Last Updated on February 28, 2023
Do you know you can make vegan fried chicken with fried oyster mushrooms at home? This recipe is sure to be a hit with plant-based eaters and meat-lovers alike!
These savory, crispy oyster mushrooms are the perfect replacement for chicken in your favorite comfort food recipes.
This recipe is for all the mushroom-lovers out there who also happen to love fried chicken!
These vegan fried oyster mushrooms are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside – just like the real thing. But don’t take our word for it, try them out for yourself!
Do you know you can tailor the spices to your personal liking? So whether you like your fried chicken spicy or mild, this recipe is guaranteed to please.
Crispy and flaky on the outside crust, and tender and juicy on the inside—This oyster mushroom vegan fried chicken is highly addictive!
Fried Oyster Mushrooms (Vegan Fried Chicken)
Deep fried oyster mushrooms are juicy and tender, with a gorgeous golden brown crust. I’m not gonna lie, you won’t believe vegan fried chicken made by mushrooms can be so delicious!
Plus, this delicious vegan fried chicken recipe is made with gluten-free and soy-free ingredients. The oyster mushrooms are dipped in vegan butter milk then breaded in a mixture of spices and fried until golden brown.
Serve with your favorite dipping sauce like vegan spicy mayo for a delicious meal that everyone will enjoy!
Oyster Mushroom Fried Chicken Recipe
We use golden oyster mushrooms as our meat substitute. However, if you want to try out blue oyster mushroom or pink oyster mushroom for this recipe, they will work too.
Oyster mushrooms have a very velvety and juicy texture that makes oyster mushrooms a popular meat replacement among vegans and vegetarians.
(We have an oyster mushroom recipe round up: 38 tasty oyster mushroom recipes to help you incorporate more oyster mushrooms into your diet).
In terms of the cooking process, it is similar to Kentucky/Southern Fried Chicken. Start with dipping oyster mushrooms in our homemade dairy free butter milk, then breading them in rice flour, corn flour, spices with crushed corn flakes (which make our vegan fried chicken extra crispy!)
The end result is absolutely stunning! Even your non-vegan friends will raise their white flags and clamor for more!😆
Fried Mushroom Recipe
- Oyster Mushrooms- You can buy them at a cheaper price from most Asian markets. In terms of the color, golden, pink, or blue oyster mushrooms will all work for this recipe.
How to Make Delicious Vegan Butter Milk
It’s very easy to make your own dairy-free/lactose-free buttermilk at home, simply by adding vinegar or lemon juice to your plant-based milk. It only takes two minutes, and you’re all set!
- Plant-Based Milk – you can use soy, oat, cashew, or almond milk…etc. Most unfavored plant-based milks with high levels of protein are suitable except coconut milk. (coconut milk doesn’t curdle).
- Apple Cider Vinegar – you can also use distilled white vinegar or lemon juice, they all work equally well. It only takes a small amount to curdle and thicken our plant-based milk.
- Vegetable bullion powder or vegan no chicken bullion- to season our vegan butter milk.
Vegan Gluten-Free KFC Coating
- Rice flour+ Corn Flour– this gluten free combination of rice flour and corn flour makes our mushroom batter extra crispy.
- Corn Flakes- unsweetened corn flakes. Put them in a zip lock bag and use a rolling pin or a bottle to slightly crush them into smaller pieces. Corn flakes make the outer crust of fried oyster mushroom extra crispy and flaky.
- To season our batter mix, we can use vegan no chicken bouillon or vegetarian bouillon powder.
- Spices & Herbs- Paprika, mixed herbs, garlic powder, onion powder, ginger powder, ground black pepper.
How to Make Fried Oyster Mushrooms
- In a large mixing bowl, place rice flour, corn flour along with paprika, mixed herbs, garlic powder, onion powder, ground ginger, ground black pepper, and vegetable bouillon powder.
- Seal the zip lock bag with the cornflakes inside. Use a rolling pin or a bottle to slightly crush corn flakes into smaller pieces.
- Add crushed corn flakes to the dry batter mixture and mix everything together. Set aside.
- Place plant-based milk in another large mixing bowl and add apple cider vinegar and vegetable bouillon powder. Mix well then set aside.
- Clean oyster mushrooms if needed (use wet kitchen paper towels to wipe the surface). Separate them individually by hand.
- Heat oil to 370° F /187° C (you can use a deep fryer or in a heavy-bottomed pot). The way to test if the oil is hot enough is when you stick the end of a wooden spoon or chopstick into the oil. If you see many bubbles form around the wood and they start to float up, your oil is ready for frying. If it is bubbling hard, that means the oil is way too hot; turn the heat down and let the temperature drop a bit. Or alternatively, you can use a temperature probe.
- Dip the mushrooms into vegan butter milk and then into the dry batter mixture. Gently press the dry mixture onto the mushrooms to ensure they are coated well. If you’re fast enough, you can drop them into the hot oil one by one while breading them. Alternatively, you can finish the breading before deep frying.
- Do not overcrowd the pot. Cook them in batches, give them room to float around. Deep frying the breaded mushrooms for about 3 minutes until they become golden brown (you can feel the surface become crusty and crunchy when you use a tong to grab them). Remove them with a kitchen tong and place them on kitchen paper towels to absorb the excess oil. Repeat until all the mushrooms are cooked. Serve hot with dipping sauces(vegan mayo, vegan aioli, Lemongrass sauce, or vegan spicy mayo) and enjoy.
Serve hot with dipping sauces like vegan mayo, vegan aioli, Lemongrass sauce, or vegan spicy mayo.
Reader Interactions
Should you wash oyster mushrooms for cooking?
Mushrooms grown for commercial purposes usually grow on wood indoors. They haven’t been in contact with dirt or soil, so they are pretty clean generally.
You can clean each mushroom gently with a damp cloth. Be careful not to waterlogged oyster mushrooms by rinsing them for too long or you will lose their flavor.
Is There A Healthier Alternative?
I received feedback from our readers that they’d like to know if this recipe would work with oven-baked or air-fried?
Unfortunately, you won’t get the crispy texture from cooking in an air fryer or oven. My suggestion is you can try shallow-frying, it will work for this recipe as well.
If you want to use less oil to reduce waste, you can use a small pan and fry them in batches.
Can I reuse the oil?
If you’d like to reuse the oil after the first fry, you have to drain the oil and filter it.
You can do this by draping a few layers of cotton cloth in a metal strainer. This will filter out the crumbs and impurities.
However, for health reasons, I wouldn’t recommend re-using the oil more than once. As each time you reuse an oil, it becomes more destabilized, which is harmful to human health.
In addition, it is inevitable that the frying oil will take on the taste of the food you cook in, especially for this recipe where there are a lot of spices put in.
You can use the filtered oil for the same recipe again and is not suitable for other purposes
Have you tried these vegan fried chicken/fried oyster mushrooms?
Here are more fried vegan food you would like: Puffed Tofu, Vegan Spring Rolls, Vegan fish fingers, Panko Tofu Steak. Let me know how much you like them.😘
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