Creamy Mushroom Farro can be served with chicken, turkey or beef! An easy, flavorful side dish that’s made right in your crock pot!
You can serve this mushroom farro for a vegetarian dinner with a salad or as a side dish to dinner! This farro recipe is even good enough to serve alongside your Thanksgiving Turkey or a fancy Beef Wellington!
A Make Ahead Side Dish For Holidays or Everyday Meals
It’s that time of year again when we all start planning our Thanksgiving, Christmas and all the holiday meals. We’re big fans of serving our standard family recipes that we make every year like our Favorite Sausage Stuffing, along with some new ideas like this Creamy Mushroom Farro.
If you’ve never had farro before, I’m telling you you’re going to love it. It’s a nutty, chewy wheat grain that’s used in soups, stews, or all on it’s own like in this side dish recipe.
There’s chicken broth in this mushroom farro recipe but if you want to keep this vegetarian just swap out your favorite vegetarian broth!
Ingredients For Creamy Mushroom Farro
This recipe calls for dried porcini mushrooms which are usually sold right in the produce department of your grocery store. Please don’t leave them out, even though the recipe only calls for a small amount. They add SO much flavor to this farro recipe, it’s worth the buy!
- Dried porcini mushrooms: As we said, these dried mushrooms add a lot of flavor so don’t leave them out.
- Shallot: You can use a small onion too, but a shallot is a little less harsh than a regular onion.
- Garlic: Chopped garlic adds a depth of flavor to the farro, add a little more or less per your taste. We like more:)
- Fresh thyme: You can substitute dried but fresh thyme adds much more flavor.
- Chicken (or vegetable) broth: Chicken broth will give this farro recipe the best flavor, in our opinion, but you can definitely use vegetable broth instead if you’re looking to keep this a vegetarian recipe.
- Sherry wine: Real sherry wine, not cooking wine that you can find in your grocery store. Marsala wine would also be delicious!
- Mushrooms: Brown or white button mushrooms, sliced.
- Whole farro: The star of the show, whole farro which you can find in the rice/grains/beans aisle at your grocery store.
- Parmesan cheese: Not to sound all Ina here, but really, try and use the best parmesan cheese you can find. Grating your own is usually best, but just not that stuff in the can.
- Fresh parsley: Chopped parsley added right at the end will give this farro a fresh taste and pop of flavor.
How Do You Make This Slow Cooker Mushroom Farro?
This farro recipe starts by warming up dried porcini mushrooms with shallots, herbs and wine in the microwave. Doing this softens the shallots and rehydrates the porcini mushrooms, bringing out the flavor.
Then you add that mixture to a 4 to 6 quart slow cooker along with sliced mushrooms, farro, chicken broth (or vegetable broth) and stir together. Cook on low for 4 hours or on high for 2 hours until the farro is tender.
At the end of the cooking time, stir in grated parmesan cheese, another 1/2 cup of warmed broth and test for seasonings. Adjust with more salt and pepper and a splash of sherry wine.
Can You Make This Farro Recipe Ahead Of Time?
The beauty about making this Creamy Mushroom Farro is that it’s a slow cooker side dish, so once you have it cooking away there’s really not much left to do. We find that this farro is best served right after it’s done but leftovers are still delicious!
Microwave any leftover mushroom farro with some broth and a little more parmesan cheese and you’ve got a quick lunch or another side dish to dinner that you don’t have to make!
Looking For More Holiday Sides?
- Perfectly Smooth Mashed Potatoes
- BEST Brussels Sprout Casserole
- Bourbon Sweet Potato Casserole
- Roasted Beets & Sweet Potatoes
- Spicy Sausage Cornbread Dressing
- Cheesy Crock Pot Potatoes
Creamy Mushroom Farro
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 2 hours
- Total Time: 2 hours 5 minutes
- Yield: 6 Servings 1x
This Slow Cooker Creamy Mushroom Farro recipe is one of our new favorites! A make ahead holiday side dish that goes with turkey, beef or ham!
Ingredients
- 1/2 ounce dried porcini mushrooms
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 large shallot, minced
- 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
- 2 teaspoons fresh thyme, chopped
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 cup sherry
- 2 1/2 cups chicken (or vegetable) broth, divided
- 8 ounces mushrooms, sliced thin
- 1 cup whole farro
- 2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese
- 2 tablespoons fresh chopped parsley
- Splash of heavy cream, optional
Instructions
- Spray the insert of a 4-6 quart slow cooker with non-stick cooking spray.
- add porcini mushrooms to a small bowl along with 1 tablespoon of the oil, shallot, garlic, thyme, salt, pepper and sherry. Microwave for 3 minutes and then add to the slow cooker.
- Microwave 2 cups of the broth for 5 minutes and then pour into the slow cooker. Add the mushrooms and farro and stir.
- Cover and cook on high heat for 2 hours or on low heat for 4 hours.
- Warm the remaining 1/2 cup of broth in the microwave and add it to the crock pot along with the parmesan cheese and stir. Add about 1/4 cup of heavy cream, if using. Taste for seasonings and adjust with more salt and pepper if needed.
- Garnish with chopped parsley and serve.
Recipe Notes
This recipe serves about 6 but can easily be double for a holiday meal!
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: Slow Cooker
- Cuisine: American
This came out perfect, was so easy, done in no time. I will totally be making this dish again. Are there any substitutes for the mushroom? I like mushroom, however it was a bit too mushroomy for me. Thanks so much for this great recipe!
You can just use regular mushrooms and skip the porcini mushrooms as they have a stronger mushroom flavor. We’re so glad you liked it!