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The easiest and most affordable way to process mushrooms is drying. At home, it is not at all difficult to implement it, you just need to remember a few simple rules. Dried mushrooms for making delicious dishes from them are stored for a long time, while their taste and nutritional qualities are practically not lost.

It is not recommended to dry mushrooms at home, which have a bitter taste: milk mushrooms, valui, milkmen, volnushki. Only strong, fresh and non-wormy forest products are suitable for processing.

On this page, you will learn about preparing mushrooms for drying, what to do with dried mushrooms, and how much you can store. You will also receive advice on how to properly dry mushrooms at home.

Preparing mushrooms for home drying

Before drying mushrooms, it is not recommended to wash them. First, the mushrooms must be cleaned of debris and wiped off with a damp cloth. Large ones should be cut into several parts, cut off the leg from the cap. Small ones are usually dried whole. To avoid contamination, it is better to dry the mushrooms on a special device: a mesh, a grid, strung on knitting needles or thread. Nowadays, electric dryers are becoming more and more common, very convenient for preparing products.

How to properly dry mushrooms at home

Drying mushrooms is best done in the sun. When they are completely dry and ventilated, they should be placed in a cloth bag or special dish. It is not recommended to dry mushrooms in the kitchen, as they can be spoiled by extraneous, sometimes very strong odors.

You need to dry the mushrooms in the sun in sunny dry weather, and only then put them on a baking sheet through a fine sieve, dry the remaining large particles in it and grind again, because its digestibility directly depends on the size of the powder particles.

What to cook with dried mushrooms: mushroom powder

Dried mushrooms are often used to make mushroom powder. It is made from those fruits that, when dry, have a strong aroma and pleasant taste. Most often these are porcini mushrooms. You can take several types at once. They are ground in a pepper mill or coffee grinder, or simply ground in a metal or porcelain mortar. After that, the mushroom powder must be sieved.

In cooking, such a powder is suitable for making light mushroom puree, as a seasoning for borscht, soups, sauces, fish, meat and vegetable dishes. Before using the mushroom powder, it is diluted with a small amount of warm water and left to swell for 30 minutes, then the resulting mass is added to the dish and cooked for about 15 minutes.

What to do with dried mushrooms: preparing the extract

If you do not know what else can be prepared from dried mushrooms, we recommend making a mushroom extract. It has a pleasant mushroom taste and aroma; it is used as a flavoring additive to fish and meat dishes, soups, gravies and sauces. To obtain it, mushrooms are suitable that do not have a bitter taste, but with a strong aroma: champignons, honey mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, mushrooms, aspen mushrooms, boletus mushrooms. Mushrooms must be thoroughly washed and peeled, then cut and minced. This mass is boiled in its own juice for about 30 minutes over low heat, the mushroom juice is filtered through sterilized gauze. Then the mushroom mass is again put into a saucepan, combined with a small amount of water and digested again so that all the juice finally comes out, which must be drained again.

The mushroom juice collected in this way is salted and boiled over low heat in a large saucepan without a lid until some of the water disappears and the broth thickens like a syrup.While the extract is hot, it is poured into small sterilized jars, tightly closed and quickly cooled. In this state, it can be stored for about 2-3 years. The extract must be diluted with water before use.