Zucchini Stuffed Baby Bella Mushrooms

For a great Thanksgiving or winter holiday side dish, these zucchini stuffed baby bella mushrooms are a good choice. Even if you only have a few people for dinner, these work as a side that everyone will enjoy. If your holidays lean Italian, then these really fit the bill! These particular stuffed mushrooms, however, won’t work as finger food appetizers. Because the mushrooms and the vegetables are filled with so much moisture, they can’t be eaten without utensils. Serve these with a fork, and usually with a knife for cutting.

I love using portabellos and cremini mushrooms in dishes, because of their chewy meatiness. I was curious as to what baby bella mushrooms actually are, and found this information in the Healthy Eating section of SFgate:

“Baby bella mushrooms are another name for Italian portobello mushrooms. Known officially by the Mushroom Council as portabella mushrooms, baby bellas are cremini mushrooms that have been allowed to mature for up to seven days longer than commercial creminis. Baby bellas are low-fat, cholesterol-free and a rich source of essential vitamins and minerals that can enhance your health and help prevent disease. These nutrients include selenium, niacin, copper and pantothenic acid. In season between December and March, baby bellas have an intense, meat-like flavor when cooked.”

There seem to be rules regarding washing mushrooms, too. Since mushrooms are so full of moisture, we don’t want to add additional water to them. The preferred method of washing them seems to be to either just dust them off with a paper towel, or to give them a quick rinse under a shower of water, then pat them dry. I prefer not to eat dirt, so whatever it takes! I rinse mine under running water and pat them dry with a tea towel, usually.

Some people leave the white spongy stuff around the underside of the edge of the mushroom cap, but I always remove it. The texture of it just grosses me out, frankly, so I clean my mushrooms well. When making a filled mushroom cap, you can also use a spoon to scrape the gills completely out of the underside of the cap, to make more room for the filling. I typically leave the gills in. If you scrape out the gills, dispose of them. But, you can often use the stems in your mushroom filling, especially if you have extra mushrooms beyond the required number.

There are a few options available with this recipe. You can substitute half or all of the nuts in the filling with cooked and crumbled vegan breakfast sausage. I like the Spicy version of Beyond Meat breakfast sausage for the best flavor. When topping the mushrooms with vegan parm and bread crumbs, you can do this dry or stir melted vegan butter into the parm and crumbs for extra flavor richness. Yellow squash and tomatoes would be super additions or substitutions in this filling. You can always switch to an orange bell pepper for color variety.

Be sure to use a vegan Worchestershire sauce. Annie’s makes a good one. Karissa’s Vegan Kitchen also has a good recipe for a homemade sauce!

Here are my homemade vegan parmesan recipes. I always make the first version, usually with one cup of cashews and no walnuts.

Oil Free Version: to make this recipe oil free, sauté the vegetables in vegetable broth instead and omit any butter in the parmesan/bread crumb topping.

You might enjoy some of my other mushroom recipes:

Slow Cooker Garlic Herb Mushrooms

Vegan Mushroom Pot Pie

Tex-Mex Portabello Waffle Fries