Want to know which are the most delicious wild mushrooms? Continue reading.
Nature provides us all with a great very of free food.
From berries to leaves to roots and seeds, flowers, and delicious mushrooms, all there is in the wild, is waiting for us to forage.
Mushrooms are one of the most delicious, nutritious, and healthy foods we can forage ourselves.
In addition, mushrooms are also healing because they are high vibrational food. The only requirement when mushroom picking is to identify an edible mushroom from a toxic one. It is a must.
For this, there are many mushroom determiners and guides, or even perhaps local mushroom hunting classes. Please be very careful when going mushroom picking, and do thorough research before deciding to eat a wild mushroom.
If you love mushrooms and you are new to this, we invite you to also read our article on 9 Mushroom Hunting Essentials for Beginners. Let’s get into it!
In This Article You Will Find:
9 Most Delicious Wild Mushrooms You Can Forage
9. The Green-Cracking Russula
(Russula virescens)
- Known As: quilted green russula or the green brittlegill.
- Where You Find It: In deciduous and coniferous forests, quite frequently encountered.
- When: From July to October.
- Taste: While not as popular as other mushrooms, this russula is a delicious beauty of the forest. Its light greenish colored cap can be misleading, but actually this is the tastiest from the russula family. It has an amazing taste and the simplest way to cook it is to fry it on both sides in a little oil and then grate some fresh cheese on it, such as feta cheese. This way, you’ll fall in love with the taste of this small mushroom.
- Similar DELICIOUS wild mushrooms: charcoal burner (Russula cyanoxantha), greasy green brittlegill (Russula heterophylla), bare-toothed Russula (Russula vesca).
8. The Shaggy Ink Cap
(Coprinus comatus)
- Known As: lawyer’s wig, or shaggy mane.
- Where You Find It: In grass, parks, gardens, on the side of the roads or alongside hiking/forest trail, frequently encountered.
- When: From April to November.
- Taste: This unusual looking mushroom has a delicate and pleasant flavor, with a tinge of spice. It is amazing breaded or fired in a bit of oil or butter with salt. Plain and simple. The important thing is to forage young specimens, the ones that already start to open up are older and already start to decompose by leaving off a black-ish ink color. Hence the name. It is quite a joy to spot a shaggy ink cap in the grass, and if you find one, look carefully around, usually, there’s more where one came from. Wash it off and cook it right away, you’ll love it!
- Similar DELICIOUS wild mushrooms: none that we know of.
7. Golden Chanterelle
(Cantharellus cibarius)
- Known As: girolle.
- Where You Find It: On the acid soils of deciduous and coniferous forests, a common species.
- When: From June to October.
- Taste: One of the most popular and delicious wild mushrooms one can forage is this beauty, the golden chanterelle. With a think, full-body, pleasant scent, and a subtle but delicious aroma, there are few wild mushrooms that raise the bar such as this one. Chanterelle is a highly valued mushroom all over the world. A simple way to cook it is to toss it in a pan with sauteed onion, salt, and pepper. It is a popular side wish with polenta or a great ingredient for many hearty soups. The good part about it is that it grows in bunches, so where you find one, there’s usually plenty around. Chanterelle should definitely be on every mushroom hunter’s list.
- Similar DELICIOUS wild mushrooms: Hedgehog mushroom (Hydnum repandum), Black trumpet mushroom (Craterellus cornucopioides)
6. Chicken of The Woods
(Laetiporus sulphureus)
- Known As: crab-of-the-woods, sulphur polypore and sulphur shelf.
- Where You Find It: On deciduous tree trunks, especially willow, poplar, cherry tree, and acacia.
- When: starting April until October.
- Taste: As its name says, the young specimens of this yellow frills mushroom actually tastes like chicken. Its flesh is juicy and soft, with the consistency of cheese and very flavorful. When it’s too old, the flesh turns hard and fiber-like and can taste bitter. While it’s not that easy to spot, once you find one, you should come back later or yearly and you usually find it there. The best way to cook chicken of the woods is to bread it and deep fry as you would make a chicken or pork schnitzel. It tastes delicious!
- Similar DELICIOUS wild mushrooms: Dryad’s saddle (Polyporus squamosus)
5. Black Morels
(Morchella conica)
- Known As: morchella or true morels
- Where You Find It: In coniferous and deciduous forests, in parks, on tree mulches on the grown.
