Easy Marinated Mushrooms (Japanese Marinade)

Marinated Mushrooms is a handy side dish that you can make and keep in the fridge for 4-5 days. You can even freeze it. Slightly sour with a touch of sweetness, Easy Marinated Mushrooms (Japanese Marinade) is very simple to make and requires only few ingredients to marinate.

To make the dish authentic, I used various Asian mushrooms in today’s recipe. I also think that they go well with the Japanese flavouring. The different shapes of the mushrooms also make the dish more appealing.

I tried a mixture of button mushrooms and Swiss mushrooms in today’s recipe, instead of Asian mushrooms. The flavour came out OK but there was no variation to the shapes of the sliced mushrooms. Perhaps the dish would be more appealing if I added something like chanterelle mushrooms.

Japanese Marinade (和風マリネ)

The major difference between the Western-style marinated mushrooms and my Marinated Mushrooms is the marinade.

My version contains far less oil than the Western-style and there are no herbs used. And of course the usual typical Japanese seasonings such as dashi stock and soy sauce are in the marinade.

When the word ‘Japanese’ or ‘Japanese-style’ is used in cooking, it is translated as ‘wafū’ (和風). The word ‘marinade’ is ‘marine’ (マリネ) in Japanese. It is pronounced as /marine/, not /məˈriːn/ as in the ocean. Basically almost the same as the English word ‘marinade’ without the last sound ‘de’. The sound is similar because it is a foreign word.

So, Japanese Marinade is called ‘wafū marine’ (和風マリネ) in Japanese.

If the dish is Japanese-style, you can add ‘wafū’ at the beginning of the noun to make the dish sound more authentic! E.g. wafū beef steak, wafū dressing.

What’s in my Easy Marinated Mushrooms

There are only 6 ingredients needed to make the marinated mushrooms. The quantities indicated here make about a cup of marinated mushrooms, but the volume varies depending on the mushrooms you use.

• 350g / 0.8lb of mushrooms
• 1 tablespoon of sesame oil or vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon each of dashi stock, soy sauce and mirin
• 2 tablespoon of rice wine vinegar

I used 4 different kinds of Asian mushrooms– Shiitake, Enoki, King Oyster and Shimeji. You can make it with just one kind of mushroom, but I’d strongly recommend using at least three different kinds so that the dish looks more interesting and appetising.

Unless you happen to have freshly made dashi stock, it is a bit awkward to make just one tablespoon of dashi stock for this dish. When the quantity of dashi stock is so small, I sometimes use dashi stock powder. Dilute a pinch of dashi powder in a tablespoon of water.

If you use konbu dashi, it becomes a vegetarian dish.

How to make Easy Marinated Mushrooms

Making my Marinated Mushrooms is also quite simple. It takes no more than 10 minutes to prepare and cook the mushrooms.

1. Slice the shiitake and king oyster mushrooms. I sliced them into similar sizes. Separate a bunch of shimeji and enoki mushrooms into smaller clusters.
2. Sauté the mushrooms in sesame oil until the edges of the mushrooms start browning and they sweat completely.
3. Add the marinade (remaining ingredients) to the mushrooms.
4. Store in the fridge overnight.

Sautéing takes only a few minutes, which is all you need to do to cook these mushrooms.

You can eat them straight away after adding the marinade but it is better to marinate the mushrooms overnight to let the mushrooms absorb the good flavour.

You can also freeze Marinated Mushrooms, which makes this dish perfect for a bento box. Naturally defrost in the fridge or use a microwave. When the mushrooms are warmed up in the microwave, you will notice strong vinegary fumes come up. But once the Marinated Mushrooms cool down, that smell will go away.

Easy Marinated Mushrooms (Japanese Marinade) is not oily at all as only a small amount of oil is used to sauté the mushrooms. If you imagine the Western-style marinated mushrooms, you will find that my dish is almost like mushrooms simmered in flavoured sauce. But they are marinated and tasty!

