Morel (dish morel), raw (organic?)

Morels ( Morchella esculenta) are a very tasty edible mushroom. Fresh morels can be collected in the wild ( organic, depending on the species), but should be cooked before consumption and never eaten raw.

Use in the kitchen

Fresh morels are a delicious and versatile mushroom that can be used in a variety of ways in the kitchen. Before eating, clean them thoroughly and carefully with a brush or cloth to remove dirt and debris. You can also cut the cap in half to do this. Since morels are highly perishable, you should process or eat them as soon as possible after harvesting. Please put any leftovers in the refrigerator immediately and use them within 48 hours. Can you eat morels raw? Raw morels are poisonous and can cause gastrointestinal discomfort. It is therefore important to cook them for at least 20 minutes before eating. You can then eat morels in salads or as a garnish, fried in oil until golden brown and crispy, braised in sauces, soups and stews, or stuffed with a variety of ingredients and baked. Dried morels have a more intense flavor than fresh ones. Therefore, use fewer mushrooms and soak them in water beforehand.

Are all morels edible? There are a large number of different types of morels. These are generally well tolerated when cooked. Edible morels include the common morel ( Morchella esculenta), the round morel ( Morchella rotunda) and the bell morel - also known as the cap morel or bonnet morel - ( Morchella gigas / Mitrophora semilibera). ¹

The tender flesh of the morels gives dishes a nutty, caramel-like flavor. They go well with a variety of ingredients, including asparagus, onions, garlic, cream, white wine or sherry. Whether in a vegan morel risotto, a morel soup, fried morels with pasta, stuffed morels and baked in the oven or as a morel salad with lamb's lettuce and walnuts. They are usually enjoyed pure without many spices and only sprinkled with a little salt andpepper. But fresh herbs such as parsley, thyme and rosemary also go well with their flavor.

Vegan risotto with fresh morels

Ingredients (for 4 people): 200 g fresh morels (organic), 1 onion, 2 cloves of garlic, 2 tbsp rapeseed oil (refined), 300 g risotto rice, 800 ml vegetable stock, 100 ml white wine (vegan), salt, pepper, fresh parsley.

Preparation: Clean the morels and cut into bite-sized pieces. Finely chop the onion and garlic. Heat the rapeseed oil in a pan and sauté the onion and garlic until translucent. Add the morels and fry briefly. Add the risotto rice to the pan and sauté while stirring. Deglaze with white wine and simmer. Gradually add the vegetable stock to the rice and simmer for about 20 minutes over a medium heat, stirring constantly, until the rice is creamy. Season with salt and pepper. Finally, serve the vegan risotto with morels, garnished with fresh parsley.

Vegan recipes with morels can be found under the note: " Recipes that have the most of this ingredient ".

Purchasing - Storage

Morels ( Morchella esculenta) are in season from March to May. ¹ Fresh morels can only be bought in season, most often at weekly markets or online. Major retailers such as Coop and Migros also sometimes sell them at this time. Other major retailers such as Denner, Volg, Spar, Aldi, Lidl, Rewe, Edeka, Hofer, Billa and organic supermarkets such as Denn's Biomarkt and Alnatura do not stock them. However, you can often find them there in dried form. Morels are among the most expensive edible mushrooms. Despite this, do not buy the cheapest products; instead, pay attention to quality. Fresh morels of good quality are firm and dry and have a pleasant aroma. Avoid specimens that are slimy, discolored or damaged.

To save time, morels are often dried over a fire, which leaves a smoky taste and reduces the quality. A smell test can be helpful here. Unfortunately, there have also been cases where packages contained morels (genus Morchella) as well as morels (genus Helvella), which is dangerous. Even if some of the toxins contained in them are reduced during drying, morels are by no means edible mushrooms. ²

How much does morel mushroom cost? The availability of morels varies depending on the size of the store, catchment area, etc. You can find our recorded food prices for the DA-CH countries above under the ingredient image - and by clicking you can see their development at different suppliers.