- When: from April until May.
- Taste: One of the most delicious wild mushrooms, morels have a white-ish flesh that breaks easily due to its hallow inside. It has an especially delicious taste and smell and the simplest way to cook morels is to fry in a pan with a bit of butter. It’s important to wash them well before cooking because the insects dwell in their tiny crevasses. Consumed raw can cause certain allergic reactions, so this is not recommended.
- Similar DELICIOUS wild mushrooms: Yellow morel (Morchella esculenta)
4. Matsutake
(Tricholoma matsutake)
- Known As: pine mushrooms.
- Where You Find It: Under the coniferous forest floor or litter, usually concealed; in Japan, it is usually found in pine tree forests.
- When: Late August to end of November.
- Taste: Matsutake mushrooms and other Tricholoma family mushrooms are highly praised on the Asian market and are quite expensive. In Japan, the price for matsutake can go up to $1,000 per kilogram, depending on the season. The taste of matsutake is quite overpowering, compared to many popular wild mushrooms. Its pine-like flavor requires minimal cooking, with little butter or oil. In fact, Asians marinate the matsutake in soy sauce and grill it as is. This way, they preserve the freshness, texture, and natural aroma, which is spicy, but not peppery and quite intriguing. Matsutake also goes well with fish or chicken and a side of steamed rice, and you can freeze them to last for as long as you need. Definitely one of the most delicious wild mushrooms!
- Similar DELICIOUS wild mushrooms: Shiitake (Lentinus edodes), St. George’s mushroom (Calocybe gambosa) and Tricholoma murrillianum
3. Porcini
(Boletus edulis)
- Known As: cep, penny bun, porcino or porcini
- Where You Find It: This mushroom grows on the acid soils of the deciduous and coniferous forests and it tends to grow on the same spot every year.
- When: from June to October.
- Taste: If you’ve ever had spaghetti with fungi porcini you know what we’re talking about. This mushroom has an amazing aroma and taste, and it is predominantly used in Italian cuisine with pasta or on pizza. It is a very popular shepherd’s dish who spend all summer in the high altitudes of the Eastern European Carpathian Mountains. They usually prepare porcini as stew and serve with polenta. Boletus edulis is considered one of the most delicious mushrooms on the planet and it is highly valued on the market as well.
- Similar DELICIOUS wild mushrooms: Bay bolete (Xerocomus badius)
2. Caesar’s Mushroom
(Amanita caesarea)
- Where You Find It: It grows on the acid soils of the deciduous forest, rarely encountered.
- When: From June to October.
- Taste: This mushroom comes from the most controversial mushroom family, Amanita, which has the deadliest mushroom on the planet Amanita phaloides, and the psychedelic fly agaric, Amanita muscaria. In ancient times, this mushroom was the favorite fungi of the Roman emperors due to its exquisite taste and texture. Hence, its name Caesar’s mushroom. You can make a delicious stir with it, by sauteing it in some onion and crack a few eggs at the end. The natural yellowish color gives the food a pleasant coloring. It is highly praised, but a rare sight to the eye.
- Similar DELICIOUS wild mushrooms: not that we know of.
1. Summer Truffles
(Tuber aestivum)
- Known As: burgundy truffle or black truffle.
- Where You Find It: Predominantly underground on wetter limestone soils of deciduous forests, especially ash and oak, at the edge of forests. Back it the days, people used pigs to forage black truffles, now they used trained dogs, Lagotto Romagnolo being one of the most popular dog breeds for truffle hunting.
- Period: From July to December.
- Taste: You may have already heard about truffle, or even tasted them. Summer truffles have a delicious and specific taste and aroma, that you cannot mistake with anything else. It is a very praised ingredient in French and Italian cuisines, and it is very expensive to purchase. Truffles are peeled and grated over the dish, to add aroma and flavor. Truffles are indeed one of the most delicious wild mushrooms that you can forage yourself, especially with a trained dog.
- Similar DELICIOUS wild mushrooms: White truffle/Winter truffle (Choiromyces meandriformis).
Read Also: 9 Psychedelic Mushrooms that You Can Forage Yourself
This article is for entertainment and information purposes only. We don’t recommend by any means that you consume any wild mushrooms if you’re not 100% sure of what mushroom it is and how to use it. Mushroom foraging can be really fun, but keep in mind that some wild mushrooms can cause death, so please take this very seriously!