Mushroom bourekas are little flaky phyllo dough pockets, filled with a salty, sweet and earthy vegan mixture of mushrooms and caramelized onions.
Jump to:
- Bourekas make the perfect hangover food
- What is bourekas?
- Ingredients
- Equipment
- How to make classic mushroom borekas
- Storage
- Scaling the Recipe
- Making in Advance
- Adaptations
- Savory vegetarian bourekas filling combinations and variations
- Top Tips
- When to serve Israeli bourekas?
- What to serve with mushroom bourekas?
- You may also like to try...
- Recipe
Bourekas make the perfect hangover food
There is a small corner bakery in the city I grew up in, where everyone goes after a night of drinking.
On any night but Friday (the evening of the holy day of rest, when all religious or kosher establishments must close), men and women of all ages can be seen lounging and laughing around haphazardly spread tables under an outdoors canopy, sharing greasy, carb-heavy treats of flaky dough.
As the smells of baked and fried dough, fragrant sautéing onions, and sweet honey fill the night air, passersby stop in their tracks and approach the glowing counters of Hapina HaChama, or The Sweet Corner, trying to decide what delicacy their alcohol-filled stomachs crave most.
And usually, what they crave is an order of baked bourekas.
What is bourekas?
Whether it is spelled bourekas, borekas or börek, these little hand pies are all very similar.
The Mediterranean delicacy of bourekas are little pockets of dough, usually phyllo (filo dough) or puff pastry, filled with a variety of flavours.
Bourekas is not limited to the Middle East, and its larger cousin the Börek makes frequent appearances on Turkish, Bosnian, Serb and even Armenian tables, where meat varieties often make up a light lunch.
In Israel, the most popular bourekas recipes are cheese bourekas or potato bourekas, though at Hapina HaChama, many go for the combination of eggplant and feta as in the Balkan bourekas, or my personal favourite, the mushroom bourekas. I also love this Bosnian pita recipe, which is a relative of the Ottoman Borek.
Ingredients
- store-bought phyllo dough - any filo dough you like will work here!
- mushrooms - use fresh mushrooms for best results; a mix of baby portobello and white button mushrooms is my favorite. You can also go crazy and experiment with wild mushrooms in the filling for these mushroom bourekas.
- onions - white onions, or a combination of sweet Vidalia onions and red onions will give you my favorite
- margarine - use either margarine, a vegan butter alternative like Earth Balance, or butter, if you’re not vegan or lactose-intolerant
- olive oil
- thyme - you can use dry thyme or fresh thyme, but fresh is better
- salt
- Juice of a lemon - fresh or bottled is all good
See recipe card for exact quantities.
Equipment
How to make classic mushroom borekas
Defrost filo dough
If working with frozen dough, defrost your phyllo dough overnight in the fridge, or leave on the counter for a few hours.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
Make mushroom bourekas filling
Chop onions finely.
Preheat a pan over medium heat. Once pan is hot, add your margarine or vegan butter and oil and let it melt. Add onions to the pan and cook over medium heat for 5-10 minutes, until they are starting to turn translucent. Lower heat to low, and let onions reduce and caramelize for 20 minutes.
Slice mushrooms, taking care to not slice too thinly or too thickly. Chop the larger slices into smaller pieces. You want your mushrooms to retain their meatiness, but also be small enough to fit into phyllo triangles.
Add mushrooms to the pan with the onions, and raise heat to medium. Let cook until mushrooms brown, about 10-15, stirring occasionally.
Add herbs, salt, and lemon, tasting and correcting flavours as necessary. You want the filling to be rich, earthy, sweet and salty, but with a burst of bright acidity that cuts through the meatiness.
Prepare bourekas dough for filling
Prepare your phyllo dough. Cover your work surface with parchment paper. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper, and oil them slightly. If you haven’t done so yet, melt 1 tablespoon of margarine in a small bowl, and dilute it with 1 teaspoon of water.
Carefully spread out one phyllo sheet on your work surface, covering the rest with a towel so they don’t dry out. With a pastry brush, lightly brush your sheet with the melted margarine and water mixture. Cover it in half lengthwise, and dab lightly with the margarine mixture.
