40+ Puffball Mushroom Recipes

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Puffball mushroom recipes can turn a chance find into a wonderful dinner, and they’re often big, so you might get to try multiple from one mushroom. Wild puffball mushrooms pop up in lawns and pastures in late summer, and their round white tops stand out across a field. The small ones fry up golden in butter or simmer into soup, and giant ones slice into thick steaks.

My daughter found one of our puffball patches when she was 3. She’d been foraging with me for about a year by then, and she was always excited to learn a new mushroom.

Puffballs make a good first wild mushroom, and for the most part, they’re easy to identify. Before you pick one, read up on foraging puffball mushrooms so you know the look-alikes, then try a few more from my list of beginner-friendly wild mushrooms.

Giant puffballs get most of the attention, since one can feed a whole family. The smaller kinds cook up every bit as well, and they’re a lot more common.

What Are Puffball Mushrooms?

Puffballs are round mushrooms with no cap, no gills, and no real stem. Instead of dropping spores from gills, the whole inside of the mushroom turns into spores as it ages.

The giant puffball, Calvatia gigantea, can grow larger than a soccer ball. Smaller edible puffballs in the genus Lycoperdon are often closer to the size of a golf ball, and they turn up in open woods, along trails, and in disturbed ground.

Giant puffballs grow on the ground in lawns, pastures, meadows, and open woods, not on wood. Look for them from late summer into fall, along with the other mushrooms to forage in fall.

An edible puffball is pure white and firm inside, like a fresh marshmallow. Once the inside turns yellow, olive, or brown, it’s turning to spores and it’s past eating.

How Do Puffball Mushrooms Taste?

Puffballs taste mild and a little earthy, with a soft, spongy texture a lot like tofu. They don’t have the strong woodsy flavor of a morel or a chanterelle.

That mild flavor makes them easy to cook with. They soak up butter, garlic, herbs, and sauce, and a hot pan browns the outside while the inside stays tender.

If you love a rich mushroom dish like my chanterelle risotto, try puffballs in risotto, too. They make a milder, creamier version.

Choosing and Harvesting Puffballs

Slice every puffball in half from top to bottom before you eat it. A young Amanita can look like a small puffball, but cut open, it shows the outline of a cap, gills, and stem inside. An edible puffball is solid white all the way through.

Leave behind anything with a thick, tough rind and a firm inside with purple or black marbling, too. That’s likely a poisonous earthball (Scleroderma), and even a young one has that thick rind.

Choose puffballs that feel firm and heavy, and check the bottom where they sit in the grass. Bugs usually get in from there, so if there are only a few, trim off the bottom and keep the rest.

A mesh mushroom bag keeps your finds from bruising on the walk home, and loose dirt falls out through the mesh. If you’re new to wild mushrooms, have an experienced forager check what you’ve picked.

Cleaning and Storing Puffballs

Brush off any dirt before you slice them. The skin on a young puffball is thin and fine to eat, but you can peel it if it feels tough.

Puffballs don’t keep long, so refrigerate them as soon as you get home and cook them within a few days. I forgot about a few once, and they all turned to spores.

I always recommend cooking puffballs thoroughly. Like other wild mushrooms, they’re harder on the stomach raw.

Puffball Mushroom Recipes

These puffball mushroom recipes cover grilled slices, soups, breakfast, hearty dinners, pasta, snacks, and baking with puffball powder.

If you’ve got more puffballs than you can eat this week, dry or freeze the extras. Frozen puffball works in soups and sauces, and dried puffball powder goes into gravy and baking all winter.

When puffball season winds down, there are more wild mushrooms to cook. My lists of maitake mushroom recipes, lion’s mane mushroom recipes, and chicken of the woods recipes are a good place to start.

Grilled and Sautéed Puffballs

A large puffball cuts into thick slabs that grill a lot like eggplant. Brush them with oil or butter so the outside browns while the inside stays tender.

There’s a rosemary and garlic version, grilled puffball bruschetta, a simple sauté, and warm puffball bites with pumpkin seeds and miso dressing.

• Grilled Puffball with Rosemary and Garlic
• Grilled Puffball Bruschetta
• Sautéed Giant Puffball Mushrooms
• Warm Puffball Bites with Pumpkin Seeds and Miso Dressing

Puffball Soups and Sauces

Puffballs blend into silky soups, and a small one is plenty for a pot. One of these pairs puffball with black trumpets, another wild mushroom.

The curry sauce is a quick side for meat, and the caramelized puffball puree goes into soups, sauces, and compound butter.

• Puffball Mushroom Soup
• Puffball and Black Trumpet Mushroom Soup
• Puffball Mushroom Curry Sauce
• Caramelized Puffball Puree

Puffball Breakfast Recipes

Diced puffball cooks quickly in butter, so it’s an easy addition to breakfast.

