The perfect way to celebrate Mardi Gras, these mushrooms are stuffed with both crab and crawfish along with the trinity of onions, peppers and mushrooms in a creamy Creole sauce with a bit of melty cheese on top. Serve with your favorite New Orleans-style cocktail (or mocktail) and enjoy these juicy little bites of Creole goodness!
It’s that time of year again … the time I fondly remember my trip to New Orleans I took with my sister years ago. We went in November, but when Mardi Gras time rolls around and I see my food blogger friends posting creole and cajun recipes, I can’t help but think back on that fun trip. There was plenty of drinking and great music everywhere you went, day or night, shopping at the French Market and all up and down Bourbon street and beyond. We stayed in the Garden district and had plenty of opportunity to wander around the beautiful neighborhoods there. The streetcar took us most places, but we were glad we had rented a car when we decided to take a trip to Lake Pontchartrain after we tired of the bustle of the city.
But the FOOD! Oh the food in New Orleans was to die for. Being from the midwest, we don’t get fresh seafood very often, so we ate nothing but seafood the entire time we were there. We did take a trip to Emeril’s restaurant, but our favorite place was a little seafood joint hidden upstairs from a bar. Although it was practically hidden away, it was obviously super popular because the place was packed! Our other favorite place was The Blind Pelican, a place we stumbled across by accident when we were looking for our hotel. We were starving after travelling all day and decided the hotel could wait. We sat on the patio in our shorts and flip flops amidst lovely plants, flowers and greenery and ate oysters and fried green tomatoes, both of which were absolutely ah-mazing. We had to go back for the 25 cent oysters on the half shell at happy hour at least once, but it seems like we ended up there a couple more times before we headed back to the dreary winter weather back home. My sister HAD to get a t-shirt there and she got one for me, too, which I often wear with my Old New Orleans Rum sweatshirt. Our visit to the rum distillery was another high point of the trip … where we foolishly decided we HAD to purchase a case to take back home. Then we had to figure out how to get it back with us on the plane! That was a challenge. LOL.
This year I decided to remember that trip and celebrate Mardi Gras with one of my favorite appetizers: stuffed mushrooms. I have to admit that honestly I don’t have any crawfish meat (they’re hard to get here!), but I did have some langostino lobster tails in my freezer that IS similar to crawfish (in a way). I chopped up and stirred in a can of lump crab meat as well. If I had shrimp on hand, I would have added that too. Of course this would be better with real crawdad meat and fresh crab, so if you’re lucky enough to have access to fresh seafood, oh do please use it.
Mushrooms are such a perfect vessel for a bite-size delight that is enticing, satisfying and healthy. Stuffing the mushrooms with a mix of seafood, Greek cream cheese and quinoa makes these quite high in protein too. You could easily make these a meal, if you like, by stuffing full-size portabella mushrooms. For me, I have such a small appetite that the bite-size version is just right for a meal for me, and I love keeping some of the stuffing tucked away in the fridge so I can enjoy my stuffed mushrooms on the spur of the moment, whenever the fancy strikes me. I was really hungry for protein after an intense yoga class today, so I scarfed down four of them!
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Creole Seafood Stuffed Mushrooms
- Prep Time: 15 min
- Cook Time: 15 min
- Total Time: 30 min
- Yield: About 16 stuffed mushrooms (8 servings) 1x
- Category: Appetizers
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: Creole
Description
The perfect way to celebrate Mardi Gras, these mushrooms are stuffed with both crab and crawfish along with the trinity of onions, peppers and mushrooms in a creamy Creole sauce with a bit of melty cheese on top. Serve with your favorite New Orleans-style cocktail (or mocktail) and enjoy these juicy little bites of Creole goodness!
Ingredients
- 8 oz. baby bella mushrooms
- 1/2 Tablespoon grass-fed butter
- 1/4 cup chopped red onion
- 1 green onion, chopped
- 2 mini sweet peppers, seeded and chopped
- Creole Seasoning, to taste
- 3 oz. crawfish tail meat or langostino lobster tails, chopped
- 1 6-oz. can (or fresh) lump crab meat
- 3 oz. Greek cream cheese (or Neufchatel)
- 1 – 2 teaspoons finely chopped jalapeno (more or less to taste)
- 1/4 cup cooked quinoa or bread crumbs
- About 1/2 cup shredded Italian cheese blend, for the top
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. Pull out the stems of the mushrooms and chop them fine.
- Heat a medium frying pan over medium heat. Add the butter, then the mushroom stems, garlic, and onions and saute until the red onion is soft and translucent. Season with Creole seasoning.
- Add the cream cheese and stir until melted, then stir in the seafood, a bit of jalapeno and the quinoa (or bread crumbs). Taste and add more creole seasoning and/or jalapeno to your own liking.
- Use a spoon to fill each mushroom cap generously with the seafood stuffing. Set on a rimmed baking dish and sprinkle with the shredded cheese. Bake at 350 F. for about 15 minutes. Serve and enjoy hot!
Notes
You can make the filling ahead of time and store in a covered container in the fridge. Warm the filling before stuffing the mushrooms.
If you have any trouble with the mushrooms tipping over after you stuff them, use a sharp knife to slice off just a bit of the bottom to make a flat surface. I’ve even somehow managed this after the mushrooms were stuffed without losing the filling!
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Nutrition
- Serving Size: 2 stuffed mushrooms
- Calories: 154
- Fiber: 1.3 g
- Protein: 15.7 g
Keywords: Seafood, Creole, Mushrooms, Healthy, Appetizers, Gluten free
