This morel pasta is filled with the rich flavor of morel mushrooms, nutty parmesan and fresh thyme. It’s a decadent pasta dish that is so worthy of your special morel stash!
The morel cream sauce in this pasta recipe is one of my absolute favorite ways to cook morels. The morels infuse their rich flavors into the cream, then soak it back up and turn into sponges of pure decadence. I’ve served it over steak and put it on pizza, but the best way to use them is on pasta.
The creamy morel sauce coats the noodles and gushes out with each bite. It’s filled with the intense earthy flavor of morels, a hint of garlic and aromatic shallots. I use white wine in the sauce to add some acidity, but sometimes I sub in dry vermouth if that’s all we have. Both work great.
Don’t be shy with the salt as the sauce is cooking— it takes more than you’d think to really bring out the flavor of all those morels. This morel pasta is one of our very special occasion meals. Morels are so special and rare. Treat them right with a slow simmer in heavy cream, fresh thyme and your favorite pasta!
what you need to make morel pasta:
- morels (dry or fresh)
- butter
- shallots
- garlic
- white wine
- heavy cream
- fresh thyme
- pasta
- parmesan
how to make morel pasta:
- rehydrate morels, strain soaking liquid
- saute shallots, garlic and morels in butter
- add white wine, cook down
- add cream and morel soaking liquid, cook down
- cook pasta, reserve 2 cups of pasta water
- add pasta, parmesan and some pasta water to morel cream sauce
- toss and cook until sauce is velvety smooth
- serve!
how to use fresh morels versus dried morels in this recipe:
If you can get your hands on fresh morels, this recipe is even easier! Skip the rehydrating step and go straight to cooking the fresh morels in butter (in step 2). You won't have mushroom soaking liquid, so replace that liquid with 1 ½ cups of your favorite vegetable stock or chicken stock. Proceed as written!
how to make the creamiest sauce: pasta water!
The key to this morel pasta recipe is in the liberal use of pasta water. We reduce the cream sauce quite a bit, in order to deepen the flavor and get the most out of our precious morels. So when you add the sauce to the cooked pasta, you’ll also need to add at least 1 cup of pasta water (but probably more like 1 ½ cups). This will create a silky, blanketing sauce, versus a stiff and gloppy one. Make sure to simmer and toss everything together to let the starches in the pasta water pull the sauce together and coat all the noodles. And remember— cream sauces tighten up as they cool, so aim for a loose sauce.
what to wine to drink with this morel pasta
Morel mushrooms are a treat. They’re rare and expensive, so if you’re splurging on them you should treat yourself to a great wine, too. The nutty, earthy flavor of the morels is front and center in this pasta, and I love to echo that earthiness with an aged, old world wine. Both a delicate red wine or an intensely flavored white wine could complement the rich flavors of the morel cream sauce.
Here are some delicious wines to pair with your morel pasta:
- 1er or Grand Cru Cote de Nuits (Burgundy, France): when aged, these wines are known for their truffled, forest floor aromas, red fruit and silky texture. Depending on your budget, you’ll get some of the finest Pinot Noirs out there. What a way to complement your morels!
- Willamette Valley Pinot Noir: velvety texture, brimming with red berries and herbs
- Meursault: If ever there was a dish to break out the Meursault— this is it! Creamy white wine, filled with flavors of hazelnut, almond and lemon, then balanced with bracingly fresh acidity.
- Sonoma Coast Chardonnay: striking acidity, rich textures and ripe lemon and apple flavors
And if you’re really up for celebrating a special occasion, you can’t go wrong with Champagne!
more dried morel and mushroom recipes:
morel pizza with fontina and crispy shallots
wild mushroom toast with brown butter, ricotta and parsley
wild mushroom leek frittata with truffles and gruyere
farro risotto (farrotto) with wild mushrooms
Printmorel pasta with cream, parmesan and thyme
This morel pasta is filled with the rich flavor of morel mushrooms, nutty parmesan and fresh thyme. It’s a decadent pasta dish that is so worthy of your special morel stash!
