Chestnut mushroom

What it is

Chestnut mushrooms grow in tight clusters of small, glossy, orange-brown caps on long pale stems. Growers sell them under the name Pholiota adiposa; you may also see them listed as Pholiota species. The name comes from the color.

One naming trap: in the UK, "chestnut mushroom" usually means a brown button (cremini). The chestnut mushrooms sold by US specialty farms are a different, clustered mushroom.

They're a small-farm specialty. You'll rarely see them in a supermarket, but they show up at farmers markets and in mixed boxes from indoor growers.

Taste and cooking

Chestnuts taste mild and slightly nutty, and they keep a pleasant crunch even after cooking, which makes them useful when you want a mushroom that doesn't collapse.

• Keep the clusters. Trim the base, then separate them into small bunches or individual mushrooms.
• Sauté hot and fast with butter and garlic. They're done when the caps are glossy and the stems are just tender.
• Use them in soups, ramen, risotto and pasta, where the stems stay pleasantly firm.

Fresh caps can feel slightly tacky, which is the natural coating on this mushroom. Dark wet patches and a sour smell are what to watch for. Cook them through before eating.

How it's grown

Farms grow chestnuts indoors on supplemented hardwood sawdust, much like other specialty mushrooms. They take longer to colonize and fruit than oyster mushrooms, but they produce dense clusters that travel and display well. Several of the Ohio farms in our directory grow them.

Storing it

Chestnuts keep reasonably well. Store them in the refrigerator in a paper bag or their original container, as Penn State Extension advises for fresh mushrooms, and use them within a few days. Look for firm stems and caps without dark, wet patches. Mushy stems or a sour smell mean they're past it.

Where to buy chestnut mushroom

10 growers in our directory list chestnut mushroom by name@if ($ohio->isNotEmpty()), 5 of them in Ohio. Availability changes with the season and the harvest, so check with the farm before you go.

See all 10 growers in the directory, or start with Ohio.

Does the science say…?

Very little. We didn't find any clinical trials in people that tested chestnut mushrooms as food. Most published work on Pholiota species is laboratory chemistry, which can't tell you what happens when you eat them.

What we can say is that chestnuts are a whole food grown by small farms, and they're a good reason to visit a market stand. If you see health claims attached to them, ask for the study.