Found in the wild

Where can you find morels? Where do morels grow? Edible morels ( Morchella esculenta) are found mainly in spring, individually or in groups, in forest clearings, abandoned orchards, pastures, sandy soils and under deciduous trees such as ash and elm. ¹ After forest fires, they grow in particularly large numbers on the affected soils. They are easily recognized by their honeycomb-shaped, creamy white to pale brown cap, although they can vary in shape and size and many morels are classified as individual species. In southern Europe, parts of Asia and North America, the mushrooms are collected for commercial sale. ³

Sometimes morels are confused with edible verpel species, e.g. foxglove verpel ( Verpa conica) or wrinkled verpel ( Verpa bohemica). The cap is actually easy to distinguish. Verpels are not declared as edible mushrooms. They are protected and lack the typical morel aroma, which is why collecting them is not recommended. ³

Storage Tips

Fresh morels are a delicious mushroom, but unfortunately they are also very delicate and perishable, so it is important to store them properly to preserve their quality and flavor for as long as possible.

Store fresh morels in the refrigerator in a paper bag or basket. This will keep them fresh for 2 to 3 days. Avoid wrapping morels in plastic as this can lead to mold. Only clean them shortly before use as otherwise they will spoil more quickly. Alternatively, you can dry the edible mushrooms. To do this, cut the morels into slices and dry them in a warm, airy place, e.g. in the oven or in a dehydrator. Dried morels will keep for up to a year if you store them in a cool, dark and dry place. Can you freeze morels? Another option is to freeze the noble mushrooms. To do this, blanch the morels briefly in boiling water and then freeze them in freezer bags. This way they will keep for up to 6 months.

Ingredients - Nutritional values - Calories

100 g of fresh morels provide 31 kcal of energy. This includes 0.57 g of fat, 5.1 g of carbohydrates and 3.1 g of protein. ⁴

Vitamin D is present at 5.1 µg/100g (102% of the daily requirement). Raw chanterelles have similarly high amounts (5.3 µg/100g). However, other mushrooms such as shimeji (2.0 µg/100g) or oyster mushrooms (0.70 µg/100g) have significantly less of the vitamin. ⁴

100 g of fresh morels contain 12 mg of iron, which covers 87% of the daily requirement. This value is the same as that of dark chocolate. Dried herbs such as thyme (124 mg/100g) or basil (90 mg/100g) contain particularly high levels of iron, although only small amounts of these are consumed. ⁴

The manganese content is 0.59 mg/100g. This covers 29% of the daily requirement. Other mushrooms such as the oyster mushroom, the porcini mushroom or the king oyster mushroom contain only a fraction of this trace element, at 0.11 mg/100g each. Good sources of manganese, on the other hand, are hazelnuts (6.2 mg/100g) or oat flakes (3.6 mg/100g). ⁴

The complete ingredients of morels, the coverage of the daily requirement and comparison values with other ingredients can be found in our nutrient tables. In the article Nutrients explained you will get a detailed insight into the topic.

Effects on health

In vitro studies have shown that the polysaccharides (complex sugars) contained in Morchella esculenta have antioxidant, immune-stimulating and even tumor-inhibiting effects. ⁵ The antioxidant effect of the morel mycelia is stronger than that of vitamin E. ⁶ They also have liver-protecting and atherosclerosis-preventing properties. ⁷

In an animal study, increased consumption of morels increased short-chain fatty acids in the intestines of the animals studied. ⁸ There is now a wealth of evidence that short-chain fatty acids play an important role in maintaining health and in the development of disease. Short-chain fatty acids are a subgroup of fatty acids that the intestinal microbiota produces during the fermentation of partially and completely indigestible polysaccharides, ⁹ which, in the case of the study mentioned, contributed to an improvement in the health and reduction in obesity of the animals. ⁸

Secondary plant compounds

The bioactive compounds in morels, including polysaccharides, phenols, tocopherols and ergosterols, contribute to the antioxidant capacity, the anti-inflammatory and immune-protective effects and, as a result, to the maintenance of intestinal health and the fight against cancer. ¹⁰

Many of the health benefits of Morchella esculenta can be attributed to the secondary plant substances it contains. Our article on secondary plant substances provides an overview of the classification of substance groups, their occurrence in foods and possible effects on humans. Edible morels contain the following secondary plant substances, among others: ¹⁰

