost!
How to make mushroom spaghetti
Here’s how to make this mushroom pasta:
The two key steps here are:
Butter added later – Hold back some of the butter until AFTER the mushrooms are golden – for extra buttery mushrooms with less butter!
Pasta cooking water – Use some of the pasta cooking water to toss with the spaghetti and mushrooms. The starch in the water will emulsify (thicken) with the butter in the mushrooms, creating a slick juicy transparent “sauce” that clings to the pasta strands. Classic Italian cooking technique used for all pastas.
If you do this key step of tossing the pasta with some of the pasta cooking water, people will think you’ve made a mushroom pasta sauce. That’s how juicy and “saucy” it seems!
I know I keep going on and on about how juicy and slick this pasta is! It’s because this is hard to capture in photos and I feel like people see pastas like this one without a large pot of sauce and assume it’s dry and boring. When in actual fact, this is about as far from that as it can be!
If you’d like to add some extra greens into your meal, try this with a classic (super quick) Rocket/Arugula Salad with Balsamic Dressing. Otherwise, a juicy tomato salad, fresh crunchy cucumber salad, or have a browse through my Vegetable Sides and pick something using vegetables you have!
– Nagi x
PS If you want to indulge in a special Italian pasta meal, add a side of Garlic Bread or Cheesy Garlic Bread, and finish with Tiramisu. Sheer perfection!
Watch how to make it
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Mushroom Pasta
Ingredients
CHOOSE pasta
- 200g / 7 oz short pasta like orecchiette, penne, macaroni (Note 1)
- 160g/6 oz long pasta – spaghetti, fettucine (Note 1)
Garlic Butter Mushrooms for pasta
- 400g / 14 oz mushrooms , sliced 1/2 cm / 1/5" thick (Note 2)
- 50g / 3 tbsp unsalted butter , separated
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 garlic cloves , finely minced
- 1/2 tsp each salt and pepper
- 1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese (or 1/4 cup store bought grated)
To serve
- Parsley , finely chopped
- Parmesan cheese , grated
Instructions
Pasta
- Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Add the pasta into the pot when you start cooking the mushrooms.
- Cook pasta per packet instructions minus 1 minute. RESERVE 1 mugful of pasta cooking liquid, then drain pasta.
Mushrooms
- Melt half butter and all oil in a large skillet over heat.
- Add mushrooms and cook until water has leeched then evaporated, and the mushrooms start to turn golden around edges – around 5 minutes.
- Halfway through cooking, add salt & pepper.
- Add garlic and remaining butter, cook for 2 minutes until mushrooms and garlic are golden.
- Add pasta, about 3/4 cup of reserved pasta water and parmesan. Toss gently or until water reduces and thickens into a saucy glaze that coats the pasta. If the pasta dries out, add more pasta water.
- Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.
- Remove from stove and serve immediately, garnished with fresh parsley and parmesan cheese.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Originally published October 2016. Updated with sparking new photos and video!
🍄MUSHROOM LOVE 🍄
LIFE OF DOZER
I have a 4WD car. It’s pretty big. Dozer is bigger. 😂
And from the original publication date:
There is no such thing as a peaceful lunch in this household. Always eyes on you.
Made this today and loved it! You mentioned maybe adding thyme because it goes well with mushrooms. How much would you use in this recipe?
I made this mushroom pasta last night, and it was absolutely the best pasta I’ve ever made! It will definitely be going into my dinner rotation! Thank you, Nagi for another delicious meal!!
Absolutely first class, the wife is still commenting an hour later, how much she enjoyed it.
Super easy and quite delicious especially when looking for something filling without meat. Next time I’ll add more veggies
This Mushroom Pasta Was Delicious!! I used high protein spaghetti noodles, substituted minced dried garlic for fresh, mozzarella cheese for Parmesan cheese and half amount of salt because I used salted butter. We Enjoyed This Recipe Meal Thank You!!
