you're making mealtime meaningful.
While everyone loves a good gravy, a delicious brown sauce that we pour over some of our favorite comfort foods, like mashed potatoes or steak, we find that creamy sauces more than hold their own against their darker-colored gravy cousins. Whether it’s a creamy pasta sauce, or a thick cream sauce that gets drizzled over your pork or chicken, we really never met a cream sauce we didn’t like. But there’s a third sauce that we can’t live without and that’s our mouth-watering creamy mushroom sauce. If there is one way to jazz up a meal it is with this savory, creamy, and absolutely heavenly sauce that’s poured over top of some of our favorite meats. Could there be anything more drool-worthy?!? Here’s how we do it.
We start first with a sauté of mushrooms, onions, and garlic with butter and olive oil. We don’t want the onions to caramelize but we do want them to soften. Mushrooms are like sponges and will soak up liquid and flavor, which is why we add them at this point, so they can soak up the oniony-garlic flavor. Next comes the chicken broth. We’ll use vegetable if that’s what we have in the pantry or, for a little more dynamic flavor, we’ll use a dry white wine instead. Be sure to stir up any browned bits of flavor left in the pan from the sautéed vegetables. Finally, what makes this sauce so decadent is the addition of heavy cream. We bring this to a bubble in the pan then reduce the heat and let it simmer and thicken. Once the sauce has reduced a bit, we’re ready to dive right in!
This sauce is great for a weeknight dinner but is also something we like to serve for a bit of delicious drama at a dinner party. Creamy mushroom sauces like this go well with most proteins, our go-to with this mushroom gravy is typically a steak but we also absolutely adore it with drizzled over pork chops or chicken breast, and let’s not forget pasta! A sauce like this will elevate a meal from ordinary to extraordinary. The best part is how simple it is to bring together. When we want to make a meal extra special, then this creamy mushroom sauce is a no-brainer.
Creamy Mushroom Sauce
Yield(s): Serves 4-6
25 minutes
you're making mealtime meaningful.
Ingredients
- 1 medium yellow onion, diced
- 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 cups crimini mushrooms, thinly sliced
- 1 cup low sodium chicken or vegetable stock
- 2 cups heavy cream
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt (more to taste)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Preparation
- Heat olive oil and butter in a large pan or skillet over medium-high heat and sauté onion and mushroom for 5-7 minutes, or until softened.
- Stir in garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes, or until fragrant.
- Add chicken stock and bring mixture to a simmer, deglazing and scraping up browned bits from the pan.
- Add heavy cream and salt, and bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 5-10 minutes or until sauce has thickened.
- Serve over pork, chicken or steak, and enjoy!
Recipe adapted from Genius Kitchen.