Name: Easy Creamy Delicious Lobster Mushroom Bisque Recipe
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 40 min
Ingredients: 2 c fresh lobster mushrooms (coarsely chopped, or 1 cup of dry lobster mushrooms, rehydrated); 2 tbsp olive oil; 1 tsp kosher salt; 1/2 tsp black pepper; 1/2 c shallots (finely chopped); 2 ribs celery (finely chopped -stalks of celery); 2 garlic cloves; 1 tbsp tomato paste; 1 tsp old bay seasoning; 1-2 bay leaves; 1 large sprig of fresh thyme; 2 tbsp all purpose flour; 3 c chicken broth; 1 tbsp brandy (white wine or lemon juice); 1 c heavy cream

Jump to Recipe Print Recipe

Last Updated on October 7, 2024 by Sabrina Currie

Full of earthy, sweet and rich flavors of fall, this easy creamy delicious lobster mushroom bisque recipe is my favorite thing to make after a day of foraging. Made with fresh lobster mushrooms, there are also instructions to make this with dried lobster mushrooms. With just a few easy ingredients, you'll have this great soup recipe on the table in about 30 minutes.

Bowl of smooth creamy soup topped with croutons and snipped chives.

Jump to:

Ingredients
Substitutions and Variations
Fun Fact
More Mushrooms
Step by step instructions
More great soup recipes
📖 Recipe
💬 Community

Late summer and fall in the Pacific Northwest is a beautiful time of year to be out in the forest. Hunting for wild mushrooms is one of my favorite ways to spend a day and after a successful day of mushroom picking, I love a warm bowl of mushroom soup. (You can find my other wild mushroom soup recipe here.)

If you don't pick your own mushrooms, you may have a hard time finding these at the grocery store. Your best bet is to hit up your local farmers market in the fall to load up on various wild mushrooms.

A large lobster mushroom growing in a mossy forest pushing up the ground that was above it.

This mushroom bisque is made like the original recipe for real lobster bisque but the lobster meat and lobster shells are replaced with bright red lobster mushrooms. These crazy looking edible mushrooms have a rich, sweet flavor that is slightly reminiscent of shellfish in a very good way. Like real lobster bisque, a little tomato paste is added for sweetness and brandy adds traditional flavors. With it's bright color and savory flavors, lobster mushroom bisque makes a fabulous fall meal.

I like to serve up a large bowl of lobster bisque with some rustic sourdough bread or easy rosemary no-knead bread and a simple arugula salad or spinach Greek salad for a well rounded meal.

Ingredients

Lobster Mushrooms - A fun and stunning mushroom to find, these cook up firm and tasty with a faint hint of lobster, in butter or olive oil.

Substitutions and Variations

Dried Mushrooms - To make this recipe with dried lobster mushrooms, simply rehydrate them in hot water for 20-30 minutes, drain and reserve their liquid and use them as called for in the recipe. Use strained lobster liquid as part of the broth.
Gluten-Free - Omit the flour and stir one tablespoon of cornstarch into a cup of the stock before adding it to the vegetables. Alternatively, you can add 3 tablespoons of uncooked rice to the broth and increase the simmer time by 5-10 minutes until the rice is fully cooked.
Vegan - Easily make this plant-based recipe vegan by using vegetable stock and vegan nut or coconut cream in place of dairy.
Buttery - Make lobster mushroom bisque even more luxurious for using butter in place of the olive oil.
Acid - I love this recipe with brandy but you can use an equal amount of white wine, dry sherry, or lemon juice if you prefer.
Onions - Onions or the white portion of leeks are an easy substitute for shallots if you don't have these petite alliums.

This soup will keep in the fridge for 4 days and freezes well for up to 3 months.

White bowl of creamy orange soup topped with croutons and chives. Recipe title, lobster mushroom soup, is in large text at the top.

Fun Fact

Lobster mushrooms are created when a beneficial mold, hypomyces lactifluorum, takes over an edible mushroom. In my area, they tend to use russula brevipes as their host mushroom. Lobsters are very distinctive looking with their generally large size and bright color. My daughter recently found the one pictured below which was over 8 inches tall with a stalk diameter of over 2 inches.

Girl holding her hand beside a large bright orange lobster mushroom in a mossy forest

More Mushrooms

Love mushrooms? Check out my favorite recipes and gifts below!

See more Mushroom Recipes →

Opinel Mushroom Knife With Brush Made in France

$25.68

Lightweight, high quality folding foraging knife with a handy bristle brush at the end for cleaning mushrooms. A top pick of professional foragers.

Buy Now

We earn a commission if you make a purchase, at no additional cost to you.

01/18/2026 09:01 am GMT

Step by step instructions

If you're a mushroom lover, there's no better comfort food that a creamy mushroom soup. I've pureed this like a bisque but it's very delicious left chunky too. Or fry up extra mushrooms in step 1, scoop them out after frying and reserve for garnish at the end.

Step 1. Heat a large pot over medium heat and add the olive oil. Once shimmering, add the washed and chopped lobster mushroom pieces and the salt.

Step 2. Stir and fry until the mushrooms have released their liquid and it has reduced to just a little liquid left at the bottom of the pot.

A pot with fried onions, mushrooms and celery with tomato paste and herbs added on top.

Step 3. Add in chopped shallot, celery and minced garlic. Stir and continue to fry until the onion is translucent. Next stir in the tomato paste, Old Bay seasoning if using, thyme and ground pepper.

The pot of vegetables and tomato paste all cooked down together.

Step 4. Cook 3 more minutes.

The pot is off the burner and flour has been added to the mushroom mixture.

Step 5. Remove from heat and stir in the flour.

Broth is in the pot and the color is bright orange.

Step 6. With pot still off the heat, pour in 2 cups of broth and stir well until the flour is dissolved and no clumps remain. Add the rest of the broth and the brandy.

The soup is boiling in the pot and you can see pieces of lobster mushrooms floating in it.

Step 7. Return the pot of soup to medium heat and let it come to a low boil. Let it bubble and cook for 15 minutes. (If it bubbles too hard and might boil over, turn the heat down a bit.)

A stick blender is in the pot of soup and it is frothy, creamy and smooth.

Step 8. Remove the thyme sprigs and bay leaf. Puree the soup with an immersion blender to transfer it carefully to a blender (in 2 batches if needed) and blend until the soup is smooth. Stir the cream into the hot broth and season with additional salt and pepper to taste.