So easy to make and I loved that it could be made without cream. I served it as a side dish to grilled chicken thighs and homegrown broccoli that I topped with left over burnt butter lemon sauce!
Hi Nagi, made the mushroom pasta last night. It was delicious. Added some halved cherry tomatoes and kalamata olives. Thank you for sharing your recipes. 😋
Great, quick, simple recipe. I throw in some spinach as well. Yum!
Love this recipe. Didn’t check the Woolies order and 3 paper bags of mushrooms delivered? Luckily I love mushrooms & this recipe just delicious and used one bag of the mushies. Thanks Nagi.
This dish was good but it was too oily for my taste. I followed the recipe exactly as described and I only now see that the notes suggest 2 tbsp of butter instead of the 3 in the recipe card and 1 tbsp olive oil. I’d reccomend reducing the total oil in the dish to at most 3 tbsp and I’d suggest making all of it olive oil as I think it’s complex flavor will fit the spirit of the dish better than butter. The presence of butter in combination with parmesan cheese makes the dish taste like alfredo sauce. Good for you if you prefer that, but since this recipe’s methodology is most similar to aglio e olio, I think olive oil would be a better pick. I also would probably increase the starch content. I boiled down about 2 cups of pasta water before the pasta was cooked and it made a decent sauce, but I’d prefer a thicker and more voluminous sauce so I’d probably boil down about 4 cups of pasta water next time before adding the pasta to it. Also I would remove the mushrooms after they are cooked and melt the cheese into the boiled down pasta water so it can smoothly emulsify, then add the mushrooms back in with the rest of the ingredients. Then I’d probably add some italian seasoning, chili flakes, or even some white wine to make the flavor more complex.
Overall the recipe is good and though simple is open to a lot of personal changes and additions.
This was absolutely amazing!! The recipe is so simple, and you can measure everything with your heart and it doesn’t matter. I always use more garlic because we’re obsessed, and I also added a few good handfuls of baby spinach so I could call it a full one-pot meal. A note to anyone with dairy intolerance, a good sheep’s milk manchego mimics Parmesan perfectly. It’s a hard nutty cheese that tastes and melts just like a good quality parm. This recipe will be on repeat for us from now on! I’ve never made a recipe from Nagi that wasn’t fabulous.
This is wonderful, simply and quick. Love this recipe.
Very delicious. I threw in all of the parmesan instead of serving it on the side – and had a bit of goat cheese leftover so threw that in as well .. can’t help myself with using up leftovers. Thanks so much for the recipe and especially for the tips about cooking mushrooms – it really worked well.
I’ve been looking for an easy flavorful recipe and this is it. Followed your directions to a tee and it’s great. Next time I will add a protein. Now I can finally make mushrooms without all the oil. Thank you 😊
This was fabulous. In spite of the huge mistake I made. I drained the pasta without saving a cup.! Threw in a cup of water and boiled the pasta 2 extra minutes. Saved the water and the dinner. Very delicious and just right. Love your recipes!
Could you put a touch of white wine in here? If it’s a good wine you’ve used before in cooking? We have it on hand and would like to try.
OK, I have only made two recipes from this site and I have decided Nagi and I were twins separated at birth! The fact that I am 40 years older and caucasian makes that unlikely but these two recipes have everything I love about cooking. (The other one is the Really Quick Broccoli Pasta which I now make once a week). This mushroom pasta is quick and easy with ingredients I am likely to have in my fridge but the result is luscious – such lovely layers of flavour! I grow my own garlic and love dishes where it can be a co-star. And I happened to have fresh thyme on hand. So very good! Thank you and thank you!
This is sooo easy and amazing. Made this last night and my husband could not stop eating it. Will make again and again.
I’ve cooked this at least three times, exactly as directed, and it is sensational with that umami intrigue!
Made this last night using a vegetarian alternative to the parmesan – absolutely delicious and a definite keeper for an easy but tasty mid-weeker.