Fill mushroom bourekas
To prepare the bourekas, spoon 1 tablespoon of the mushrooms and onion filling at the right end of the strip. Fold the end of the strip diagonally over the filling to form a neat triangle, pushing in the corners to ensure it's nice and snug around the filling.
Continue folding the strip over on top of itself, keeping it in a neat triangle after each fold, until you reach the strip’s end (take care to fold the triangles tightly around the filling, as phyllo dough without filling tends to dry out and crisp in the oven).
If any errant dough remains at the end of your strip, cut it off. Brush your triangle with the margarine-water mixture, and lay out on the parchment paper-covered cookie sheet.
Repeat as necessary, until you run out of dough or filling. Any remaining filling will taste great piled on toast.
Bake bourekas
Bake the pastries for 15-20 minutes, until they are golden brown. Check periodically after 10 minutes to ensure the pastries are not burning.
Storage
These bourekas taste best when eaten fresh, and do not keep well. You can store them in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 days, but they will lose their crispness as they sit.
Heating instructions
Reheat mushroom bourekas in the oven at 350F for 5 minutes. The microwave will make it soggy.
If frozen, bring bourekas to room temperature or defrost them in the fridge overnight before heating in the oven.
Freezer instructions
Mushroom bourekas freeze well - frozen bourekas are sold all the time, and they're fantastic. You can freeze them shaped and raw, and then bake straight from the freezer. Just add about 2-5 minutes to the baking time.
You can also freeze them baked, though this won't be as good. Just make sure to reheat them in the oven and not the microwave for best results.
Scaling the Recipe
This recipe makes approximately 12 vegan bourekas empanadas, each one about the size of your palm.
You can double the dough quantities for more, as there is usually more phyllo dough left in a roll. You can freeze them for later.
Making in Advance
Though bourekas tastes best out of the oven, you can make it ahead of time.
All the fillings can be made a day in advance. Then just fill the bourekas on the day you intend to bake them, and voila!
Adaptations
This mushroom bourekas recipe is already for vegetarian and vegan bourekas (though you can use other mushrooms like lion's mane mushrooms to make the filling even more interesting!)..
Gluten-free
Unfortunately, I haven't yet tried making these bourekas gluten-free - but that's coming! In the meantime, you can use my gluten-free samosas dough. Or you can also buy premade gluten free puff pastry and use that.
Paleo, keto and Whole 30
My best suggestion for keto bourekas would be to use something like cheese wraps or daikon slices for raw bourekas.
Savory vegetarian bourekas filling combinations and variations
You may ask, what else can you use as filling for bourekas? The options are endless
- cheese bourekas - the recipe for this is coming! We use a mix of cheese for best results
- onion and cheese bourekas - try the onion and gouda filling from our Argentinian empanadas.
- sweet potato - we have a recipe for this in our Argentinian vegetarian empanadas recipe
- potato bourekas - another classic
- pumpkin bourekas - use the filling from my pumpkin pirozhki for this
Top Tips
Cool your mushroom filling fully before stuffing our filo pastry.
You can easily make the filling a day in advance of rolling and baking this bourekas recipe.
While working with filo dough, it's really important to keep the rest of the sheets covered with a moist towel or paper towel so they don't dry out. Also, don't skimp on the oil when brushing these before baking.
When to serve Israeli bourekas?
Because these Israeli bourekas are shaped like a triangle, they make a great appetizer for Purim, when traditionally triangle-shaped foods are eaten (like hamantaschen).
They are also great for other Jewish holidays like Rosh Hashana and Hanukkah. Or just make these for Shabbat!
What to serve with mushroom bourekas?
Serve bourekas warm, or hot, or in room temperature, with a light salad or a simple brothy soup.
You may also want to serve bourekas with:
- Garlic hummus
- Lebanese baba ghanoush
- Yemenite schug
- Pico de gallo
- your favourite hot sauce
You may also like to try...
If you love to eat with your hands, give these other vegetarian hand pies frm around the world a try!
