Vegan Stuffed Mushrooms With Crimini Walnut Pâté

Do you have MUSH ROOM for fungi in your food planning? It seems that the magnificent mushroom never fails as the most popular party appetizer. All of the best bistros and most elegant restaurants rely on the mushroom as a mainstay in their kitchen cuisine. The fabulous filling for these vegan stuffed mushrooms starts with a mixture of fresh herbs, a pop of pungent garlic, and a smidge of salt from the miso. Combining these with some cheesy nutritional yeast and silky, sauteed mushrooms creates the most perfect pâté.

This recipe comes from Chef Barry Horton, a classically trained chef who spent years refining his craft at The Stanford Inn, a well-known vegan eco-resort in Mendocino, California. There he learned to embrace organic, sustainable, vegan, locally harvested ingredients, which grew to be quite a passion. Chef Barry and his wife Jennifer Horton went on to open a vegan fine dining restaurant called Sanctuary Bistro in Charlotte, North Carolina. This recipe comes from their cookbook, Sanctuary Bistro’s Recipes for Everyday Living Cookbook.

But you don’t need to be a culinary chef to make this mouthwatering dish. This recipe in particular showcases how a small and simple ingredient can be transformed into such a superb and savory side. If you’ve been lucky enough to experience this fantastic finger food first hand at Sanctuary Bistro, you know how decadent and delicious it is.
 

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Need to Exchange Nuts?

Walnuts definitely give this recipe the best crumbly texture and rich flavor, but you could surely substitute any toasted nut in this recipe. Nutritionally, these nuts all add extra fiber and healthy fats to this recipe.

• Almonds – vitamin E, potassium, calcium, and magnesium]
• Pecans – vitamin A, calcium, potassium, and zinc
• Macadamias – manganese, thiamin and copper

Can’t do nuts at all? No problem. Swap out the nuts for any of these protein-packed pâté candidates:

• Tofu – smoked or marinated would be terrific
• Tempeh – cooked and then crumbled
• TVP – textured vegetable protein power
• Packaged plant-based meats – meatless meatballs or burgers added to the mixture would give it a much more savory taste and solid texture

Just keep in mind that switching out a nut for another type of protein will change the texture of your pâté. It may be more creamy (as with the tofu) or it may become chunky (as with the plant-based meats). I think either would be worth trying and might add a whole new dimension to your vegan stuffed mushroom recipe!

Pâté Pairings

If pâté in a mushroom cap is not your cup of tea, here are a few ways to satisfy your savory senses:

• Serve on a crust of crostini
• Pop the pâté into a stuffed pepper
• Spread on a slice of homemade focaccia bread
• Place in the center of a sweet potato

Vegan stuffed mushrooms are super versatile. This savory stuffing is perfection wherever you put it, so just choose your favorite delivery food and you’ll be just fine.

Storing Your Stuffed Mushrooms

If you have any mellow mushrooms leftover (you may not!), they’re easy to store in the fridge. Place them gently next to each other in a covered container and they should stay fresh for a few days.

To reheat, you can either microwave them for a minute or two (they may get soggy or a little dried out) or put them in the oven (or a toaster oven, my favorite!) on a parchment-lined baking sheet at 350 degrees F for around 5 minutes.

Other options:

• Dice them up and sprinkle into a salad
• Slice them thinly and add to your favorite sandwich
• Chop them roughly and place on your pizza

You probably won’t have many vegan stuffed mushrooms left (because they’re so darn delicious!), but I hope these ideas will inspire you to make a double batch next time!

Additional Amazing Appetizer Recipes

• Vegan Hasselback Potatoes
• Pizza Rolls
• Easy Vegan Sushi Cupcakes

 

We want to thank our amazing recipe testers, J.J Steele, Anna Sparks, and Ramona Tallodi!

Vegan Stuffed Mushrooms recipe by Barry Horton from Sanctuary Bistro’s Recipes for Everyday Living cookbook by Executive Chef Barry Horton and Jennifer Jones Horton. Photos by Zhoro Apostolov for World of Vegan. Recipe and photographs copyright of World of Vegan™, all rights reserved. This post is not sponsored and all thoughts are my own. Please note that this article contains affiliate links which support our work at World of Vegan!