Back in the day, when it was relatively easy for everyone to get together at Grandma’s on Christmas Eve, you could show up expecting crab stuffed mushrooms, salad, lasagne and plain chicken wings for dinner and never be let down. It was our Christmas Eve tradition. Dad made the stuffed mushrooms for our appetizer and Grandma made the rest. But my brother and I live a couple hours away now and have families so we typically stay home on Christmas Eve and travel up to visit family on Christmas day. That means no more traditional Christmas Eve dinner most years. But if you know my Grandma, she always saved some lasagne for us to take home since we stuck with ham/turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing…the whole nine yards on Christmas day. Until this year! Well, last year. 2019. haha We all decided why not just have lasagne and chicken on Christmas day to keep it simple? Brilliant! We swapped salad for a relish tray, fine with me, but it just dawned on me that Dad didn’t bring the crab stuffed mushrooms! Instead, he distracted us with his wings baked in homemade sauce. They’re so delicious and I will add that recipe to the blog too, but what the heck Dad?? 🙂
So I made my own excuse to bake us some delicious stuffed mushrooms – that being I clearly need to photograph them to share with y’all! We’re also hosting our annual ‘holiday’ party with friends next month and I’m planning to make them again for that, because sharing is caring.
Our holiday party is with friends we made while both working at Chase and for the first few years we always hosted this get together around the first or second week of December. Then we realized December is REALLY BUSY. So now we hold off until after the holidays and get together in January or February and it’s worked out perfectly the last couple of years. Do you host any annual parties? I always have a hard time deciding on a menu, mainly trying to narrow it down to a few favorites! The one thing I’m still trying to solve for with these mushrooms is the best way to keep them warm once they’re ready. Maybe they’ll go so fast I won’t have to worry about it 🙂 And with that in mind, let’s talk about how easy they are to make…
Ingredient round-up looks like this:
- Crab meat – look for all white crab meat
- Butter – this will be melted and helps the bread crumbs to brown
- Bread Crumbs – stick with traditional bread crumbs, panko will likely be too coarse
- Grated Parmesan cheese – yes, please
- Garlic Cloves – you can do one or two, we prefer two
- Onion – what is there to say about onion? I do love the smell of it cooking, but you don’t saute it for this recipe haha
- Mushrooms – you can use white or baby bella, I’ve tried both and don’t really have a preference, both were yummy
- Salt and Pepper – Naturally 🙂
- Mozzarella cheese slices – for topping the mushrooms when they have about 5 minutes left in the oven, it’s like the icing on top of a cake
Mix everything together in a bowl minus the mushrooms and mozzarella cheese to start. Set that aside while you remove the stems of the mushrooms and clean the caps. I like to line a baking sheet with parchment paper for easy clean up and line the mushrooms up to be filled with the crab mixture. Just use a small spoon and stuff each mushroom cap.
Bake for 15 minutes, add mozzarella slices on top of each stuffed mushroom and bake for another 5 minutes. These are definitely best enjoyed while hot so if you’re serving them at a party I’d suggest keeping them in a shallow crockpot or on a hot tray of some sort. I’ll be looking into some hot tray options for our party, soooo you know, if you have any ideas or products you love feel free to share the details in the comments below! As a thank you, I’ll give you the full recipe for this tasty appetizer 🙂
I tried to decorate my stuffed mushrooms with parsley, but thought about it a bit too late. What. a. rookie. Or perhaps it was just wishful thinking that it would still work by the time I remembered. That feels like an accurate statement. Sprinkle dried parley on as soon as they come out of the oven (when the cheese is still melty) for the parsley to stick and take your appetizer to the next level of presentation 😉 If you forget like me, don’t worry about it. If these were the ones I was serving at the party people would probably just assume I accidentally spilled parsley on the tray. And you know what, that’d be a pretty solid story. I might just go along with it haha
About that recipe I owe you… 🙂
Crab Stuffed Mushrooms
30 minute appetizer perfect for dinner parties
Ingredients
- 1 6oz can white crab meat drained
- 1/2 cup butter melted
- 1/3 cup bread crumbs
- 3/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 1/4 cup finely chopped onions
- 12 oz white or baby bella mushrooms stems removed, caps cleaned
- salt and pepper to taste
- Mozzarella cheese slices cut into small squares
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
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In a medium sized bowl, mix all ingredients together except the mushrooms and mozzarella.
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Stuff the mushroom caps with the crab mixture using a small spoon. Place on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Bake for 15 minutes.
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Add a small slice of mozzarella cheese on top of each stuffed mushroom and bake for another 5 minutes until mixture has browned and cheese has melted.
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Carefully remove from the oven and serve warm. Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Best reheated in the oven.
