This easy mushroom pasta with garlic sauce is sure to be a hit. Creamy garlic parmesan sauce and sautéed mushrooms make this a filling and delicious weeknight recipe.
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This pasta with garlic sauce is sooooo yummy.
Longtime Life As A Strawberry readers (hiiiiii, I heart you!) might actually recognize this as one of the OG LAAS recipes from back in the day.
This easy mushroom pasta with garlic sauce was first posted just five months into the life of this website, back when I had no idea what I was doing (still don’t, let’s be real) and no inkling that this delightful little corner of the internet would someday be a major piece of my full-time self-employed life.
Ahhhhh, memories.
I’m bringing this sauce back today because 1) it is BONKERS EASY and 2) it is BONKERS DELICIOUS and 3) the old pictures were BONKERS TERRIBLE so I gave them a lil’ facelift.
I serve this creamy mushroom garlic sauce over a pile of spaghetti, but it’s also tasty with chicken, pizza, or any other place you might use a simple white sauce.
It’s also FAST, which means YAY, because we all have better things to do than stand over the stove all day, right?
Creamy Mushroom Pasta with Garlic Sauce

A quick and easy mushroom pasta with garlic sauce.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: Serves 6
Ingredients
- 3/4 lb. – 1 lb. spaghetti (see recipe notes)
- 2 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
- 8 oz. baby portobello mushrooms, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 4 large green onions, chopped
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 Tbsp. flour
- 1.5 cups milk
- 2/3 cup shredded parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup fresh parsley, chopped, plus extra for garnish
Instructions
- Cook pasta in very salty water according to recipe or package directions. Make the sauce while the pasta cooks.
- In a large saucepan, heat olive oil over medium heat.
- Add mushrooms to oil and sauté until mushrooms have reduced in size, about 4 minutes. If the mushrooms soak up all the olive oil, add another teaspoon.
- Add garlic, green onions, salt and pepper to mushrooms and stir to combine. Cook until garlic is fragrant and mushrooms have released some additional liquid, about one minute.
- Add flour to saucepan and stir to incorporate all ingredients. Let cook for 30 seconds or so.
- Add 1/2 cup of the milk and stir to break up any lumps of the mushroom and flour mixture. The milk will thicken fairly quickly; that’s okay. Add the remainder of the milk and stir to incorporate all ingredients.
- Bring sauce to a simmer and cook until milk has thickened, about 5 minutes.
- Remove sauce from heat and stir in parmesan cheese. If you can, shred your own cheese – pre-shredded cheese has additives in it that make it more difficult for the cheese to melt smoothly. Stir in the chopped parsley.
- Garnish with extra parsley and serve immediately.
Notes
If you’re serving this recipe over pasta, use 3/4 lb. pasta if you like things a little saucier, or use up to 1 lb. pasta for a lighter coating of sauce. You can also lighten the pasta version of this dish up by using zucchini noodles in place of pasta!
If you are a strict vegetarian (or if you’re cooking for one!) make this dish vegetarian by using a vegetarian (rennet-free) parmesan cheese.
Use shallots or white onions in place of the green onions for a stronger taste.
Add chicken, shrimp, salmon, or sausage to this pasta for additional protein.
Add any veggies you have on hand to make this a little heartier! I like peas, broccoli, asparagus, bell peppers, spinach, and arugula as mix-ins.
I serve this sauce over pasta, but it’s also good as pizza sauce or atop grilled chicken.
Nutrition
- Calories: 416
Made it for supper. Added cut up left-over cooked chicken breasts browned a bit. We all loved everything about this dish.
Going to make a double batch next time that I’m in the mood to do some in-advance cooking, and I’ll split into two half portions for freezing. This will cut the time in half the next time I want to prepare this delicious pasta recipe for supper.. or to take to a friend’s home.
★★★★★
I’m so happy you liked it, Jacquie! Thanks for letting me know how it turned out!
Is there a reason behind adding the mushrooms first and then the garlic and onions? Usually, onions and garlic are softened and then mushrooms are added..like in this recipe of yours:
http://www.lifeasastrawberry.com/creamy-mushroom-pasta/
Just mixing it up a bit! You can certainly add them in another order if you like.
i tried this recipe twice and tweaked it a bit the 2nd time. it was amazing both times especially for an amateur like me:)
I’m so glad you liked it, Zahra!
