The Most Nutritious Way To Cook Mushrooms
While mushrooms might not be everyone's favorite, to many, mushrooms are a complex delicacy worth enjoying in every form. At times, entire restaurants have been dedicated to mushrooms, including The Joel Palmer House in Oregon and Portobellos in Pennsylvania. You'll find that people have found a way to incorporate all kinds of mushrooms into delicious dishes of soup, tarts, pasta, pizza, and even mushroom crème brûlée! Mushrooms are diverse in flavor, color, and texture, which makes them perfect for adding to a variety of recipes.
They are also incredibly good for you! Healthline reports that they are fat-free, low in sodium, low in calories, and cholesterol-free, and they're also packed with fiber, vitamins, and minerals. I mean, why wouldn't we want to put them in everything? With a wealth of antioxidants, beta-glucan, B vitamins, copper, and potassium, UCLA Health claims that these little fungi can lower the risk of cancer, protect the brain, and improve your gut health and immune system. But as we all know, how we cook our food significantly impacts how much nutrition we receive. So, what is the best way to cook mushrooms to maintain all those wonderful health benefits?
The benefits of using the microwave
Butter makes everything taste just that much richer and more fatty, but cooking your mushrooms in a butter bath may not be the best way to absorb all those healthy antioxidants (although they will taste divine). According to TIME, the best way to preserve a mushroom's antioxidants and proteins is by grilling or (to the horror of chefs across the globe) microwaving them.
TIME reports the findings from the Mushroom Technological Research Center of La Rioja, where they studied different cooking methods' effects. They looked at white button, shiitake, oyster, and king oyster mushrooms and found that frying mushrooms destroyed most of the proteins and antioxidants, and boiling them decreased other nutritional aspects. This is likely due to the "leaching of soluble substances in the water or oil," according to one of the study's authors. But, surprisingly, using the microwave and grill proved to keep most of the antioxidants intact. So, this mushroom season, fire up the grill and feel free to roast up as many mushrooms as you like or if you are truly committed to getting the most out of your mushrooms, a microwave will do just as well though we can't promise you it will taste as good as the kind we fry in butter.