Want to impress your friends with your chef’s skill? Mussels can add restaurant flare to your table, and they are pretty easy to cook. You just need to decide what kind of sauce you want on them.
Why Mussels?
There are many advantages to mussels. First, they are widely available in stores and restaurants and inexpensive if you make them yourself. Second, are the perfect option for the last moment guests because it takes only around 15-20 minutes from start to finish. Lastly, they can serve as an appetizer or as a main course.
Mussels Cooking Basics
Obviously, mussels taste the best when they are fresh. Not everyone lives on the coast where you can gather them, but we’re lucky, and mussels are plentiful on the Pacific Coast. You just have to brave the ice-cold ocean while harvesting.
On our last trip to the coast, we did exactly that. We harvested a few dozen mussels and cooked them with garlic, parsley, broth or stock, olive oil, a little bit of white wine.
There are just a few things to remember while you cook them. You need a large pan to make sure mussels are not overcrowded to allow mussels to cook evenly in a liquid. So how do you know when they are ready? It takes around five minutes or so. As they cook, the shells open up. There are always a few that don’t open. Don’t wait for them because you may overcook the mussels, and they’ll get rubbery. Don’t eat closed mussels even in a restaurant. Those are bad.
You can combine mussels with many things. If you serve them with baguette, it’s an appetizer. If you bulk up the sauce with a can of tomatoes, you can turn it into the main course by serving mussels over pasta. It’s hard to beat a fresh baguette soaked in the juicy mussel goodness, though.
Pairing Mussels and Wine
So what kind of wine can you pair mussels with? Your choice will depend on how you cooked mussels.
If you added wine to the sauce, mussels would pair best with the same wine. That’s why chefs always say when you cook with wine, use the wine you want to drink. We followed the recipe for mussels, garlic, and parsley and paired our dish with 2018 Terlan Pinot Grigio Alto Adige DOC.
We thought this Pinot Grigio might be a great pairing with mussels when we tried it at our Northern Italy White Wine Tasting. We picked a bottle for this recipe afterward. Come to think of it, all the wines from that line up would pair well with mussels.
Asian-style mussels need an off-dry wine to balance the heat. 2016 Hyland Old Vine Riesling from Willamette Valley of Oregon or 2013 Nikolaihof Wachau Guts Riesling can withstand the heat and send your tastebuds on a hedonistic journey.
If tomatoes are part of the sauce, you can go with fruity red wines to compliment mussels and tomatoes’ sweetness.
2015 Sattler St. Laurent, 2015 Sattler Zweigelt from our Austrian Wine Tasting are fruity and light enough to compliment mussels.
Rosé wines are another option that we believe is often overlooked as a pairing for mussels. Rosé comes in many styles, and we tasted lots of them for our Summer Rose Wine challenge.
2019 Piano Rosato is a dry, light, fruity, and inexpensive option for the first recipe. 2019 Bougrier Rosé d’Anjou has enough sweetness to balance the heat of Asian-style mussels. And 2019 Chateau de Ségriès Tavel Rosé is bold enough to compliment stuffed mussels with tomato sauce.
Another advantage of Rosé wines is that you can have it with mussels as an appetizer and steak for the main course.
Finally, have you ever tried muscles with bubbles?
As long as your mussels are not too garlicky, the 2015 Roco RMS from Oregon will be a delightful pairing.
Try spicy mussels with 2018 Casa Sant’ Orsola Prosecco. Both bubbles and off-dry notes help with the heat and compliment the spices.
And for tomato-based mussels sauce, Luc Belair Rare Rosé Sparkling from southeastern France can be a fantastic companion.
Do you have other suggestions or interesting wine and mussels pairings?
We look forward to your mussels and wine stories.