The Art of Creating a Crispy Mushroom Quesadilla: A Step-by-Step Guide

Kindly note that I'm going to make a crispy mushroom quesadilla today, which is one of my go-to dishes. It gets great flavor on mushrooms and has layers of ingredients like tortillas with some cheese, giving you a little bit of a Topper to play with. Making a quesadilla in 15 minutes may seem simple, but adding a plant-based twist keeps it mostly plant-based is a win.

As I begin, I have my onions, garlic, and tortillas ready. My spice cabinet is my next stop, depending on the night's craving. Before starting, I want to make sure I have all the necessary ingredients and tools within arm's reach. For this recipe, I'll be using fresh mushrooms, pickled onions, cilantro, smoked paprika, and a bit of chili powder.

Preparation is key when it comes to cooking any dish. In this case, I'm starting by sautéing my garlic in a little bit of oil for about 30 seconds to give it that toasty flavor before adding the spices and butter. This step is crucial as it will help bloom the flavor and aroma of the spices. Now, I'll add my pickled onions and give them a good stir.

As I continue cooking, I want to make sure everything is heated evenly and not burnt. The key to achieving crispy quesadillas is using moderate heat so that the cheese melts through without burning the tortilla. Once everything is well combined and coated with butter, it's time to add the mushrooms. These are my star ingredients, and I want them to be cooked just right.

Next, I'll assemble my quesadillas by placing a generous amount of shredded cheese in the center of each tortilla, followed by some sautéed mushrooms and a sprinkle of spices. Then, I'll top it all off with another slice of cheese and fold the tortilla in half to create a delicious, crispy mushroom quesadilla.

To add an extra layer of flavor, I can introduce heat into my quesadillas using condiments like hot sauce or chili flakes. For this recipe, I'll use a nice balanced hot sauce that will enhance the body and flavor of the dish without overpowering it.

The most important part of making any dish is taste-testing as you go. In this case, I'm adding a few pickled onions on top of my quesadilla to give it some brightness and freshness. As the cheese starts to melt, you'll notice the color change, and the texture will become soft and slightly pinkish. This is where the magic happens.

Now that we've reached the final stages, I just need to cook everything for another minute or two until the tortillas are crispy and the cheese has melted through. And voila! Our crispy mushroom quesadilla is ready. When you take a bite, you'll notice the perfect balance of flavors: rich cheese, savory mushrooms, and tangy pickled onions all coming together in harmony.

