If you love mushrooms and Italian food with marinara loaded with cheese (and who doesn’t?), you’re going to adore these Italian Spinach Stuffed Mushrooms. The mushrooms are stuffed with a mixture of spinach with Italian seasonings, onion, garlic, seasoned bread crumbs and cheese, then baked in a flavorful Italian tomato sauce and topped with more melty cheese. I could seriously eat nothing but these mushrooms for dinner and be perfectly content!
I have to be careful how many I make at a time because every time I make them, I find myself polishing off every. single. bite. I just can’t stop myself! Luckily the filling is enough to fill quite a few mushrooms, so I’ve enjoyed them many times now.
Honestly, for this recipe, I started out to try to copycat Johnny Carino’s stuffed mushroom recipe, after eating at Johnny Carino’s one evening and having their delightful stuffed mushrooms as my dinner. I was super happy to find something on the menu that was small enough for my tiny appetite and also really, really good. At the restaurant, I couldn’t finish off the full batch, but took some home for later.
Initially I tried my version of these stuffed mushrooms in a cream sauce, like Johnny Carino’s does. But then I ended up baking them in a red sauce with cheese on top. I liked that much better. At some point I’ll circle back and actually re-create Johnny Carino’s recipe. But in the meantime, I’m quite enjoying my Italian Stuffed Mushrooms with tomato sauce. A good Italian sauce is so much more sweet and flavorful than a few chopped fresh tomatoes on top! (especially in the middle of winter)
What sauce is best for Italian Spinach Stuffed Mushrooms?
For the red sauce, you can use your favorite marinara or pizza sauce. Or try it with my roasted cherry tomato sauce or my copycat Ragu pasta sauce. If you want something that’s both creamy AND tomato-based, you’ve got to try my creamy good vodka sauce. Even if you leave out the cream, that vodka sauce still tastes creamy. Something about the vodka completely transforms it.
You can make the filling ingredients ahead of time, and then bake as many as you need whenever friends drop by. Or whenever you’re craving some stuffed mushrooms for yourself. They take about 20 minutes to cook. But they’ll disappear in no time! Depending on how large your mushrooms are, you probably want to allow for 2 – 3 mushrooms per person. For the photo shot, I made three just for me. These were pretty big mushrooms though.
The recipe does make a LOT of filling. I’ve been eating stuffed mushrooms for a couple weeks now. The original recipe I adapted this one from says it makes 12 appetizer servings.
I used a version of my pepperoni cheese bread to make the seasoned bread crumbs. So if you’re a pepperoni lover, feel free to mix in some chopped pepperoni into the filling. Or make my pepperoni cheese bread and use any leftovers for the crumbs.
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Italian Spinach Stuffed Mushrooms
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Cook Time: 30 min
- Total Time: 40 – 45 min
- Yield: About 12 servings 1x
- Category: Appetizer
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: Italian
- Diet: Vegetarian
Ingredients
For the stuffing:
- 1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 1/2 of a large sweet onion, chopped
- 5 – 7 cloves garlic, peeled & chopped
- Stems of 4 mushrooms, chopped
- 8 oz. fresh spinach, chopped – or sub frozen, thawed & chopped
- 1 1/2 cups shredded Asiago, Parmesan or Romano cheese – or a mix of the three
- 1 cup seasoned bread crumbs (or 1 cup bread crumbs + 1 teaspoon Italian Seasoning)
- 1/2 teaspoon Italian Seasoning (or to taste)
- 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon granulated garlic (or to taste)
- 2 eggs
- Salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste
For the mushrooms:
- Your favorite marinara or pasta sauce
- A bunch of baby bella mushrooms, stems removed
- Shredded mozzarella cheese, for the top
Instructions
- Heat a medium frying pan over medium heat. Add the oil, then the onion and saute until the onion is soft & translucent. Stir in the garlic and mushroom stems and cook until the mushrooms are tender. Add the spinach, cover and cook just until the spinach is wilted. Remove from heat.
- Stir in the cheeses, breadcrumbs and seasonings, then the eggs. Add salt & pepper (and seasonings) to taste if needed.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F. In a rimmed baking dish or cast iron skillet, pour enough of your favorite Italian red sauce to cover the bottom at a depth of at least 1/4 inch. Take a de-stemmed mushroom and stuff generously with the filling. Set it in the sauce and repeat until the pan is full. Add shredded cheese to the top of each mushroom.
- Bake at 350 F. for about 20 minutes or until the mushrooms are tender, the filling is hot and the cheese on top is hot, bubbly and browned in spots. Serve hot and enjoy!
- If you have any leftover filling, store in a covered container in the fridge to use for future stuffed mushrooms.
Notes
Making your own bread crumbs is super easy! Toast a few slices of leftover bread, then tear them up into a mini food processor and pulse until they are crumbs.
For gluten free stuffed mushrooms, use gluten free bread crumbs. For vegan stuffed mushrooms, use vegan cheese shreds in place of the cheese.
RECIPE SOURCE: Sumptuous Spoonfuls – https://www.sumptuousspoonfuls.com/ … © Copyright 2024, Sumptuous Spoonfuls. All images & content are copyright protected. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If you want to publish any of my images, please ask first. If you want to republish this recipe as your own, please re-write the recipe in your own words or link back to this post for the recipe.
Keywords: Mushroom, Italian, Baked, Stuffed
Nutrition facts are difficult to calculate for this recipe, since the size of mushrooms varies so much and there’s not a measured amount of cheese or sauce; however, mushrooms are super low in calories and even when stuffed with cheesy spinach filling with more cheese on top, they make a low calorie, low carb yet super satisfying appetizer or light meal. Use whole grain bread crumbs for extra fiber and nutrients.
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