Pappardelle Pasta with Portobello Mushroom Ragu
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A quick and easy vegetarian pasta recipe — pappardelle with portobello mushrooms and rosemary.
A meaty portobello mushroom sauce combined with ribbons of al dente cooked pasta noodles make this a very satisfying plate, and you can make it on the fly. This is by far one of our most popular pappardelle pasta recipes!
The sauce is much like a traditional ragu or Italian meat sauce, except it’s meatless.
It’s perfect with dishes like soft, cheesy polenta as well as over pasta – of course!
Portobello mushrooms with pasta
Portobello mushrooms have abundant earthy, woodsy flavors that match up perfectly with the piney, aromatic fresh rosemary, garlic cloves and red pepper. The caps are big and meaty, which means portobellos are great for stuffing, as well as roasting with garlic and herbs.
And with pasta, thick mushroom ragus and tomato sauces like this one are best mates with pappardelle — the flat, wide strands coil and curl easily around a fork, catching all the juices and chunky bits of sauce. Yum!
What are portobello (or portabella) mushrooms?
Portobello mushrooms (or portabellas) are actually overgrown, giant cremini mushrooms. It’s true!
Portobellos became all the rage in the 1990s, when mushroom growers realized the potential in allowing white button mushrooms to mature a few extra days.
First they’re marketed as “baby” portobellos called “cremini” before growing into the oversized beauties we call portobellos.
How to prepare portobello mushrooms:
- Choose firm mushrooms with unbroken caps.
- Wipe the mushrooms gently with a towel if they seem dirty — don’t soak them in water or they’ll become soggy.
- The underside of the mushrooms, or the gills, should be tight, dry and light brown in color.
- Yes, you can eat the gills of portobello mushrooms. But if they look very dark in color and moist (verging on slimy) you can feel free to remove them or they might make the sauce murky.
- If the gills are moist and/or turning black, scoop them out with a spoon and discard before slicing and cooking over medium-high heat.
Is pappardelle the same as egg noodles?
Pappardelle is a pasta cut into wide, long noodles. You can find it as fresh egg pasta, and it’s also available as a dried egg pasta and durum wheat pasta without eggs.
The nice, chunky size of pappardelle noodles means it’s ideal to in pasta dishes with rich, hearty sauces like this mushroom ragu, or with creamier sauces like the sauce in Pappardelle al Limone.
I reserve thinner pasta cuts such as spaghetti and linguine for dishes like crowd-pleasing pasta carbonara.
More portobello mushroom recipes:
- Cheesy Baked Portobello Mushrooms with Roasted Vegetables
- Gnocchi with Mushrooms and Blue Cheese Sauce
- Mushroom Ragu with Parmesan Polenta
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Pappardelle Pasta with Rosemary Portobello Mushroom Sauce
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons (45 ml) extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 medium shallots, halved lengthwise and thinly sliced (about 2 ounces each)
- Kosher salt
- 3 (350 g) portobello mushroom caps (10 -12 ounces), sliced into 1-inch pieces
- 8 ounces (225 g) pappardelle pasta, fresh or dried
- 1 garlic clove, finely sliced
- 2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary leaves
- ½ teaspoon crushed red pepper
- 2 tablespoons (30 g) tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar
- 2 tablespoons (30 g) unsalted butter
- 1 chunk (50 g) Parmigiano Reggiano or Parmesan cheese
Instructions
- Put the oil, shallots and a pinch of salt in a large skillet and place over medium heat. Cook, stirring frequently, until the shallots are softened, but not browned.
- Add the mushrooms to the pan. Cook the mushrooms for a few minutes until they take on some color, then stir and add ½ easpoon salt. Continue cooking until the mushrooms become tender and their liquid evaporates.
- Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to a boil and add 2 tablespoons kosher salt. Cook the pasta until al dente, according to the package directions. Scoop out and reserve ¾ cup of the pasta water, then drain the pasta.
- Add the garlic, rosemary, red pepper, tomato paste, vinegar and butter to the mushrooms. Add ½ cup of the pasta water and stir over medium heat until the mixture becomes saucy. Add the pasta to the pan and toss gently with tongs to coat with the sauce, adding more water if it seems too dry. Taste for seasoning.
- Shave curls of Parmigiano cheese over the pasta with a vegetable peeler and serve.
Karen’s Notes and Tips
- Any leftover pasta and sauce will keep up to 3 days in the refrigerator.
