Wild Garlic Mushrooms on Toast

This recipe for Wild Garlic Mushrooms on Toast is more of an idea how to use wild garlic when it is in season, and is quick and easy to make.

Disclaimer: Using The Butterworks Butter and Maldon Sea Salt that was sent to me for free. I was not paid or asked to share a review here.

This recipe for Wild Garlic Mushrooms on Toast is more of an idea how to use wild garlic when it is in season, than a recipe as such. The recipe is for two people and would make the perfect spring luncheon dish, or a quick and easy supper recipe. When wild garlic is out of season, you can use chopped chives or finely diced garlic cloves.

I am lucky enough to have a bank of wild garlic growing just outside my back door. Here in North Wales, wild garlic is prevalent everywhere, and not just in my garden, but in the hedgerows and ancient woodland that surrounds where we live. Along with the new season’s bluebells, it makes for easy picking and foraging.

I have made this recipe for Wild Garlic Mushrooms on Toast several times now, in an attempt to take full advantage of the wild garlic season. It’s such a wonderfully subtle herb to add to all manner of cooking and baking recipes, and we both love it in soups, scones, tarts, vegetable dishes and omelettes.

If you have a plethora of wild garlic at your disposal as I do, you can freeze it for when it is out of season, Simply chop it up and pack into small bags, then freeze it. You can also blanch it in boiling water for 1 minute before freezing, that way it keep its colour once frozen, and remains a vibrant green.

Another way to preserve wild garlic is to make wild garlic butter; finely chop the wild garlic and add it to softened salted butter. Mix well or even blend it with a hand blender, then roll it into a log and wrap up in cling film like a long sausage, and freeze. When you need it, just cut discs of the wild garlic butter and use as needed.

Garlic is part of the onion family, and there are many closely related species of the garlic, growing wild in Britain. Wild field garlic (Allium oleraceum) is a common sight in the early summer and grows in damp hedgerows and along riverbanks; in fact I remember eating it as I walked to school.

It has small but strong-smelling bulbs. Ramsons (A. ursinum) is another common Allium species. It has very broad leaves that make it an excellent, pungent addition to a salad. Ransoms has many of the same medicinal uses as Garlic and a long history as a healing herb, as this ancient Old English rhyme tells us:

Eat Leeks in March and
Ramsons in May
And all the year after
Physicians may play!

We Brits love anything on toast. From tomatoes on toast, eggs on toast to cheese on toast, and of course beans on toast, it’s pure comfort food. Today’s recipe for Wild Garlic Mushrooms on Toast really elevates the usual mushrooms on toast to another level.

Then there is the latest on-trend Avocado on Toast, which has taken the culinary world by storm. It appears that if us Brits can have it on toast, we will add anything on toast for a quick and easy snack!

My recipe for Wild Garlic Mushrooms on Toast is vegetarian, but it is very easy to make the dish vegan by using a plant-based diary-free spread, or by frying the mushrooms and wild garlic in olive oil.

I’ve served these wild garlic and mushrooms on some of my homemade sourdough toast, and to be honest, that’s the best bread to use. The butter seeps down into seductive puddles through the holes in the sourdough, which creates some fabulously wild garlicky juices for bread and mushroom dunking.

I’d like to thank the kind people over at The Butterworks for sending me some of their delicious Softer Butter, that REALLY does spread straight from the fridge. Their cream comes from Red Tractor and Farm Assured Farms, which is carefully churned to create a seriously smooth butter experience.

And, they’ve won the BRC AA* – one of the industry’s highest Food Safety Awards – as well as achieving The Soil Association, Red Tractor and Halal accreditation. Check out their recipe page, which includes some of my recipes there too.

The recipe for Wild Garlic Mushrooms on Toast is shared at the end of this post, in a printable recipe card, and I hope that you enjoy it if you make – please DO let me know! I’ve also shared some more wild garlic recipes, that hopefully will provide you will all the wild garlic inspiration you need for the season. Happy foraging, Karen

You’ll find the full and printable recipe at the end of this post.

• Cut the mushrooms in half if they are large, and set to one side.
• In a large frying pan, melt the butter and add the prepared mushrooms, cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring all the time.

• Add the chopped wild garlic, stir to mix and cook for a further 3 to 5 minutes, until the mushrooms are cooked and the wild garlic has wilted.
• Meanwhile, toast 2 slices of sourdough bread. Cut in half and lightly butter the toast. Arrange the buttered toast in 2 plates.

• Divide the cooked mushrooms over the buttered toast, season with salt and pepper to taste and serve straight away.