Delicious thank you
★★★★★
Fabulous
★★★★★
This is such an easy and yum recipe! One of our go-tos. We find the balance of pasta to mushrooms is a bit off though, so usually add an extra couple handfuls of mushrooms 🙂
★★★★
Thanks Jessie.
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. We are vegan so I replaced milk with almond milk and skipped the cheese part. Also, used wholewheat flour instead of plain flour. Turned out really nice. My 5 year old loved it.
I’m so happy you liked it, Simmi! Thanks for letting me know how it turned out!
So easy and yummy. Love the mushrooms and parsley together. I used shallots and sautéed it all in butter and olive oil and used Hal & half instead of milk. Served it on top of farfalle (bow tie) pasta. Thank you.
★★★
I was trying to give you five stars now the review above! Must have messed up as only three are showing up. Loved that recipe. XO
★★★★★
Thanks, Anne! 🙂
So happy you liked it, Anne! Thanks for letting me know how it turned out!
Do you think heavy cream would be good instead of milk?
Heavy cream will make the sauce considerably richer, and it will also thicken a bit more (but you can adjust the flour to counteract this). If that’s your style, go for it!
Sounds good. Can I make the sauce ahead of time, and reheat to put over pasta? Or does it curdle?
You can definitely make it ahead of time – it doesn’t separate too much on reheating (if it starts to come apart at all, just stir in a splash of milk to bring it back together).
Superb…i made it…thankyou jessie…
★★★★★
Made this for dinner tonight. The whole family loved it. I added
spinach and sweet onion along with the green onion and also
added chicken. Added more milk so that it would go farther as
all were very hungry. It was delicious and will be making it again.
Thank you for sharing.
I’m so happy you liked it, Pat! I LOVE the spinach and onion additions. Thanks for letting me know how it turned out!
We love it. Thank you.
★★★★★
This looks delicious!
Does the carb count include the pasta?
It does!
Used cheddar instead of parm and it still came out rlly rlly good
I’m so glad you liked it!
Just cooked this for the family loved every bite.
Only thing i would change its a little more milk to thin the sauce but otherwise spot on thanx 👍🏻
★★★★
So happy you liked it, Adam!
Two thumbs up from the whole family, including my 4 year old! I did substitute penne pasta as my kiddos love to get spaghetti everywhere. Also added real butter & topped w fresh leeks from our garden. This was amazing & I plan on checking out more of your recipes soon!
★★★★★
I’m so happy you guys liked it! I love the idea of adding leeks – yum. Thanks for letting me know how it turned out!
Hi,
Question: if you use this sauce for pizza, what other thing you put on it?
Thanks
If I use this sauce as a base for pizza, I usually use toppings like mozzarella cheese, spinach or arugula, maybe some grilled chicken or sausage, and any veggies I have on hand. Hope that helps!
Made this tonight for dinner! It was delicious!!! Thanks so much!
I’m so happy you liked it, Kristen! Thanks for letting me know how it turned out!
Parmesan cheese isn’t vegiterian! it has rennet in it.
EU parmigiano reggiano does include rennet, yes. Strict vegetarians can opt for non-imported options like this one from BelGioioso. Hope that helps!
Is there any difference if change the milk to heavy cream?
The sauce will be much thicker and richer if you use heavy cream, so you may have to make other adjustments to the recipe (like less roux, a shorter cook time, or additional liquid) if you choose to make that substitution in order to achieve the same consistency.
Great recipe! This will be added to the dinner rotation. We added some leftover rotisserie chicken at the end and subbed in some shredded “tasty” cheese for the parmesan.
I’m so glad you liked it! Thanks for letting me know how it turned out! 🙂
The Recipe does not list mushrooms as an ingredient… how many do you use?
It’s showing up fine for me but I’ll reload the recipe on my end and see if that fixes it for you! I use 8oz. of mushrooms in the sauce. Happy cooking!
I search the internet for a recipe for mushrooms/pasta and ran across this. I made it today and it was delish! I used minced garlic from a jar and used Kraft parmesan cheese since I didn’t have any fresh cheese and it worked! Thank you for this recipe.