Nutrition
Hey, I’m Karen
Creator of Familystyle Food
I’m a food obsessed super-taster and professionally trained cook ALL about creating elevated dinners with everyday ingredients. Find simplified recipes made from scratch and enjoy incredibly tasty food! Read more about me here.
Made this for our family when my son and his pescatarian girlfriend were visiting. Absolutely delicious and the whole was so much better than the sum of its parts. So easy yet very substantial and great complexity of tastes. Will put this one in regular rotation!
So glad you all enjoyed it!!
Sooo good. Very basic but the flavors pop. Hubby and I finished it all!!
My family all dislike rosemary. Any suggestions on other herbs to replace. Rosemary is very strong, basil and parsley perhaps?
Hi Cheryl – Thanks for such a great question. Instead of rosemary, other widely available aromatic herbs that pair well with mushrooms are thyme and oregano. Otherwise, fresh parsley or basil are wonderful too! Add them at the end of cooking. They’re more tender and taste best when they’re not cooked for too long.
Hi wondering if I can make a dark sauce to have a little more juice to it. If I Add maybe some shredded chuck roast. What would I use a beef consemae or alittle heavy cream, but how would I thicken it up alittle?
Hi Gia – If you want more sauce, try adding the same amount of beef broth instead of the pasta water in step 4, along with 1/2 cup of heavy cream. Simmer it for a few minutes to thicken, then add the pasta.
This is the first time I have used these noodles and mushrooms. Let me just say this was AMAZiNG!!! Such great flavors. Thank you!!!!
I made this recipe for family and it was amazing. I had to substitute margarine for butter due to a dairy allergy, but I will make again for my non dairy allergy friends to enjoy with some wine. 5 stars.
Do you think a black truffle oil drizzled on top would work well with this dish?
I’m obsessed with truffle
Yes!!
Thanks Karen for this amazing recipe! Instant hit at my house and 100% boyfriend approved. Very quick to put together yet elegant enough for company. I will make this again and again!
It was delicious,:great recipe!
This was a hit! My husband couldn’t stop talking about how good it was. Thank you.
Very good! I only made one change. Being a hobby cook, I decided to make pappardelle pasta from baby spinach leaves. Homemade pasta is surprisingly easy. This added further depth of flavor to an already excellent tasting dish. Thanks Karen!
So happy you enjoyed it Doug! Your homemade pasta sounds amazing.
Love! Love! Love! Very easy to make and the flavors are incredible! Will put this recipe in my line up!
I absolutely love this dish exactly as outlined! We have made it several times for my family if 3. I am wondering if it can easily be doubled as I would like to serve for some guests coming for dinner. Thank you.
Hi Trish – Happy to hear that you love this! Yes, you can double the recipe. I suggest using two skillets to make the sauce. You could also use a large deep saute pan.
Loved the recipe, I sauteed a cup of cubed eggplant 5 min. before the mushrooms. You introduced me to Pappardelle pasta. I will make that again. Thanks. Marion
9/15/23
We love this recipe! It’s so decadent that we have added it to our repute! We use mushroom ravioli with it. Oh my goodness!!!
Really, really good and quite simple to make. I did make a couple of changes simply because I was planning to use some pappardelle and cremini mushrooms I had available, but wasn’t quite certain how. I roasted a head of garlic with some olive oil and fresh thyme that was in the fridge that was begging to be used, thinking that I could use the roasted garlic with the pappardelle and the cremini mushrooms in some way. Then I found this recipe and it called to me.
So, I made that roasted head of garlic into a paste and stirred it in where the recipe called for stirring in the sliced garlic. Instead of rosemary, I used thyme, well, because the thyme was begging to be used.
I highly recommend this recipe partially because of the ease of preparation, but most of all because it was absolutely delicious. I will definitely be making this again. (That reminds me: I need to bookmark it.😉)
Amazing and super easy
I love this recipe with the following tweaks:
Add a tin of rinsed lentils, add a small jar of cherry tomato pasta sauce, and some greens (spinach or kale).
It was sooo good!!
Oh my goodness. I’ve been eyeing this recipe up for a while now and I just got around to making it. It is delicious. I did triple the amount of mushrooms I used and used 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar because I misread but I’m glad I did! It was delicious. I omitted the red pepper flakes because my toddler was eating it as well. And he loved it too! Definitely will be making this again!