ONETANG Shiitake Mushroom, Dried Slice, Quick Rehydration, Soft Texture, Fresh Flavor, Stemless, Vacuum Sealed, Vegan, No Fumigation Sulfur, 8 Oz

Once reconstituted, you would never guess you're eating a dried product. My grocery sells fresh shiitake mushrooms, but I have never been tempted to buy them. For one thing, they are quite a bit more expensive, and I am completely satisfied with dried shiitake.

Thank you, Amazon for carrying these wonderful dried shitakes. I have been purchasing smaller-sized packages of these from an Asian grocery store that requires an 80-mile round trip up and down a mountain from a rural area to a metro. Even with my fuel-efficient subcompact, it is an expense of time and money. These ship from Amazon Prime in two days and although nearly the same cost as the one I get in stores, these come out to be much more reasonable due to fuel prices, depreciation on my vehicle, my time, and the potential of getting into a car accident in a metro area (stressful). I would suggest rinsing these first in warm water to remove any sulfites (even if they say they don't use it) and to do a pre-softening which will allow you to cut off the stem remnants that tend to be rubbery. The actual soak time after that is about 10 to 20 minutes in boiling hot water. I usually add other dried shrooms and some dried bouillon powder to create a savory mushroom broth that I drain off. To me, shitakes rehydrate better than other mushrooms such as portobellos, chanterelles, boletes, and morels, which tend to have grit. These shrooms are clean, with no grit, and thin sliced for quick hydration. Additional comments one week later: If you pull out the quantity of shrooms from the bag, put them into a wire colander and rinse in warm water for about a minute, flipping them over and then letting them sit for a minute or two, they should be soft enough to cut off the stem. I think of the stem as "the foot", kind of like the rubbery foot on oysters. Once the stems are off then put them in boiling water to do the actual soak. The new soaking water can be used as broth as you have already washed the shrooms. A sharp micro-serrated blade works well in cutting these. I hope this helps in your enjoyment of this fine item.

I recently became physically unable to leave my apartment for awhile. I’ve been having cravings for miso soup, and decided to order the ingredients to make it. I ordered these dried shiitake mushrooms, as I love them in miso soup. The first thing that struck me when I saw the package was- holy cats! 16 ounces of dried shiitake mushrooms is a LOT of mushrooms! The package measures 10 1/2” wide by 14” high, and is about 2” thick across the middle. It’s huge! Initially, inspired I think by this new bounty of shiitakes, I portioned out way too many chunks of mushrooms to use in my first bowl of miso soup. When they expanded, they ended up being far too much mushroom in the soup for my taste. But that was fine: it demonstrated how nice and plump they get when they rehydrate, and also made me realize I won’t be running out of dried shiitake mushrooms until April of 2030- or thereabouts. There are instructions in English on the back, which is nice: “Whole dried shiitake soaking before cooking takes much long time. For the convenience of family use, we sliced the whole dried mushroom to 0.3cm thickness pieces, the pretreatment time is therefore shorten to 10-15 minutes. We are strict in selecting raw material for Onetang Shiitake Mushroom Slice, only the healthy mushrooms with 3cm + diameter from Suizhou, one of the best origin in China, are taken into processing.” It says each piece, or slice, of mushroom is 15 calories. They have 3 grams or 1% of daily carbohydrates, and 0.5mg or 4% of iron. I ordered the mushrooms on December 29th, 2023; the freshness date indicated on the bag is “JUL/11/2025.” As I associate shiitakes with Japan, I was surprised to see the mushrooms were from China. But this is due to me missing this in the description: the manufacturer on Amazon is listed as the "Hong Kong Sungiven International Food Co., Limited.” So that was disclosed- I just missed it. There are also two import companies listed on the label- one is in New Jersey, the other in California. Regardless- the mushrooms, I thought, were very good. Delicious, even. As other reviewers have mentioned, they have a distinct flavor that is sort of nutty and earthy. If you have never tried shiitakes, they have a more concentrated mushroom flavor than the milder white mushrooms at the local supermarket. I worked in a nouvelle cuisine restaurant in the mid 80s, and we got in flats of shiitakes daily. I developed a taste for them. When I first tried them (I was very young when I started working there) I thought they tasted kind of “musty” and weird, but within a couple of days, I really enjoyed them- especially their texture. So while these have been dried, I think the flavor quality of these mushrooms is a good match for the ones we used, and we were located on the West Coast where customers are picky because they are used to the freshest and best of everything. The first time I prepared them for soup, I soaked them in warm water for the label-suggested 15 minutes. They still felt too firm for my taste after the 15 minutes elapsed, so I let them soak a bit longer. After about a half hour, they felt soft enough, and they did not, I was surprised to find, get in the least soggy or spongy. They still retained that wonderful “meaty” shiitake texture. The next time I prepared them, I put them in a glass bowl, poured one and a half cups of boiling water over them, and let them sit for about half an hour while I prepared the other soup ingredients. One and a half cups is the amount of water called for to make a bowl of miso soup, according to the instructions on the miso bottle. The boiling water not only rehydrated the mushrooms much faster, but it extracted a lot more of their flavor. I then used the mushroom liquid to make the soup. I also didn’t like the large size of the mushroom pieces in my smallish bowl of soup, and found out that cracking them into smaller chunks while they were dry was easier and faster than slicing/chopping them after they were rehydrated. And they were really delicious in the miso soup. Sooo good. The liquid they had imparted their flavor to while rehydrating really enhanced the taste of the broth. Yummy! I think these mushrooms would be great on a pizza, or in any other recipe where shiitakes would be called for. I don’t care for raw mushrooms, but I doubt these would work well in a salad, as when reconstituted, they have a distinct “cooked” texture. Of course, everyone has their own preferences. But in stir fry or other recipes, they would be fantastic! And, if you order these, I would purchase the biggest, thickest book of shiitake mushroom recipes you can find- because you will have quite the supply of mushrooms to work with!

