Mushroom and Cottage Cheese Pasta Recipe (2024)

When I was a child, my mother often made whole-wheat spaghetti with cottage cheese and spinach. It was delightful, and there’s a satisfying lightness that cottage cheese adds. I often use it now, in place of other richer cheeses, in lasagnas and dips.I think the nuttiness of a whole grain pasta would be a delicious complement to the umami of the mushrooms in this dish!

I have to agree with other comments about the color of this sauce, but this is not a deal breaker because it's similar to cream of mushroom soup. The first time I made this I followed the recipe but didn't love the cottage cheese curds. This time, I blended the cottage cheese in with the mushrooms and the sauce was Silky with a capital S. I also added a little dried marjoram (love this herb with mushrooms) and balsamic vinegar instead of lemon juice. It was much improved IMHO.

I agree with others on here that the dish came out a really off-putting grey color. Pureeing the sauteed mushrooms with only pasta water didn't make a "velvety sauce", but a chunky grey looking gruel. I would consider looking into other mushroom sauce recipes and not use this one here. The addition of cottage cheese was interesting and worth trying again, but this isn't the recipe to do it. I recommend looking up different recipes, this one is a skip.

This really was not good. We make a lot of the NYT recipes and this was the first flop. The Color is so aggressively unappealing no matter how much parsley you throw on top. The flavour was bland and the chunks of cottage cheese really sealed the unaesthetic deal. Definitely not worth making. Make ANY other pasta recipe over this one lol.

Good grief ''don't'' puree the mushrooms leave them whole and saute until all the water from the mushrooms evaporate. The cottage cheese will make a sauce. Being of Hungarian/Ukrainian grew up on noodles/farmers cheese/fried chopped cabbage.

This reminds me of a dish that my late mother, the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants, used to make. Pasta (elbow macaroni or shells) with sauteed onions and cottage cheese. I think I will make it with the sauteed mushrooms, mixed in, not pureed.

Having read all the commentary about ‘unappealing presentation” I reserved 1/3 of the mushroom mixture from the blender & added it at the end for texture/ presentation. Looked AND tasted great!

My mother made this regularly when we were growing up. Add a big glug of sherry to make it particularly yummy. I think her version also had a little bit of sour cream. So yummy and delicious

Versions of a puréed mushroom sauce turn up every fall in Italian kitchens, often with fresh porcinis when they hit the markets. The pasta shown is a caserecce from Sicily or around Naples. We would use homemade goat’s milk ricotta, not cottage cheese.

This was easy and incredibly delicious (unanimous verdict of 2 adults and 2 kids - one of whom “doesn’t like mushrooms”). But the critiques here of the look of the dish are valid - it’s pasta swimming in a brown/purple sauce. Next time I will: 1. use less water to purée the tomatoes, 2. reserve some intact cooked mushrooms and stir them in at the end, and 3. serve with bread to mop up what will still probably be too much (delicious!) sauce.

Made this with a few tweaks and it was incredible. I cooked the mushrooms dry for the first several minutes before adding in the olive oil and onions. I also added in the red pepper flakes at the same time I added the garlic. When it came time to purée the mixture, I only added a few splashes of the pasta cooking water. Once I’d returned the pasta and the purée back to the pot I continued adding pasta water until it reached the consistency I wanted (ended up using just over a cup in total).

I followed these directions carefully. It is not, IMO an easy or simple side. Lots of dirty dishes; 2 pots, various bowls, knives, cutting boards and blender. The finished dish tasted OK, but looked awful. If I close my eyes, I can eat it. I’d hate to waste all those mushrooms!

I would use ricotta cheese instead of cottage cheese

The food stylist did a fantastic job on the picture. The problem is, mine did not look like this at all. It basically looked like the previous comments. There was an abundance of grey sauce, not very velvety and, unfortunately, little flavor.

The sauce is grey and gritty, not smooth. We added some fresh chopped tomatoes and sprinkled some Parmigiano Reggiano cheese along with the red pepper flakes. It make it much better the second time around. But probably won’t be a third time.

If you can get past the arguably unappealing color, this is delicious. I used an immersion blender to blend the mushrooms, pasta water and cottage cheese together which helped limit cleanup and left some texture in the mushrooms.

Two big thumbs up to the previous commenter who suggested adding the cottage cheese to the mushroom mix in the blender/food processor. I blended the mushrooms into a near pate-texture, then added the cottage cheese and blended for a short time, and then added pasta water only until I got the sauciness I was looking for. Nothing can change the color of the sauce, but if you're blending mushrooms, onions, and cottage cheese there's only one color that's really going to turn.

Although my husband liked it I found it both lacking in taste and having too much garlic. I only used 4 cloves but still woke up the next day tasting garlic. I don't use much salt in my cooking - maybe better if salted more?

I made this for dinner tonight and I'm afraid I can't recommend it; we'll be composting the leftovers. If you do choose to make it, I would recommend cutting the amount of sauce by half -- the pasta was swimming in it, which was unappealing -- and perhaps adding a contrasting flavor, like sundried tomatoes or olives. As is, it struck me as quite bland.

Nice and easy. Good flavor - especially when I added some dried porcini to the mushroom mix. I understand why the lemon juice is there - to cut the richness of the sauce. But the lemon flavor was too strong and out of place. Maybe a splash of sherry vinegar? Or balsamic?

A trick I learned from Weight Watchers ages ago is to blend the cottage cheese with a bit of milk. It makes is smoother. Toss with the pasta and put the cooked 'shrooms on top with plenty of Parmesan or Romano.

Even with the lemon and red pepper this was bland and unappealing.

Somewhat tasty but certainly too unappetizing to be worth it. The finished product looked nothing like the photo. It was a bowl of brown pasta soup. Definitely a skip unless you tweak the recipe substantially.

I should have read the comments about this dish first. I think this would be quite tasty, if you avoid putting the mushrooms in the blender. And bonus -- it will be less dishes. The kids saw the sauce and flat out refused to eat it. 😬

How about whizzing the cottage cheese and only then adding it to the pan with the mushroom mixture???

Grey gruel is soooo off-putting!Skip the puree step! Add a knob of butter to the mushrooms for unctuousness and silkiness. Then, add to the pasta, along with the cottage cheese and red pepper flakes and toss together.Or, you could add the red pepper flakes to the mushrooms along with the garlic. Just be aware of the heat level.You'll end up with a great bowl of pasta.

added lemon juice to the sauce instead of pasta water— about 1/4 of a lemon. lifts it nicely, otherwise i can see where it could be bland. could absolutely add in other flavors, or even just go heavy on mushrooms with several varieties, to get some additional flavor. don’t skimp on the s&p. looks like boogers but tastes pretty good!

As noted, did not puree mushroom mixture. Rather used an immersion blender with some pasta water and the cottage cheese for a chunky sauce. Added a hit of Herbes de Provence & fresh spinach for color (and it needed to be used). Big kids and grown ups all loved it.

My instincts told me not to blitz the beautifully sautéed mushrooms into an unappealing grey gruel, but I trusted Hetty McKinnon. What a mistake. The purée was visually off-putting and the bland, grainy flavor added insult to injury. I’m stunned that this recipe wasn’t vetted more carefully.

After reading the notes, I decided to modify the recipe a bit, and I really liked what I ended up with! I blended the cottage cheese along with the mushrooms and I got a really nice thick and creamy sauce. I only blended around 2/3 of the mushrooms and then mixed the rest in at the end to have some texture variation. I also added a splash of soy sauce to the sauce to bring out the umami flavor of the mushrooms. Delicious and easy!