There are scrambled eggs with puffballs, an omelette, a frittata, and a crustless puffball pie.

• Scrambled Eggs with Wild Puffball Mushrooms
• Giant Puffball Mushroom Omelette
• Giant Puffball Frittata
• Easy Crustless Puffball Pie

Puffballs also make breakfast on their own. Thick slices stand in for bread in the French toast, and a breaded version comes with chickpeas, chorizo, and feta.

• Puffball French Toast
• Breaded Puffball Mushroom with Chickpeas, Chorizo and Feta

Puffball Main Dishes

A giant puffball is big enough to slice into a burger patty, a cutlet, or even a pizza crust. That’s how the burgers, the puffball Parmesan, and the pizza use it.

The gratin layers puffball with squash and goat cheese, and it bakes up a lot like a casserole.

• Puffball Mushroom Burgers
• Puffball Mushroom Parmesan
• Giant Puffball Mushroom Crust Pizza
• Puffball and Squash Gratin with Goat Cheese

Smaller puffballs go straight into the pan. They’re stir-fried with pork in a spicy Thai sauce, simmered in risotto and curry, and used in place of tofu in mapo.

• Stir-Fried Spicy Thai Puffball Mushroom with Pork
• Puffball Risotto
• Puffball Mushroom Curry
• Mapo Mushroom with Giant Puffball

Puffball Pasta Recipes

Puffballs soak up sauce, so they’re right at home in pasta. Large slices can even stand in for lasagna noodles.

There are two lasagnas, one of them vegan with pumpkin, plus lamb and puffball cannelloni.

• Puffball Mushroom Lasagna
• Vegan Puffball Mushroom Pumpkin Lasagna
• Lamb and Puffball Mushroom Cannelloni

For a quicker dinner, chop the puffball into a sauce. There’s a fresh puffball ragu, a creamy fettuccine Alfredo, and puffball ravioli with sage butter.

• Fresh Puffball Mushroom Ragu Sauce
• Creamy Puffball Mushroom Fettuccine Alfredo
• Puffball Ravioli with Mushrooms and Sage Butter

Puffball Snacks and Appetizers

Puffballs make good party food, especially fried. There are puffball mozzarella sticks, Parmesan puffballs, schnitzels, and cheese-stuffed puffballs.

Schnitzels are thin breaded cutlets, and they’re good with a little mayonnaise for dipping.

• Puffball Mushroom Mozzarella Sticks
• Parmesan Puffballs
• Puffball Schnitzels
• Puffball Mushrooms Stuffed with Cheese

For a snack board, puffball hummus and puffball caviar spread nicely on crackers or little toasts. For the jerky, you slice, marinate, and dry the puffball, so it travels well.

• Puffball Mushroom Hummus
• Puffball Caviar
• Puffball Mushroom Jerky

Cooking with Puffball Powder

Dried puffball grinds into a fine powder, sometimes called puffball flour. It adds savory mushroom flavor to gravy, sauces, and baked goods.

Use it in the mushroom gravy, the Parmesan Alfredo sauce, a from-scratch green bean casserole, or Parisienne gnocchi.

• Dried Puffball Mushroom Gravy
• Puffball Parmesan Alfredo Sauce
• Puffball Powder Green Bean Casserole
• Puffball Parisienne Gnocchi

Puffball powder goes into the dock seed crackers, the savory mushroom puffs, and a puffball bratwurst. If you gather your own dock seed, you can grind it into flour for the crackers, too. Start with my guide to foraging dock seeds.

• Dock Seed Crackers
• Mushroom Puffs
• Puffball Mushroom Bratwurst

Preserving Puffball Mushrooms

Cooked puffballs keep 3 to 4 days in the fridge, so for anything longer, dry them or freeze them.

Dried slices keep for months in a jar, and they grind into powder for gravy, sauces, and baking. They dry well in a food dehydrator or a low oven.

Freezing softens the texture, so frozen puffballs are better in soups and sauces than as slabs. Cook them first, then freeze them in a single layer and bag them.

• How to Dehydrate Mushrooms
• 10+ Ways to Preserve Mushrooms
• Dried Puffball Powder
• Dehydrating Puffball Mushrooms in an Oven

Puffball Mushroom Recipes FAQs

Readers ask whether puffballs are safe to eat, how to tell a good one, whether they need cooking, and how long they keep.

More Wild Mushroom Recipe Roundups

Hen of the woods, lion’s mane, and chicken of the woods are three more wild mushrooms that beginners can learn to recognize.

50+ Maitake Mushroom Recipes (Hen of the Woods)

40+ Lion’s Mane Mushroom Recipes

40+ Chicken of the Woods Mushroom Recipes