Delectable Mushrooms in Soy Sauce are slow cooked in a flavour-packed, vegan friendly blend of soy, garlic and mirin. Perfect as an appetiser or mid-cooking snack, with only 5 ingredients and 5 minutes prep!
Why We Love This
These Sticky Soy Mushrooms are like little cups of YUM. The best part is they’re so easy and hands-off to cook, they basically cook themselves.
Soaking up every last drop of that umami-garlicky-sticky-soy goodness, they’re guaranteed to fire up your appetite! The marinade is vegan and vegetarian friendly, so everyone can enjoy them.
Related: Ponzu Sauce (Japanese Citrus Soy Sauce) / Enoki Beef Rolls
What are Mushrooms in Soy Sauce?
Sticky soy mushrooms were Sarah’s creation while we were living in Japan. We’d just been to the markets and bought a heap of Japanese mushrooms to cook with – enoki, shiitake, shimeji and regular white button mushrooms. While the enoki and shimeji were going in our shabu shabu hot pot for dinner, we needed to use up the shiitake and white buttons.
Sarah experimented with a quick marinade using the ingredients we had, then had the idea to remove the stems and fill the mushroom ‘cups’ and try slow cooking them. Viola – sticky soy mushrooms was born.
This is now one of our most requested dishes from family and friends on our Japanese cooking nights!
What You’ll Need
Only 5 ingredients which you’ll hopefully already have in your fridge and pantry ready to go!
- Mushrooms – We use both white button mushrooms and shiitake varieties for this recipe. You can use almost any mushroom as long as it has a deep enough cup to hold the sauce liquid while it slowly cooks.
- Soy Sauce – Japanese style Kikkoman soy sauce works for this dish. You can also sub with tamari.
- Mirin – Mirin is a sweet Japanese rice wine for cooking. You can also use 1/2 tsp of sugar if you need.
- Minced Garlic – Freshly chopped or minced garlic works. You can also add 1/2 tsp of ginger for an extra flavour hit if you like.
- Vegetable Oil – Using an oil such as peanut, corn or canola will allow you to slow cook the mushrooms without the pan smoking because of their high smoke points.
How to make mushrooms in soy sauce:
- Pull out the mushroom stems by pushing away from you with both thumbs until they ‘pop’ out.
- Mix the soy sauce, mirin and garlic in a small pouring dish or jug.
- Pour the soy mixture into the mushrooms ‘cups’.
- Drizzle the oil into a saucepan over low heat and carefully place the mushrooms into the pan. Cook slowly for about 10-15 minutes until the soy mixture starts to bubble. Add more oil if necessary to prevent them from sticking.
- Once the mushrooms have softened, flip them over and continue to cook for another 10 minutes or so.
- Flip occasionally, until the sauce has reduced, covering the mushrooms to become dark and sticky.
- Serve whole, or sliced.
Wandercook’s Tips
- Mushroom Stems – If you want to reduce waste, you can slice off the very ends of the stalks and add them into the mushrooms once you’ve flipped the cups over so the stalks can cook and take on the flavour as well.
- For the best flavour and most tender sticky mushrooms, allow them to cook slowly over a low heat. This will ensure there’s plenty of time for all that flavour to soak into the mushrooms, giving them a gorgeous glossy coat and sticky caramelised edges.
- To clean the mushrooms prior to cooking, wipe them with a damp cloth or lightly rinse in cool water (only if they’re really dirty) and pat dry with a paper towel. Avoid soaking them.
- Serve them whole, garnished with slices of spring onion and a little shichimi spice mix, or slice them up into neat little bite-sized strips – it’s totally up to you!
- Servings – This recipe is for 2 people, and 3 mushrooms per person. Double the recipe for 4 people and so on.
- Leftover mushrooms? Make a mushroom pate!
- Sauces – Try these mushrooms with other classic Japanese sauces like unagi sauce, yakitori sauce or umami sauce!
FAQs
Use any kind of mushroom with a deep cup shape – brown, white button or shiitake mushrooms can hold a lot of marinade and really allow the flavour to soak in.
Give yourself plenty of time – around 20 – 30 minutes – for these mushrooms to slow cook on the stove while you prepare or cook your other main dishes. Some people like to cook them and stop early to leave a little sauce to drizzle over, while others like to cook it longer until there’s no liquid and it all clings to the mushrooms.
These sticky mushrooms are rich and full of umami flavour. They’re perfect as an entree to Japanese dishes, or served up with fluffy sushi rice, or sautéed vegetables. We love having them with Japanese Okonomiyaki and Miso Soup.
Here’s some more vegan recipe ideas:
★ Did you make this recipe? Please leave a comment & star rating below!
Equipment
Ingredients
- 6 brown, white button or shiitake mushrooms stalks removed
- 4 tsp soy sauce
- 2 tsp mirin
- 1 tsp garlic
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
Instructions
- Pull out the mushroom stems by pushing away from you with both thumbs until they 'pop' out.6 brown, white button or shiitake mushrooms
- Mix the soy sauce, mirin and garlic in a small pouring dish or jug.4 tsp soy sauce, 2 tsp mirin, 1 tsp garlic
- Pour the soy mixture into the mushroom's 'cups'.
- Drizzle the vegetable oil into a saucepan over low medium heat and carefully place the mushrooms into the pan. Cook slowly for about 10-15 minutes until the soy mixture starts to bubble. Add more oil if necessary to prevent them from sticking.1 tbsp vegetable oil
- Once the mushrooms have softened, flip them over and continue to cook for another 10 minutes or so.
- Flip occasionally, until the sauce has reduced, covering the mushrooms to become dark and sticky.
- Serve whole, or sliced.
Video
Recipe Notes
- Ingredient tips:
- Mushrooms – We use both white button mushrooms and shiitake varieties for this recipe. You can use almost any mushroom as long as it has a deep enough cup to hold the sauce liquid while it slowly cooks.
- Soy Sauce – Japanese style Kikkoman soy sauce works for this dish. You can also sub with tamari.
- Mirin – Mirin is a sweet Japanese rice wine for cooking. You can also use 1/2 tsp of sugar if you need.
- Minced Garlic – Freshly chopped or minced garlic works. You can also add 1/2 tsp of ginger for an extra flavour hit if you like.
- Vegetable Oil – Using an oil such as peanut, corn or canola will allow you to slow cook the mushrooms without the pan smoking because of their high smoke points.
- Mushroom Stems – If you want to reduce waste, you can slice off the very ends of the stalks and add them into the mushrooms once you’ve flipped the cups over so the stalks can cook and take on the flavour as well.
- To clean mushrooms prior to cooking, wipe them with a damp cloth or lightly rinse in cool water (only if they’re really dirty) and pat dry with a paper towel. Avoid soaking them.
- Serve whole, garnished with slices of spring onion and a little shichimi spice mix, or slice them up into neat little bite-sized strips – it’s totally up to you!
- Servings – This recipe is for 2 people, and 3 mushrooms per person. Double the recipe for 4 people and so on.
Nutrition
32 Comments
Shaun
16/09/2021 at 5:17 pmLooks delicious and healthy.
Wandercooks
20/09/2021 at 4:04 pmAwesome, thanks for letting us know Shaun!