It’s Wild Mushroom Season – Here’s What To Do With Them

Wild mushrooms grow all year round, but they’re at their peak during the autumn months of September to November. The cooler, wetter conditions allow many different species to thrive, filling up the UK’s woodlands and forests with fungi aplenty. There’s plenty of foraging potential around this time of year, however it’s very important to know what you’re picking, as some mushrooms can be poisonous. Below, foraging instructor Lizzy Farmer shares her top tips, plus a mushroom soup recipe to try at home. Based in the Northamptonshire countryside, Lizzy is the founder of Tellus Mater, a nature-focused company which runs foraging walks, courses, seminars and more.

Foraging Wild Mushrooms: An Expert’s Guide

As we creep into the cooler months it’s all change outside – both in temperature, and from a forager’s viewpoint. Here in the UK, we are currently waving our last farewells to the fruits of 2024 and waving a big hello to all the fungi who are finally awakening as their main season arrives.  

It is incredibly easy to take a further step into foraging more wild foods for yourself and family – after all, I bet a large majority of you have plucked a blackberry from a bush absentmindedly this year? A good book or two, time learning and joining a decent Facebook group will arm you well (as members of The Association of Foragers, we do not recommend using identification apps).  

Wild mushrooms, photo by Lizzy Farmer

Choosing to delve further into a world that incorporates both immersing yourself in nature coupled with culinary highs is wonderful: both the feeling of exhilaration at the finding of edible treasures, and of course transforming your dishes with perhaps wild chanterelle or oysters as you get braver is greatly rewarding. Chefs adorn their beautiful, but of course, justifiably pricey, plates with them and there is absolutely no reason as to why any of us cannot do the same at home coupled with care and a little learning along the way.  

As with all foraging, please take your time with this hobby, and go both slow and low with your learning. There are many mushrooms to start with that are simpler to learn, due to being full of easy identification features which will start you off on a good footing and allow you to build in confidence softly and safely.

There is a rainbow of edible species out there. My baskets are often filled with a mixture of oranges, purples, and even emerald greens too, on a particularly lucky day.  This season I have already found many chanterelles, and today I am hoping for some horse or field mushrooms from the edge of land my farmer friend kindly lets me prowl. The recipe below is for a quick mushroom soup that packs a punch of flavour no matter if your mushrooms are cultivated or wild. 

For the recipe below I used a mixture of both freshly picked amethyst chanterelle/cantharellus amethysteus and false saffron milkcaps/ lactarius deterrimus from local woodlands. It also works just as well with regular shop mushrooms. If you have any leftover, use them as a speedy sauce to run through cooked pasta, perhaps adding in a few greens lurking in the bottom of the fridge or found on a wander. I served this with a simple home-made dock seed bread – the recipe is here, but it would work well with any good loaf.’

Mushroom soup, photo by Lizzy Farmer

Recipe: ‘Not Grey’/ Simple Mushroom Soup

Serves 2-4, depending on appetites

Ingredients:

• 400g fresh wild mushrooms or shop bought will work just as well, however please note it will be grey not pale orange 
• 600ml vegetable stock 
• 3 cloves of fresh garlic peeled and sliced or 2-3 tsps dried/frozen wild garlic 
• 200ml double cream 
• Salt/pepper 
• 1 medium onion finely diced
• 2 tbsp butter 

Method:

1. Heat gently the butter, add to it the onions and gently cook through until soft and starting to turn golden in colour.  
2. Add in your garlic and the mushrooms roughly chopped, perhaps saving back one or two to pan fry to decorate bowls if feeling snazzy! 
3. Continue to cook on low until the mushrooms are cooked through and turning brown/lightly golden, around about eight minutes. 
4. At this stage if using a hand/stick blender you can whizz up the mushroom and onion mix to a puree in the pan. Or transfer to a blender to do the same job, then return the mixture to the pan.  
5. Add in the stock and bring gently back up to a simmer.  
6. Pour in the cream stirring as you do, gently allowing it to return to a simmer. Taste test and season with salt and pepper if liked. 
7. Pour/ladle into bowls and decorate with a pan-fried mushroom slice or two and serve with a simple bread.

Find out more about Lizzy or book one of her courses at tellus-mater.co.uk