The 2 Kinds Of Seafood You Need For Olive Garden-Style Stuffed Mushrooms
Some discontinued Olive Garden menu options were pretty easy to forget. Others, like its flavorful and cheesy stuffed mushrooms, still linger in our minds. For those not in the know, the mushrooms were an appetizer of portobello mushroom caps stuffed with seafood, cheese, and Italian herbs and spices.
The product was discontinued, and there was no actual statement from the restaurant itself stating why. However, it is widely speculated that it has something to do with a 2019 lawsuit filed against Olive Garden by a woman named Danny Howard. She claimed that in 2017, after a bite of the dish, it burned her mouth and throat and almost completely closed her throat, sending her to the emergency room. Another possible reason for the elimination was just menu cuts/supply chain issues because of COVID-19.
Thankfully, for those who long for the chain's stuffed mushrooms, we have the recipe staples for making a solid copycat at home. It all comes down to the seafood: shrimp and scallops are key.
The perfect seafood mixture
Before you get into your shrimp and scallop preparation, it's important to have a good baseline for any simple stuffed mushroom recipe. Whatever mushrooms you use — either caps or small portobello mushrooms – make sure they're not too small to ensure enough stuffing can fit in them. No one wants a mushroom with a tiny amount of filling!
Once the mushrooms are cleaned, you can begin your filling. For the seafood mixture, devein your shrimp and finely dice it, then chop up sea scallops. Then, with the seafood, include an egg, Italian-style breadcrumbs, lots of parmesan cheese, and seasonings such as oregano. Take the mixture and start filling each mushroom, then bake for 35 minutes at 350 degrees. Stuffed mushrooms with no hearty protein in them take less time to bake, about 20 minutes or so.
Remember to let them cool after taking them out, and then enjoy a creamy and savory filling that balances out those earthy mushrooms and enhances flavor. Now you won't need to yearn any longer for these missing mushrooms (and no lawsuits will be involved.)