How do you know when mushrooms go bad?

[SweetTooth]

I have some button (white) mushrooms, sliced portabellas and crimini's (sp) in my frig that I bought a couple of weeks ago. They are all still in their container they came home from the store in (covered with cellophane). I have had a busy couple of weeks and just have not used them.

Any ideas on how to know if they are still good?

thanks!

[Gilgamesh37]

my experience is when they go bad, they'll go slimy--sometimes they get brown spots on them (and sometimes I'll still use them that way, as long as they're slime-free). If you take off the cellophane, it should be pretty obvious whether they're still useable.

[Luiza]

If they are bad they are soft, slimy as mentioned, and if you cut one in half it would look brownish and spongy, not white and dense. In my experience, mushrooms are good for about a week, maybe two weeks if they were fresh and you stored them in the fridge and not the veggie crisper (they don't like much humidity).

To cover all the bases, I should mention the question I got once from my BIL (who was trying to learn to cook at the time), whether the mushrooms he bought for a dish a month ago and then left unwrapped in the fridge were still good: "They are crinkly and kinda hard, are they OK to eat?" The answer is no Honestly, I don't know what caused them to turn like that, maybe the lack of cellophane wrapping, but apparently it happens.

[RunnerKim]

If you keep mushrooms in a brown paper bag (which is how my store sells the loose/bulk ones) then they're more likely to dry out than go slimy. I've used some rather dried out ones before - I don't think they're bad/will harm you - they're just tougher and well dried out. Ones wrapped in plastic that traps the moisture will slime and you'll have no question they're bad and gross.

Kim

[LonghornGal]

They start hanging out on street corners smoking cigarettes and packing heat.

Sorry, couldn't resist!

--Kristin

[swquilts]

They start hanging out on street corners smoking cigarettes and packing heat.

*snort!!*

[Middydd]

I agree that slimy equals bad. They usually go like that when stored in cellophane.

I used some brown ones tonight in a pasta sauce (pancetta, onions, mushrooms, peas and cream) that were getting wrinkly and dry looking. They plumped back up in the sauce. I figured they were just on their way to becoming the expensive dried ones you see in little bags and jars.