• Polyphenols: Phenolic acids (protocatechuic acid, ferulic acid), flavonoids (quercetin, rutin), tannins (gallic acid), hydroxycinnamic acids ( p -coumaric acid), ellagic acid, cinnamic acid, epicatechin, chlorogenic acid

Dangers - Intolerances - Side effects

Are morels poisonous? If eaten raw, intolerances and even poisoning symptoms can occur. What do poisonous morels look like? Which morels are poisonous? All types of morels are poisonous when raw. Since the mushrooms contain the heat-labile toxin hydrazine, they must be cooked before consumption. Hydrazine is classified as a probable carcinogen. Morel syndrome occurs around 6-8 hours after eating raw morels. Vertigo, gait disturbances or visual disturbances are the symptoms, which disappear after around 24 hours. ¹¹ Eating cooked morels in combination with alcohol can lead to stomach upset. If the fruiting body shows rotten spots, these can also be poisonous. ¹²

Are dried morels poisonous? Dried morels should be soaked well before consumption, processed quickly and cooked long enough. This way they are easily digestible.

If edible morels grow in old apple orchards where the insecticide lead arsenate was used, the mushrooms accumulate toxic lead and arsenic. This can lead to heavy metal poisoning. ¹³

Danger of confusion

Is there a danger of confusion with morels? Morels can only be easily confused with one poisonous type of mushroom, the morels. One of these is the poisonous spring morel ( Gyromitra esculenta), whose cap is twisted like a brain. Edible morels, on the other hand, have a honeycomb-shaped chambered cap. ³

Folk medicine - natural medicine

For 2000 years, Morchella species have been used in traditional Chinese medicine ( TCM) as well as in Japan and Malaysia to treat various diseases such as indigestion, excessive mucus or asthma. Powdered Morchella esculenta has an antiseptic effect, heals wounds, is used to treat stomach pain, has a laxative effect, moisturizes the skin and makes it supple. ¹⁴

Ecological footprint - animal welfare

The _CO2 footprint is primarily used to assess how climate-friendly a food is. This depends on a variety of factors. The type of agricultural production (conventional vs. organic), seasonal, regional or domestic production or import by truck, ship or plane, different types of packaging and whether the produce is fresh or frozen all play a decisive role. ¹⁵ Since Morchella esculenta is not grown commercially and is only found in the wild, neither artificial irrigation nor other interventions in the natural ecosystem are necessary. Only the transport routes from the collection points to the points of sale and possibly the material used for packaging have a negative impact on the _CO2 balance. However, despite intensive research, we have not been able to find any information on this so far.

Wild collections can also be certified organic and are therefore subject to organic guidelines (such as those of Bio Suisse). Among other things, there must be no harmful emission sources near the collection area, the collection activity must be ecologically harmless and must therefore not represent a detriment to habitat stability and biodiversity. ¹⁶ We therefore recommend buying organic products whenever possible.

For detailed explanations of various sustainability indicators (such as ecological footprint, _CO2 footprint, water footprint), see our article: What does the ecological footprint mean?

Animal protection - species protection

In Germany, morels are under limited protection. Collecting them for personal use is therefore only permitted in small quantities. ¹⁷

Worldwide distribution - cultivation

Morchella esculenta is found throughout Europe (less commonly in the UK and Ireland) and also in many Asian countries and most of North America. It is very rare in Australia. ¹⁸ Its ecology is highly controversial. Some Morchella species form symbiotic or endophytic relationships with trees, which vary across continents and regions. Others act as soil decomposers. Black morels are most commonly found on disturbed soils or in recently burned areas. ¹⁹

Further information

Morchella esculenta belongs to the genus Morchella and is part of the family Ascomycota. The specific epithet "esculenta" is derived from the Latin word meaning "edible".

Alternative names

Edible morels are also called "spring morels", "common morels", "May morels" or "May mushrooms". In English they are called "morel", "yellow morel" or "common morel".

Other uses

Another use of morels is solid-state fermentation (SSF). Morels are used to break down starch and help to increase the nutritional value of corn flour during this solid-state fermentation. Oriental foods in particular are enriched with enzymes in this industrial method. ²⁰