Give Hollandaise Sauce An Umami Kick With Some Mushrooms

When you're looking for a rich and decadent sauce, hollandaise is a great pick. This rich, buttery condiment has a slight lemon taste to it. It's thought to originate in France, although today it is found used in dishes all around the globe.

As hollandaise sauce has made its way around the world, it's also started to take on variations and twists that can lend it a unique taste and texture. One such twist is to add mushrooms to the sauce. Adding mushrooms gives your sauce a rich, earthy feel and umami punch, whether you use your own foraged veggies or pick some up from the supermarket. The result is that your sauce can add a different dimension to your meals while also slightly changing the texture.

Not convinced you need to try it yet? Knowing more about how mushrooms upgrade your hollandaise sauce and what to pair this spin with might just do the trick.

To understand how mushrooms enhance hollandaise sauce, it first pays to know what umami is. Umami is a savory flavor and the fifth type of taste humans have after sweet, sour, bitter, and salty. It's also described as a meaty palate and can add depth to your foods. At the same time, it can help enhance flavor. Mushrooms are packed with it and will ultimately lend that same profile to your hollandaise sauce.

Now, while all mushrooms are sources of umami, darker varieties have more of it. A few examples of the veg that pack a lot of this flavor include shiitake and portabella. At the same time, cooked mushrooms contain more umami than their raw counterpart, while dried mushrooms have a heavier, meaty punch when compared with fresh ones. So the type of mushrooms you add to your sauce will help vary how much umami flavor it has.

As well as adding a depth of flavor to the sauce, combining mushrooms into your hollandaise will also give it a unique texture. For a sauce that's usually smooth and creamy, throwing in these veggies can add a pop of chewy chunkiness to the dish.

Once you've made your mushroomy hollandaise, it's time to think about what to pair it with. For one thing, you can give a plate of classic Eggs Benedict a lift by pouring the sauce over them. This can work particularly well if you play up on the mushrooms in the sauce and add a few sautéed ones on top of your English muffin, too.

Moving away from breakfast dishes, you can also pair this sauce with veggies, such as green asparagus. The result is a flavor combo that's filled with a slight bitterness from the asparagus, a meaty flavor from the mushrooms, and a kick of lemon from the hollandaise.

For meat lovers, mushrooms and hollandaise both pair well with steak. Drizzle some over your favorite cut for an enhanced meal with rich complexity. Or, experiment with pouring it over salmon to give the seafood dish a bit of earthiness. When it comes to this hollandaise twist, there are plenty of ways to step up your meals and give them a new type of flavor.