Saving time while making this recipe can be done by using pre-shredded cheese, keeping pickled onions on hand from earlier in the week, or experimenting with different spices. The key is to understand what elements are more important to you and spend that extra bit of time perfecting those parts.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign that one didn't go flying out of the pan so today I'm going to be doing a crispy mushroom quesadilla this is a go-to for me it gets great flavor on mushrooms layers them into a tortilla with some cheese and even gives you a little bit of like a Topper to play with like nobody needs to be told you can make a quesadilla in 15 minutes but to do something that's maybe a click past the standard and keeping it mostly plant-based is a win all right I've got onions garlic oh tortillas it's going on the spice cabinet depending on the night I might use a bunch of different spices it can just depend on what you got in your spice cabinet just getting all the chilled items from the fridge here mushrooms cilantro cheese butter just need to get a box grater mortar and pestle large nonstick first thing I'm gonna do is get pickles set up and this is super easy you can do this and keep them on hand honestly for a few weeks this is like my patented technique for turning any vegetable in a pickle pretty quickly I find it's like you know it's just easier for folks to slice rather than chop so like this goes right real fast big pinch of salt seasoned rice vinegar which has sugar and a little bit of salt in it as well give it a little toss and just let it sit until you're ready to use them next major thing is slicing up our garlic the fastest way to peel garlic trim the ends off you don't need to worry about the tips I like to just get some of the peel out of the way just because it starts to fly everywhere and that starts to slow you down go back over and insistent but not devastating thwack this gets that papery skin off really well and I like to just go back over and slice slicing something once is usually the fastest way to break it down one pass with a knife and we're done okay these are beautiful mushrooms something like this like a Mitaki or Hen of the Woods or oyster mushrooms they're pretty clean there's no need to introduce water to them it's just gonna fight you in the pan like when you go to Brown them you just pull them apart and they're ready to go that's part of the joy of mushrooms they really function much like a protein does in terms of how you treat them there's a little bit of stem where it might be a touch Woody and you can use your knife for that so the last big element here is cheese and I like grating my own I find that the cheese that you can buy and as a block is almost always going to be a more flavorful better cheese than the stuff that's pre-shredded for you heading over to the stove now so this is pretty hot but I'm gonna throw some cold oil in it you could use olive oil vegetable oil doesn't really matter a little shake to distribute the fat I'm not putting any salt on them yet I'm just letting them get a head start on Browning before I really mess with them in any way we're just gonna let this go while that's searing meanwhile you can come over and work on your spice blend and if you're really truly going for speed chili powder has a lot of flavor a lot of different ingredients represented in it if you have a minute or two longer a mortar and pestle is so handy I have one that I use pretty much just for spices it makes it really fast so just break down whole spices and they just have more flavor it's one of those things it's a trade-off you know I'm taking an extra minute or two but on the other hand I'm getting more flavor out of them so not every night is a grinder on spices kind of night and that's totally cool and you can leave a little bit of texture to the spices you don't have to get them super fine unless your kids are like mine and they're gonna pick out every last seed of fennel until your heart breaks done okay there's a little bit of texture we basically just made our own chili powder in about a minute all right so at the point that we've got this level of Browning that's when I'm going to start to turn these so I'm just going to let this go now for another few minutes season with a little bit of salt and we're almost like done here so while that's still going like even dumb little things like opening up the package of butter getting yourself set up for success I mentioned that this is plant-based and it is partly obviously you can buy like plant-based cheese but obviously butter is an animal product in terms of adding complexity and depth of flavor to things butter is pretty amazing a little bit of it goes a long way in terms of creating a lot of nuance in your cooking when I'm looking to cut Corners in terms of time it's a great great great tool to know about so now that we've got some pretty good Browning I'm gonna throw my garlic in just give that like 30 second Head Start before I put any spices in just to get it toasty if you need like another couple drops of oil be sparing we're gonna hit this with some butter in a minute so here's where I'm gonna put our spices and I'm gonna throw a knob of butter in there so that's going to help Bloom the flavor and Aroma of the spices just coat everything with a nice juicy layer of fat mushrooms obviously have a lot going on Flavor wise but they don't have any fat whatsoever so they can absorb a fair amount of fat and frankly are all the more delicious for it you see like what a transformation right like that smoked paprika going in there all of those hard spices that we broke down in the mortar and pestle it gives you something that's like tastes very complex in very little time this looks so meaty I mean this is doing the exact same thing the little chopped up chicken thigh would have I'm just going to do a quick rinse on our non-stick skillet and get it back on the stove so that we can assemble our quesadillas right in there and that's also the reason to have like a large non-stick it just is gonna fit like a decent sized tortilla like two of them back to back like this just there's no point in assembling these elsewhere and then trying to put them in the skillet you're just gonna have stuff fall out all over the place only key is moderate heat so you can melt the cheese through without the tortilla getting super duper dark sometimes I feel condiments can do a lot of heavy lifting for you like we didn't put chili flakes or anything or any source of heat in our quesadillas right we can introduce that element like nearly instantly by a really nice balanced hot sauce like this the body the flavor how much is going on in addition to heat you can really use that to your best advantage so I've got some like you know beautiful cilantro half the time at home honestly I don't even have like fresh herbs if you don't have it it's fine you're introducing brightness with your pickled onion and like look at the transformation that's already happened here they're softening you'll see the color will change they'll get pinky magenta and then you don't have to make them fresh every time you're doing one of these things you know you just keep them on hand for whatever you're doing so this has been maybe three minutes it just depends on your tortillas like check them because these actually have wanted to pick up color faster than I was expecting the ones I use at home have a little bit more fat in them so you have to push the Browning process a little bit harder on those you know lost a mushroom falling apart all right right back inside smush it down nobody has to know couple more minutes and we'll be good yes love what was just happening there make a nice little stack don't leave anyone behind throw some of your pickled onion on there a little bit of this pile it high all right so here is the finished crispy mushroom quesadilla almost forgot I love this stuff such nice flavor such good body there it is ultimately there's just two main things going on in this quesadilla right you have your crispy mushroom element which I think is pretty clutch here and then there's the cheese the cheese adding that fat and that richness that you crave from the mushroom they work really well together and it definitely tastes like it took longer than 15 minutes to get it together there's a lot of ways to save time further I have the pickled onions on hand from something earlier in the week use the chili powder instead of a spice blend that you make yourself use pre-shredded cheese if that's what you have on hand or if that's what's easiest for you you just know you know the benefit of like spending an extra beat you know on certain elements that are more important to you I think that's ultimately what it's all about thank you all right well you get the idea\n"