This time of year I am an appetizer-making queen! Usually, I bring my famous artichoke and spinach dip but after about 5 parties I am ready to make something different. That is when I turn to these stuffed mushrooms. Sometimes I will bring both the artichoke dip and stuff mushrooms because most of my friends and family are looking forward to my dip. However, once they taste a stuffed mushroom they are just as happy to have them at the appetizer table.
I found the base recipe a few years back in my Lidia’s Italian-American Kitchen Cookbook. It does not call for any sausage only chopped up mushroom stems, scallions, red bell pepper, breadcrumbs, and romano cheese. I added chicken sausage to this recipe a year or so ago and have been making it this way since.
At first I would use a 1lb of sausage in the recipe but that turned out to be too much. It was still good but I had a ton of filling left over. 2 sausage links is plenty. I just remove the sausage from the casing and cook it in a pan until no longer pink. You want to make sure to break the sausage up into small pieces as it cooks. After it is cooked set it aside.
Next remove the stems from the mushrooms and chopped them up small. This is going to be a part of the filling.
You want to make sure the cavity of the mushroom is big. I do this by scraping out as much as the stem as possible. The bigger the cavity the more stuffing that can be squeezed in.
Using the same pan as the sausage, I cooked up the mushroom stems, scallions, and bell pepper. Again make sure all the vegetables are chopped up small. This helps to keep the stuffing from falling out.
Then I stuffed the mushrooms. Each mushroom gets about 2-3 teaspoons of stuffing. You want to really pack in there so each mushroom has enough and it stays together.
This recipe makes about 24 – 28 stuffed mushrooms. No matter how many times I make this recipe I always end up with a little leftover. It all depends how big the mushrooms are. You can purchase a few more mushrooms or save the stuffing for something else. Or you can just eat it with a spoon!
This is the amount I had left over this time around. I would say it was enough for about 4-5 more stuffed mushrooms.
3 stuffed mushrooms are 126 calories and 3 weight watchers points plus. A perfect portion!
Ingredients
- 24 white medium sized mushrooms cleaned **24 mushrooms equals about 2-3 (8-ounce) packages
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2 parsley and cheese chicken sausage links casings removed
- 1 bunch scallions white part and some of the green thinly sliced
- 1 red bell pepper finely chopped
- 1/2 cup white wine divided
- 1/2 cup whole wheat panko crumbs
- 1/2 cup grated romano cheese
- 1/4 cup chicken stock
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
- Remove stems from mushrooms and chop up fine. Set aside.
- In a medium pan, heat olive oil on medium high heat, and cook chicken sausage until no longer pink. Break into small pieces as it cooks. Set aside.
- In the same pan cook scallions until wilted. Add red bell pepper and mushrooms stems and cook until both are softened. Add 1/4 cup of the white wine. Cook for another 2-3 minutes.
- Add the chicken sausage back the pan.
- Stir in panko crumbs and romano cheese.
- Stuff each of the mushrooms with 2-3 teaspoons of stuffing making sure it is packed down and place into a medium to large casserole dish.
- Pour the rest of the wine and 1/4 cup chicken stock into the bottom of the casserole dish.
- Bake for 20 minutes. Serve hot.
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