There is a edible mushroom in the forest that has a meaty texture similar to chicken. The mushroom is known as Chicken of the Woods ( Laetiporus sulphureus ) and is prized among mushroom hunters. Chicken of the Woods are similiar to Lobster Mushrooms and Beefsteak Fungus because they mimic animal products.

Chicken of the Woods Lifecycle

Young Chicken of the Woods Nodes

The common chicken of the woods starts growing as yellow and orange nodes on hardwood trees and logs. This species of chicken mushroom is most common on oak trees, but it also fruits on a variety of dead hardwood trees as well.

Young Chicken of the Woods Fingers

At the next stage, chicken of the woods the nodes start to form little chicken fingers the mushrooms can be harvested at the stage but it's best to be patient and wait till these mushrooms flesh out and get a lot bigger.

Mature Chicken of the Woods Mushrooms

Mature chicken of the woods will form these large often multi-layered shelves they will be easily identified by the bright orange exterior and the yellow underside. These mushrooms are polypores and they'll have small barely visible pores instead of gills. It's best to harvest early at this stage. As the mushroom gets older, it'll start to lose its color and get tougher and chewier.

How to harvest Chicken of the Woods mushrooms

Cutting Chicken of the Woods with a Knife

When harvesting these mushrooms, it's easiest to use a big knife because that'll allow for more precision and ease when cutting through the mushroom. You can also harvest with your hands and a smaller knife as well, if that's all you have to carry all the mushrooms out of the forest. I use my big pack for backpacking as well as two foraging sacks from barebones living. Each sack fit roughly eight pounds of chicken in the woods and one of them has like a mesh bottom as well. While i harvested a ton of mushrooms, I also left a lot behind for them to spore out and complete their life cycle.

White Pored Chicken of the Woods

White Pored Chicken of the Woods

Another variety of chicken of the woods you may find is white poured sulfur shelf Laetiporus cincinnatus. This variety is a little bit less common than yellow poured chicken of the woods. this variation obviously has a white poured underside rather than a yellow poured underside the white poured sulfur shelf is a little bit more of a peach color than a bright orange it also forms the base of hardwood trees rather than on the tree itself like a shelf mushroom. This mushroom often forms in a circular pattern.

Poisonous Look a likes to Chicken of the Woods

Chicken of the Woods are one of the foolproof four, meaning they have no true look-a-likes. However, there are a few mushrooms that can be mistaken for Chicken of the Woods from a distance.

Toxic Fungi: Jack o'Lantern

James Mahan holding a Jack o’lantern Mushroom

These poisonous mushrooms are known as jack-o-lanterns for their bioluminescent properties. These toxic fungi grow at the base of stumps roots and trees these mushrooms have true gills and this mushroom also glows in the dark which is really cool these mushrooms are poisonous to eat, but you can touch them if you want to.

Mystery Mushroom: Hapalopilus croceus

Hapalopilus croceus

When I first came across this orange mushroom, I had no idea what it was! Not much is known or writen about it; it doesn't even have a common name. It is referred to only by it's Latin name Hapalopilus croceus. This bright orange blob forms on hardwood trees and resembles the nickelodeon logo. As it matures, it becomes dark orange to brownish color. The edibility of this mushroom is unknown; potentially deadly poisonous.

Berkeley's Polypore - a (barely) edible look-a-like

Berkeley’s Polypore mushroom Bondarzewia berkeleyi

Berkeley's polypore Bondarzewia berkeleyi is another mushroom that looks similar to chicken of the woods. I often confuse Berkeley’s Polypore with Chicken of the Woods from a distance, but once you get up close you can easily tell them apart. This mushroom is off-white to tan in color and forms these big rosettes at the base of hardwood trees. These mushrooms are edible when young but get very chewy as they get older.

Chicken of the Woods Recipes!

Chicken of the woods are of the best wild edible mushrooms and have a texture similar to chicken meat. I enjoy these mushrooms best when they're cooked in a sauce they're very porous and they tend to soak up any flavor they're cooked in. Barbecue chicken of the woods pizza is one of my favorite ways to prepare it.

These bright blue mushrooms look like something from the smurfs! They're known as indigo milk cap (Lactarius indigo) and they have some of those vibrant blue color you can find in the forest. This bright blue pigment is rare in the forest, so this deep indigo blue mushroom really stands out! The mushrooms aren’t super common, but they have a wide range. These mushrooms are also edible and have a similar texture to portobello mushroom.

Where Can you find Lactarius indigo?

These mushrooms can be found in the late summer and early fall. These wild mushrooms are found in both hardwood or conifer forests in Eastern North America. The trees that are associated with these mushrooms are oak, beech and pine trees. While indigo milk cap has a dazzling color on the underside, it can be tricky to spot in the forest. Sometimes the top of the mushroom is a much lighter pale blue color, they're often covered in leaf litter and pine needles. When they emerge from the ground, this can give them a surprisingly good camouflage for such colorful mushrooms.

Indigo Milk Cap Lifecycle

Indigo milk caps start out their life cycle as a flat round cap with thick edges. The smaller indigo milk cap will be grayish blue to deep blue in color. As the fungi matures, it'll form a vase shape with thin edges on the underside. It has distinctive blue gills that exudes dark blue milk whenever they're cut or bruised. This milky sap is said to make a great blue dye. The old indigo milk cap mushroom's blue color disappears and slowly turns green over time

Perfect Indigo Milk Cap Specimen

Are blue milk caps edible?

Indigo milk caps are edible and have a similar taste to other milk caps like leather backs. Strangely enough, these mushrooms also have a very interesting fruity pebble smell to them. They are very interesting because they change the color of all the food you cook with it. They are beautiful, but not considered a choice edible. They're not as tasty as other late summer mushrooms like chanterelles, but they are enjoyable to eat.

Indigo Milk Cap Look-a-likes

Indigo milk cap is a pretty distinctive and unique mushroom, but there are a few other mushrooms that you could misidentify for this one. There's another blue milk cap called the celadine milk cap and this one has a slight blue color on the top, but if you flip it over it has orange gills on the bottom. There are also some Cortinarius species that have a blue color and looks similar to milk cap, but they don't exude the milky sap. These are multiple poisonous mushrooms in the Cortinarius genus., be careful! Blewit mushrooms also have a similar structure to indigo milk cap, but they have a purplish color rather than a blue color.

Indigo Milk Cap Recipes

Indigo Blues aren't my favorite mushrooms to eat, but their color does make the experience more exciting. Their dark blue dye stains everything that's cooked with it a greenish blue color. So you could recreate "Green Eggs and Ham" by cooking Indigo Milk Caps with Eggs and Canadian Bacon. People also like to bread and deep fry these mushrooms.