Crab Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

Crab stuffed portobello mushrooms are the dish you need in your repertoire when you want a bit of self-indulgence. Portobello mushrooms are big and flavorful, and crab meat is a rich and elegant treat, so a portobello mushroom stuffed with crab meat can’t help being a winner.

As with many of our other crab recipes, you can think of this one as a light lunch in its own right or as an appetizer to start a multicourse meal. Just remember not to follow it with a parade of heavy dishes, because it’s pretty rich as an appetizer and better suited to accompany light meals.

Ingredients for Crab Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

• Portobello mushrooms: Large portobello mushrooms provide a big, savory base for the crab meat.
• Sweet onion: Sweet onion provides enough onion flavor to complement the delicate crab but not overwhelm it.
• Olive oil: Olive oil provides a heart-healthy option for sauteing the onion, and for drizzling over the mushrooms before they’re baked.
• Cream cheese: Cream cheese helps bind the crab filling together, and adds richness and flavor in its own right.
• Egg: Like the cream cheese, egg acts as a binder in the filling. Natural emulsifiers in the yolk also help the other ingredients blend together.
• Bread crumbs: Seasoned bread crumbs bring a savory element to the filling and give it substance.
• Parmesan cheese: Parmesan has a bold cheese flavor with natural umami notes, which complement the crab and the cream cheese.
• Seafood seasoning: The seafood seasoning complements the flavors of the breadcrumbs, cheese and crab.
• Lump crab meat: Well-drained lump crab meat is the star of the show, bringing its sweetly delicate flavor to the mushrooms’ filling.
• Paprika: Paprika’s delicate sweet-pepper flavor is underrated as an ingredient, but here it’s primarily used as a decorative element.

Directions

Step 1: Prepare the filling

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Remove the stems from the mushrooms, and either discard them or reserve them for another use. Set the caps aside. In a small skillet, saute the sweet onion in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until it softens. In a small bowl, combine the cream cheese, egg, bread crumbs, ½ cup of the Parmesan cheese and the seafood seasoning. Gently stir in the crab and onion.

Editor’s tip: Use a very light hand when stirring in the crab meat. Too much stirring breaks up the lumps, and then they won’t stand out in the filling.

Step 2: Stuff the mushrooms

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Spoon ½ cup of the crab mixture into each mushroom cap, and drizzle them with the remaining olive oil. Sprinkle the crab filling with the paprika and the remaining cheese. Place the mushrooms in a greased 15×10-inch baking pan.

Step 3: Cook the mushrooms

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Bake the mushrooms, uncovered, at 400°F for 15 to 20 minutes, or until the mushrooms are tender.

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Crab Stuffed Portobello Mushroom Variations

• Change your mushroom: Portobellos are big enough that you can serve this dish as a light lunch, with a side or two, or treat it as the first course of a larger meal. Alternatively, you can opt for a smaller mushroom such as cremini (also known as “baby bellas”) or ordinary button mushrooms. Larger button mushrooms, sometimes sold as “stuffers,” are a good size for appetizers, while smaller ones are good as bite-sized canapes.
• Change the seafood: Lump crab meat is the kind of modest extravagance you can justify at almost any time, but other kinds of shellfish are equally good in a recipe like this. You could swap the crab for an equal quantity of salad shrimp, for example, or for fresh-cooked (or leftover) larger shrimp coarsely chopped to roughly the size of lump crab. If you want a really deluxe appetizer, you could even swap the crab meat for scallops, or canned or fresh lobster meat. At the other end of the scale, if you want the flavors but not the price tag, decent-quality imitation crab or “krab” still makes a tasty dish.

How to Store Crab Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

Any leftover stuffed mushrooms should be refrigerated as soon as possible after the meal, in a food-safe storage container with a tight-fitting lid.

Can I make these stuffed mushrooms ahead of time?

The completed mushrooms are at their best as soon as they’ve come out of the oven, so making the whole dish ahead of time isn’t a good option. But you can make up the filling several hours in advance and remove the stems from the mushrooms. You can even fill the mushroom caps and refrigerate them in their baking dish, as long as the pan can safely go from the fridge to a hot oven. The 15 to 20 minutes of baking time is barely enough to matter, so that can happen while you’re setting the table.

How long will the crab-stuffed mushrooms keep?

Once you open the cans of crab, the clock is ticking on this dish. Shellfish is highly perishable, so you’ll only have one to two days total to eat a portobello mushroom stuffed with crab meat. Plan to eat any leftovers within 48 hours, and ideally the next day (they’re delicious, so this isn’t exactly a hardship).

Can I freeze my stuffed mushrooms?

You can freeze the stuffed mushrooms either cooked as leftovers, or uncooked for a quick meal idea later. Either way, freeze the mushrooms first on a sheet pan and then wrap them or pack them into containers or freezer bags. They’ll keep for one to three months, depending on how well you’ve wrapped them. They should be reheated or cooked right from the freezer, without thawing them first.

Tips for Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms with Crab Meat

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What exactly is “seafood seasoning?”

It’s just a mixture of salt, herbs and spices meant to complement the flavors in seafood. Maryland’s beloved Old Bay is the best known, but many spice vendors (and a few retailers) have their own versions. If you don’t keep it in your pantry you can just omit it, because the seasoned bread crumbs bring enough flavor. Alternatively, you can look online for a copycat recipe and make your own.

Can I make these in my air fryer?

You can, although you may come up against the air fryer’s size limits when working with big mushrooms such asd these. A smaller air fryer might only be able to fit one at a time, only a few larger models could accommodate four or six. You might find the air fryer better suited for doing smaller stuffed mushrooms (see Variations, above). That way you can keep the prepared mushrooms in your fridge, and cook them in small batches all evening to replenish your serving trays.

I don’t care for cream cheese, is there a good substitute?

Absolutely. Not everyone likes cream cheese, so feel free to swap it out for your choice of substitutes. The simplest option is to head for your supermarket’s cheese counter and grab a piece of Brie. If you remove the rind and soften it gently in the microwave, it will mix nicely with the crumbs and crab. Other good choices include Neufchatel cheese and mascarpone cheese or its German-style equivalent, quark. They’ll all work, and the only downside is that they cost more than cream cheese.