Yumiko

5 from 3 votes

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Easy Marinated Mushrooms (Japanese Marinade)

Prep Time

5 mins

Cook Time

3 mins

Marinating

9 hrs

Total Time

9 hrs 8 mins

 

Marinated Mushrooms is a handy side dish that you can make and keep them for 5 or so days in the fridge. And you can even freeze it. Slightly sour with a touch of sweetness, Easy Marinated Mushrooms (Japanese Marinade) is very simple to make and only few seasonings are required to marinate.

Use vegetarian dashi stock, e.g. konbu dashi to make it a vegetarian dish.

Don't forget to see the section 'MEAL IDEAS' below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and this recipe that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.

Recipe Type: Side

Cuisine: Japanese

Keyword: marinated mushrooms

Serves: 4 -6 as a side

Author: Yumiko

Ingredients (tbsp=15ml, cup=250ml)

• 350g / 0.8lb Asian mushrooms (note 1)
• 1 tbsp sesame oil (or vegetable oil)

Marinade

• 1 tbsp dashi stock (note 2)
• 2 tbsp rice wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tbsp mirin

Instructions

Preparing Mushrooms

1. Shiitake Mushrooms: Remove the stems and thinly slice them to about 2mm / 1⁄16" thick.

2. Enoki mushrooms: Remove the woody part of the mushrooms at the bottom and break the clusters into smaller bunches.

3. King oyster mushrooms: If they are very small, just thinly slice them vertically to about 2mm / 1⁄16" thick. If they are large like mine, cut the mushrooms in half in the middle of the stem, then slice each piece to 2mm / 1⁄16" thick. If the stem is very thick, you may want to halve the stems vertically, then slice them with the cut side facing down so that the width of the sliced piece becomes half of the original stem.

4. Shimeji mushrooms: Remove the bottom part of the stems that are clustering the mushrooms, but do not cut them too much as you want to keep most clusters intact. Large mushrooms can be separated individually but keep a few small ones clustered together.

Sautéing and Marinating

1. Heat sesame oil in a frying pan over medium high heat.

2. Add the mushrooms to the pan and sauté until some pieces start browning and the mushrooms are wilted.

3. Turn the heat off and add all the Marinade ingredients to the pan. Mix well.

4. Transfer the mushrooms with the marinade to an air tight container. When the mushrooms cool down, put them in the fridge overnight (note 3).

Recipe Notes

1. I used mixed mushrooms - shiitake, enoki, king oyster and shimeji. You don’t need to have all four kinds of mushrooms. You can also use other mushrooms such as oyster mushrooms.

After removing the stems and bottom part of the enoki & shimeji mushrooms that are clustering the mushrooms together, they weighed 300g. The weight of the mushrooms does not have to be exact.

2. It is probably easier to dilute a pinch of dashi stock powder with 1 tablespoon of hot water, unless you already have dashi stock ready to use.

3. You can eat them straight away but they taste better the next day.

4. You can freeze the Marinated Mushrooms. Divide the mushrooms into serving portions and freeze so that you can defrost only the required portions. This is particularly convenient if you are planning to use them in a lunch box.

To freeze small portions, I do the following:
1) Put the marinated mushrooms in a large freezer bag, remove air and seal.
2) Place the bag on a work bench, flatten the bag.
3) Draw a partition on the plastic, making groups of the mushrooms. Trace the drawing to create wider gaps between the mushroom groups.
4) Place a large cutting board underneath the bag and transfer the bag to the freezer with a flat surface so that the bag will stay flat.

4. Nutrition per serving.

serving: 110g calories: 62kcal fat: 3.7g (6%) saturated fat: 0.3g (2%) trans fat: 0.1g polyunsaturated fat: 204g monounsaturated fat: 0.8g cholesterol: 0mg (0%) sodium: 230mg (10%) potassium: 302mg (9%) carbohydrates: 4.8g (2%) dietary fibre: 0.9g (4%) sugar: 3.4g protein: 3.1g vitamin a: 0% vitamin c: 3.1% calcium: 0.4% iron: 2.8%