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 50 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 5 minutes
- Yield: 4- 6
- Category: Pasta
- Method: Stove
- Cuisine: American
- Diet: Vegetarian
Ingredients
- 3 oz dried morels
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 shallot, finely chopped
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- kosher salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup white wine
- 2 cups heavy cream
- 2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves, plus more for serving
- 1 lb medium shell pasta (shellbows are great here)
- 1 cup finely grated Parmesan, plus more for serving
Instructions
- Place dried morels in a heat-proof bowl and cover with as little boiling water as needed to cover mushrooms (about 3- 4 cups). Let sit for 10-15 minutes, or until soft. Pull out morels, gently squeezing out excess water, and reserve the soaking liquid. Cut large morels in half lengthwise. Filter soaking liquid through a coffee filter to remove any dirt and set aside.
- Melt butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Add shallot and cook until softened, about 2 minutes. Stir in garlic and cook until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add morels, season with salt and black pepper, and saute until liquid is mostly cooked off. Add wine and increase heat to a simmer. Cook until nearly all of the liquid is gone, about 10 minutes.
- Add 1 ½ cups of soaking liquid (discard remainder), heavy cream and thyme and season with salt and black pepper. Bring mixture to a gentle simmer and cook for about 30 minutes, stirring and seasoning as needed, until sauce is thick and flavorful.
- When sauce is ready, cook pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water, stirring occasionally, until al dente. Scoop out 2 cups of pasta cooking liquid. Stir half into the morel cream sauce and return to a gentle simmer.
- Use a slotted spoon to transfer pasta to the morel sauce and cook, tossing constantly and adding Parmesan little by little, until cheese is melted and sauce is creamy and coats the pasta, about 3 minutes. Add more pasta water if the sauce is too thick. Taste; season with salt and pepper if needed. Serve with extra parmesan and fresh thyme.
Notes
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: ⅙ of recipe
- Calories: 553
- Sugar: 3.8g
- Sodium: 382mg
- Fat: 40g
- Saturated Fat: 25g
- Unsaturated Fat: 12g
- Trans Fat: 1.1g
- Carbohydrates: 31g
- Fiber: 2.1g
- Protein: 12g
- Cholesterol: 119mg
Lacey says
We loved this!!! I used fresh morels I had 4 large ones and cut them in half twice 🙂 didn’t have any wine but this was such a nice cream sauce. Not too rich very light and paired earthy with the fresh morels!
Indi Hampton says
Thank you so much!! It's one of our favorites!
Debra Butler says
Cooked this tonight w Chicken broth instead of white wine, fresh morels, and 2% milk with a little flour and sour cream and pasta sauce. It was restaurant worthy delicious! Thank you for the base recipe. So good.
Indi Hampton says
I'm so happy to hear this! Thank you for sharing!!
Cristina M. says
Top notch! Made this tonight with fresh foraged morels! Yum on so many levels! Thanks for sharing!
Indi Hampton says
Of course!! I'm so happy to hear this! We just found 3 morels in our backyard-- I wish it was enough to make this haha!
Jenny says
Love this recipe so much! Great use of dried morels.
Cathleen Halteman says
We purchased a pound of fresh morels from a local farm market yesterday. I can’t tell you how glad I am that I found this recipe. I was looking for something similar to a morel cream sauce we had at a restaurant several years ago, which I crave whenever I think of morels.
We invited our son’s family for the meal, and they raved about it. Even my 7 and 10 year old grandsons loved it. My son said it was maybe the best meal I ever made, and they love my cooking.
Since I had so many morels, 1 increased the quantities by 50%. Since I didn’t have the liquid from reconstituting dried mushrooms, I substituted homemade chicken broth. Instead of the wine, I used half wine and some more of the broth.otherwise I followed the recipe exactly. Oh, and I used linguine as the pasta.
This is an AMAZING recipe. Thank you so much. I can’t wait to try something else from your collection!