How to dry mushrooms the right way

Drying, the oldest way to preserve mushrooms, is still one of the best. Dried mushrooms don't just keep for a long time, they also have a concentrated aroma, richer than fresh ones. A handful of dried porcini can fill a whole pot of soup with fragrance. But for mushrooms to dry well and not go moldy, it's worth knowing a few simple rules.

Let's look at which mushrooms to dry, how to prepare them, what temperature to dry them at, and where to store them.

Which mushrooms to dry

Not all mushrooms are equally suited to drying.

Pored (tubed) mushrooms dry best: porcini, brown birch bolete, orange-cap boletes (Leccinum), Xerocomus boletes. They keep their aroma and don't turn bitter. The chanterelle dries well too, though it gets a little tougher.

But gilled mushrooms that need parboiling (honey fungus, Tricholoma) and mushrooms with acrid milk (milk caps, woolly milk caps) aren't suitable for drying: they're salted or pickled instead. Conditionally edible mushrooms that require boiling aren't dried either.

How to prepare mushrooms

The main rule when preparing for drying: don't wash the mushrooms.

1. Clean them dry. Brush or scrape off dirt, needles and leaves with a brush or knife. Moisture interferes with drying and encourages mold.
2. Take young, clean ones. Old, maggoty or soggy mushrooms aren't worth drying.
3. Cut them into even slices. Large mushrooms, into slices 0.5-1 cm thick. Small ones can be dried whole.
4. Sort by size. Pieces of the same size dry evenly.

The thinner the mushrooms are sliced, the faster and more evenly they dry.

How to dry

You can dry mushrooms in several ways; the key is a moderate temperature and moving air.

• In a dehydrator. The most convenient: lay the mushrooms out in a single layer and dry at 45-55 °C, gradually raising it to 60-70 °C toward the end.
• In the oven. Dry at 50-70 °C with the door slightly open so moisture can escape, on a rack or a baking sheet lined with parchment.
• In the open air. String the mushrooms on a thread and hang them in a dry, warm, well-ventilated place, away from dust.

A mushroom is properly dried if it bends and then snaps, but doesn't crumble to dust and doesn't stay damp and soft. Over-dried mushrooms aren't a problem either: you can grind them into mushroom powder.

How to store dried mushrooms

Proper storage is half the battle.

Keep dried mushrooms in a dry place, in glass jars, paper bags or cloth pouches. The main enemy is humidity: mushrooms that get damp go moldy quickly. Check your stock from time to time, and at the first sign of moisture, dry the mushrooms again.

Before cooking, dried mushrooms are soaked in water, and the soaking liquid goes into the dish, since it's full of aroma too. We cover other ways of preserving in our articles on how to pickle mushrooms and how to freeze mushrooms. And for an example with a specific species, see the article on drying porcini.

Sources

• “Key to the Fungi of Ukraine” (Kyiv, Naukova Dumka publishing house).
• Boletus edulis in GBIF, the global biodiversity database.
• Fungi in MycoBank, the international fungal nomenclature database.
• Drying (food) on Wikipedia).