Recipe: Italian Turkey Stuffed Mushrooms
If you’ve ever read the comments on the NYT Cooking app, then you’re already familiar with recipe adaptations. I’ve done plenty in our September series of recipes adapted to cut the fat and calories from your favorites but NYT Cooking App subscribers take it to a whole new level when they claim to have made the recipe exactly as written—except for substituting this and this and this and that, plus a handful of other changes. Recipe extreme makeovers is a total vibe at the New York Times.
Full confession—I’ve leaned into that vibe with our Italian Turkey Stuffed Mushrooms recipe. The original recipe used sausage instead of ground turkey and full fat cream cheese instead of my choice of low-fat. Plus it used red onions instead of yellow, which you are certainly free to do if you want more bite to your stuffed mushrooms. My biggest change? I did a half and half on the recipe, testing the bigger portobello mushrooms alongside bite sized stuffed white mushrooms. Our recipe is written for portobellos but you can instead use white mushrooms, just be sure you have plenty of them because the stuffing will fill about a dozen white mushroom caps.
This recipe is the fourth in our September series (see our Faux Potato Salad here , our Low Cal Mock Potato Skins here and our Garlic Parm Chicken Wings here ). As always, feel free to skip directly to the recipe below or just keep reading to get a few tips on preparing it.
First, the ingredients—mushrooms, red pepper, onion, minced garlic, Italian ground turkey, grated Parmesan cheese, salt & pepper and a little olive oil spray.
Pro Tip: Ground turkey has less fat than the recipe’s original sausage so you may need a few sprays of olive oil at the sauté stage to avoid drying out and burning your onions.
You could always substitute red pepper flakes for the freshly roasted red pepper, but it’s really easy to roast peppers in an air fryer. Trim the peppers of core, stem and seeds, slice into large pieces, spray with your olive oil and air fry for about 15 minutes at 400 degrees. Remove when the peppers edges are charred and the pepper is tender. Let cool and then dice for the recipe. Extra diced pepper can be frozen for easy addition to future recipes.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and prep a baking sheet with parchment paper. Clean your mushrooms, twist off stems, and scrape gills from the portobellos. Dice your onion and some of the white mushrooms (I did 4 for my combination of portobello and white mushroom caps), and arrange the mushrooms with their exposed bellies facing up and forming a cup to fill with stuffing.
Next prepare your filling. Brown your ground turkey in a skillet over medium heat, then add your diced mushrooms, garlic and onion and sauté about a minute. This is where a bit of olive oil spray can be used if needed. Add your cream cheese, Parmesan cheese, diced red pepper and stir over a low heat until well combined. Salt and pepper to taste.
Now you’re ready to stuff your mushroom caps. It’s easy if you’re using portobellos, but trickier with the much smaller white mushrooms, which may tip easily.
Pro Tip: Arranging the mushrooms with edges barely touching can allow them to support each other and prevent them from tipping and dumping their stuffing.
Bake for about 20 minutes or until stuffing is nicely browned and mushrooms are fork tender and serve while hot. Portobello mushrooms can be served whole as an entree but calories will be doubled as the nutrition numbers are based on a serving size of a 1/2 stuffed portobello. The smaller white mushrooms make perfect little bites but bet you can’t eat just one!
