Creamy mushroom sauce with the Thermomix® stands or falls on one single step: the moment the mushrooms release their water. If you throw all 600 g of mushrooms straight into the mixing bowl with the cream and stock, you end up with a pale mushroom soup. Steam them dry in the Varoma first and you keep the bite in the mushrooms while the sauce stays thick and creamy rather than watery.
We have been making this sauce regularly for years alongside homemade Spaetzle, bread dumplings and schnitzel. In the early days we cooked the mushrooms directly in the stock. Every time we got a pale, thin sauce with no depth. It was only once we consistently pre-cooked the mushrooms above the mixing bowl in the Varoma that we got the consistency we wanted: firm slices, a darker sauce and an intense mushroom flavour.
Creamy Mushroom Sauce with the Thermomix®
Ingredients 0 / 9 ✓
- 1/4 bunch parsley
- 1 onion
- 40 g butter
- 600 g mushrooms e.g. chestnut mushrooms, button mushrooms, porcini
- 500 g vegetable stock
- 400 g double cream
- 30 g plain flour, type 405
- 1 tsp salt
- some freshly ground pepper
Instructions 0 / 7
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1
Chop the parsley.
Wash the parsley, shake dry, pull off the leaves, place in the mixing bowl, chop for 3 sec / speed 8 and set aside.
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2
Chop the onion.
Peel the onion, halve it, place in the mixing bowl, chop for 5 sec / speed 5 and push down with the spatula.
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3
Sweat the onion.
Add the butter and sweat for 3 min / 100°C / speed 1.
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4
Slice the mushrooms.
Meanwhile, clean the mushrooms, slice them and place in the Varoma base.
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5
Steam the mushrooms.
Add the vegetable stock to the mixing bowl, place the Varoma on top and cook for 20 min / Varoma / speed 1.
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6
Mix the sauce.
Set the Varoma aside. Add the double cream and flour to the mixing bowl and blend for 10 sec / speed 6.
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7
Heat the sauce.
Add the mushrooms, salt, pepper and three quarters of the parsley, fold in with the spatula and heat for 5 min / 100°C / reverse direction / gentle stir setting. Serve sprinkled with the remaining parsley.
Tip: You can leave the mushrooms in larger pieces. Simply increase the cooking time a little.
Video
Nutrition per serving
Why 600 g of mushrooms do not belong in the mixing bowl
Fresh button mushrooms are made up of roughly 90 per cent water. With 600 g, that works out to approximately 540 g of liquid released during cooking. When that volume simmers in the mixing bowl together with 500 g of stock and 400 g of double cream, you end up with 1,440 g of liquid to just 60 g of solid mushroom mass. The sauce simply cannot thicken, no matter how much flour you stir in at the end.
The trick in this recipe solves the problem neatly: the mushrooms go into the Varoma base and the stock stays in the mixing bowl. Over 20 min / Varoma / speed 1 the mushroom water evaporates upwards and condenses on the lid. What remains are concentrated mushroom slices with a good bite. The stock below draws mushroom flavour from the steam at the same time and gains real depth.
Which mushrooms we mix and why
Button mushrooms alone produce a correct but rather one-dimensional sauce. We almost always mix three varieties in a ratio of 3:2:1. For 600 g that means roughly 300 g chestnut mushrooms, 200 g brown button mushrooms and 100 g porcini (fresh or dried and soaked overnight). The chestnut mushrooms add bulk, the brown buttons bring a strong earthy woodland note and the porcini add a nutty depth.
If only white button mushrooms are available, we add 1 tsp of ground dried porcini to the stock. The effect is clearly noticeable: the sauce smells more intense the moment you lift the lid. If you do not have dried mushrooms to hand, 1 tbsp of dried porcini powder from a jar works just as well.
The flour: 30 g is enough, more ruins the sauce
The recipe calls for 30 g of flour to 400 g of double cream and 500 g of stock. This amount is kept deliberately low. At 50 g the sauce tastes floury and coats the tongue like a film. At 30 g you get a silky, flowing consistency that clings to dumplings without becoming stodgy.
The order matters: the cream and flour are blended together for 10 sec / speed 6 before the mushrooms and stock are added. If you added the flour directly to the hot stock you would get lumps. The cold cream dissolves the flour smoothly. Only then does the mixture go back into the bowl for 5 min / 100°C / reverse direction / gentle stir setting. Reverse direction is essential here: the already-steamed mushroom slices would be broken up by normal forward rotation.
Parsley last, or it loses everything
We divide the parsley into three parts for the sauce. Three quarters go in at the end with the mushrooms, and each person adds the remaining quarter freshly over their plate. Parsley loses its essential oils within a few minutes at 100°C. What has cooked in the hot sauce for 5 minutes tastes green by the end but no longer of parsley.
Remove the stalks before chopping and use only the leaves. The stalks make the sauce stringy. 3 sec / speed 8 is enough to chop them finely. Blend for longer or at a higher speed and you get pesto rather than chopped herbs.
Salt at the end, or it draws out water
In the recipe, salt is deliberately added as the penultimate step. Mushrooms release water as soon as they are salted, that is osmosis. If you salt the mushrooms before the Varoma stage, you end up with a flat sauce because part of the mushroom flavour is lost with the water drawn out. We only salt once the mushrooms are already steamed and the sauce has thickened.
1 tsp of salt to 1,500 g of sauce sounds like very little, but it is enough because the vegetable stock already brings salt with it. Anyone using an unsalted stock should start with 1.5 tsp and taste at the end. Pepper goes in freshly ground just before serving. The aroma is gone after 5 minutes of cooking otherwise.
What we serve the sauce with
The creamy mushroom sauce is for us above all the companion to dumplings and schnitzel. It goes just as well with homemade Spaetzle, though only if the Spaetzle are freshly made and still warm. Reheated Spaetzle absorb the sauce too quickly and go soggy. It is also a natural pairing with homemade pasta or rice cooked in the Thermomix®.
Anyone who wants to turn it into a vegetarian main can combine the sauce with bread dumplings and pan-fried green asparagus. That has been our standard Sunday meal for years when nobody wants meat. It also works well as a side with beef roulades or a classic pot roast. In that case we add 1 tbsp of tomato puree when sweating the onions, which gives the sauce a richer colour.
Three variations we make regularly
With white wine: After sweating the onions, add 100 g of dry white wine and reduce for 2 min / Varoma / speed 1 without the measuring cup. Then add the stock. The wine adds an extra note of acidity that goes particularly well with pork schnitzel.
With bacon: Add 80 g of diced bacon after the onions and sweat for 3 min / 120°C / speed 1 together (TM31: Varoma setting). The bacon covers some of the mushroom flavour, but adds a smoky note in return. Works especially well with fried potatoes and dumplings.
Vegan with oat cream: Replace the double cream with 400 g of oat cream and the butter with 40 g of margarine. The flavour becomes a little lighter and the sauce binds slightly less firmly. We then add 1 tsp of mustard to the oat cream and flour mixture, which gives the sauce back the body lost from leaving out the cream.
Storing and reheating the sauce
The sauce keeps for 3 days in the fridge in a sealed jar. When reheating, never bring it to a full boil or the cream will split. We put it back into the mixing bowl and heat for 4 min / 80°C / reverse direction / gentle stir setting. If the sauce has thickened in the meantime, 50 g of stock or milk will loosen it.
Freezing works only to a degree. The cream can separate slightly on thawing and the mushrooms soften. If you do want to freeze it, cook the sauce without the cream, freeze it and add the cream fresh when reheating. It will keep for 3 months that way. Freshly made creamy mushroom sauce is always better.
Goes well with: Schnitzel and Spaetzle.