- Get Cozy with Baked Russian Vegetarian Pirozhki with three different fillings, the ultimate comfort food
- Cheesy Balkan bourekas with eggplant and tomatoes {VEG}
- Classic mushroom bourekas recipe {Vegan}
- Authentic Colombian Arepas con Queso recipe (Cheese arepas)
- How to make easy gluten free samosas with a sweet & spicy chickpea filling
Recipe
Tried and loved this recipe? Please leave a 5-star review below! Your reviews mean a lot to me, so if you've got any questions, please let me know in a comment.
Mushroom bourekas
Equipment
Ingredients
- ½ a package of store-bought phyllo dough
- 2 pounds mushrooms
- 2 red onions or a combination of sweet and red onions
- 2 Tb of margarine or butter, if you’re not vegan or lactose-intolerant
- 1 Tb of olive oil
- 2 teaspoons dry thyme or 2 Tb fresh thyme (fresh is better)
- ½ teaspoon salt or more, to taste
- Juice of ⅛ of a lemon
- 1 Tb margarine or butter, melted
Instructions
- If working with frozen dough, defrost your phyllo dough overnight in the fridge, or leave on the counter for a few hours.
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Farenheit.
- Chop onions finely.
- Preheat a pan over medium heat. Once pan is hot, add your margarine and oil and let it melt. Add onions to the pan and cook over medium heat for 5-10 minutes, until they are starting to turn translucent. Lower heat to low, and let onions reduce and caramelize for 20 minutes.
- Slice mushrooms, taking care to not slice too thinly or too thickly. Chop the larger slices into smaller pieces. You want your mushrooms to retain their meatiness, but also be small enough to fit into phyllo triangles.
- Add mushrooms to the pan with the onions, and raise heat to medium. Let cook until mushrooms brown, about 10-15, stirring occasionally.
- Add herbs, salt, and lemon, tasting and correcting flavours as necessary. You want the filling to be rich, earthy, sweet and salty, but with a burst of bright acidity that cuts through the meatiness.
- Prepare your phyllo dough. Cover your work surface with parchment paper. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper, and oil them slightly. If you haven’t done so yet, melt 1 tablespoon of margarine in a small bowl, and dilute it with 1 teaspoon of water.
- Carefully spread out one phyllo sheet on your work surface, covering the rest with a towel so they don’t dry out. With a pastry brush, lightly brush your sheet with the melted margarine and water mixture. Cover it in half lengthwise, and dab lightly with the margarine mixture.
- To prepare the bourekas, spoon 1 tablespoon of the mushrooms and onion filling at the right end of the strip. Fold the end of the strip diagonally over the filling to form a neat triangle, pushing in the corners to ensure it's nice and snug around the filling. Continue folding the strip over on top of itself, keeping it in a neat triangle after each fold, until you reach the strip’s end (take care to fold the triangles tightly around the filling, as phyllo dough without filling tends to dry out and crisp in the oven). If any errant dough remains at the end of your strip, cut it off. Brush your triangle with the margarine-water mixture, and lay out on the parchment paper-covered cookie sheet.
- Repeat as necessary, until you run out of dough or filling. Any remaining filling will taste great piled on toast.
- Bake the pastries for 15-20 minutes, until they are golden brown. Check periodically after 10 minutes to ensure the pastries are not burning.
- Serve bourekas warm, or hot, or in room temperature, with a light salad or a simple brothy soup. They taste best when eaten fresh, and do not keep well. Reheat the bourekas only in the oven – the microwave will make it soggy.
M Goodwin says
Richard made some amazing spinach and ricotta borek as with puff pastry. They were incredible and took him all of 25 minutes.
kseniaprints says
Awesome!
Samantha @ Ferraro Kitchen says
I love borekas more than anything!!! I've made eggplant ones and spinach and cheese ones and honestly the fillings are endless! Have you ever used yufka?? its a bit different than phyllo and I was able to find it in Southern Cali but not in Washington (we just moved)....lovely photos too!!
kseniaprints says
I have definitely made bourekas in many fillings - eggplant, tomato and feta (which we call Bulgarian) has to be my favourite. And no, I have never tried yufka - is that Balkan? Turkish? I'd love to give a spin, but I've never even encountered it!