I grew shiitake mushrooms for a couple of year, and these dehydrated mushrooms are as close to fresh as you can get once they are hydrated. First of all 8 oz. of dehydrated mushrooms is a lot of mushrooms. Shiitake mushrooms are a very meaty mushroom similar to a portabello mushroom, and are best when cooked. The mushrooms in this package do include the stems in the slices. When growing these mushroom, I always removed the stems as they are very tough. I saved the stems in baggies and froze them to be used to flavor and richness to broths. Since these mushrooms include the stems, it may be best to cut them out after hydration. If you try to cut out the stems while the mushrooms are dry, you will like break them into smaller pieces. As for hydrating these mushrooms, I would recommend soaking them in cool water, after rinsing, for at least 24 hours to get the best flavor. You can hydrate them in hot water for less time, but the flavor and texture won't be quite as good. The soaking water smelled wonderful and good to use as a mushroom broth. It would also add a lot of flavor to broths and gravies. The mushroom broth (soaking water) can be frozen in containers for later use. To use these mushrooms after soaking they should to be cooked either by sautéing them or adding them to a recipe. I used these mushrooms tonight, and sautéed them with onions and portabellas to go with steak. These mushrooms were very similar to the portabellas in flavor and texture. They tasted exactly the same as the fresh shiitake mushrooms I used to grow. I would recommend these mushrooms as long as you dehydrate them long enough and remove the tough stems. I hope this review was helpful for you.

Arrived quickly! These will last me a long time because there are several mushrooms in one pack! I was in a hurry so I rehydrated them in hot water for a few minutes which I heard could reduce the flavor but I needed them immediately so I took the risk. No flavor reduction at all! So yummy and fresh tasting! Perfect addition to my stew! Would definitely buy again but I will not be needing a new bag for a long time!

Great quantity for the price, quality mushrooms. Texture also matched my expectations and was great for ramen

Sadly these are terrible. I was so excited to be able to have mushrooms at any time but these are not for me. They are pretty, lots of them too but the taste is disgusting. They are chewey, and just seem cannot be cooked. I tried several ways to cook them after hydration without any success. If you buy these good luck!

Good quantity with a good taste. Easy to rehydrate - I just put them in a baggie with some water and put in the fridge overnight. In the morning they are ready for my omelet or pizza in the afternoon.

Super tasty mushrooms. They rehydrate really well. Spot on for soups and broths and really handy to have in. Huge bag too. Great value.

I was surprised by the generous amount of mushroom slices in the package. These are very good quality and very delicious! It is convenient to have them already sliced and ready to use once rehydrated. They smell wonderful and taste as delicious as they smell. Excellent product!

These are so delicious!

Quick delivery, excellent quality and fair price

Overpriced but good flavour