I’m so glad you liked it – thanks for letting me know how it turned out!
Why is there no actual list of ingredients. It lists a pound of pasta twice, but what about the milk, flour, etcetera?
It looks like there was a glitch in the recipe card (I use a third party service to format the recipes on the site) – I reloaded it from my end and it should be back to normal now! Thanks for letting me know it wasn’t behaving!
YOU CAN USE THE SALTED PASTA WATER INSTEAD OF MILK AND FLOUR
JUST TAKE SEVERAL SCOOPS FROM THE COOKING PASTA AND LET IT COOK WITH THE GARLIC AND MUSHROOMS IT WILL BE CREAMY ON PASTA YOU CAN
ADD AS MUCH OR LITTLE WATER FOR CREAMYNESS -SAVES CALORIES TOO
I USE THIS METHOD WHEN MAKING PASTA ALOI
Did this recipe change? I’ve made it a few times, and thought it used dill (the pic still shows dill).
Nope, it’s always called for parsley! That’s actually parsley in the photo, too – I just chopped it up finely so it looks a bit smaller than normal 🙂 Dill would be great in this recipe, though!
So Would tarragon…
Absolutely!
Hi i would like to if i can use shredded chiken breast becauase my grand father likes pasta but cant eat the pieces of it if i dont shred the chiken
You can certainly add shredded chicken to this recipe!
Just made this today, “YUM YUM”
I’m so glad you liked it! Thanks for letting me know!
Awesome and simple with even better flavour thanks
I made this dish – was so amazing!! 🙂 I’m drooling looking at the pics again, lol.
http://dinneroftheday.tumblr.com/post/90801396446/easy-creamy-mushroom-spaghetti-recipe-i-love-a
I’m so happy you liked it! Thanks for letting me know and for sharing the pics (and double thanks for putting the recipe in your own words when sharing – you’d be surprised how many people just flat-out steal blog content! I appreciate the adaptation and the credit in your post!)
Yum
This is amazing AND kid friendly! Even my picky 3 year old ate it. I made a few modifications as I had guests coming over, I used just a little bit of butter and a little half and half for extra creaminess.
Thanks for sharing!
I’m glad you liked it! Thanks for letting me know!
I was a bit skeptical with regard to the amount of onions! lol! but it’s amazing how cheese makes everything tastes great! 🙂
Thanks for the recipe 🙂
I’m glad you liked it! Thanks!
Thank you very much for this recipe.
I was mainly interested what to do with my left over beef roast, but wanted to try something different. It turned out really tasty (with mashed potatoes on the side to boot. And it looked appetising. Who knew?!)
:-
I’m glad you liked it! I haven’t had this sauce with beef roast yet – I’ll have to give it a try!
Hi there. Do you think this sauce would freeze/refrigerate well. I want to use up some mushrooms and milk I have. Thanks.
Definitely! I freeze sauce like this all the time. The trick is to reheat it in a saucepan over low heat rather than blasting it in the microwave so that the sauce doesn’t separate.
Have you tried freezing it already mixed in with pasta, like a casserole? I’m thinking about making this with some chicken and doing doubles to freeze.
I’ve frozen chicken lasagna with this sauce and it turned out great!
Thank you for this recipe. I made it, it was amazing. I just used white onion instead of green onion. I’ve never cooked such yummy mushroom sauce. I’m glad that I found your blog! I’ll repeat this sauce many times!
I’m glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for letting me know!
Hmmmm… gonna give this sauce a go for my steak, no cream in the house!
Turned out pretty good, definitely adding it to my list of things I can cook. Nice blog!
I’m glad you liked it! Thanks for letting me know how it turned out 🙂
It’s so nice making it with the flour & milk instead of cream – doesn’t sit as heavy. I put about 1/2 glass of white wine in there too and it was great – thanks
Thanks for letting me know how it turned out! I love love love adding wine to this sauce 🙂
LOVE your recipes! So excited to try them!
That pasta looks wonderful! Garlic and mushrooms are two of my favorite foods. It’s great your dad is supportive. I feel the same way about mine. It’s so important to have a great dad, and tell them they are great 🙂
I agree! Great dads are the greatest.