Culinary Mushrooms Are Having a Moment in Colorado

Thanks to Colorado’s new and growing cohort of healing centers providing psychedelic-assisted therapeutic experiences, magic mushrooms continue to dominate the news cycle. But interest in edible, culinary fungi has also mushroomed.

According to Colorado Mycological Society president Alexis Murray, the club’s ranks swelled from 250 members to 2,000 during the pandemic. Meanwhile, fungi appear on the menus of most of Colorado’s top restaurants, from wild mushrooms in Alma Fonda Fina’s rajas con crema to foraged porcini in Frasca’s summer venison dish.

In 2024, Colorado even became the first state in the nation to officially designate a state mushroom, agaricus Julius, a native, edible woodland species, marking a major milestone in fungal recognition and conservation efforts. “It’s absolutely fair to say that interest in mushrooms is at an all-time high in Colorado,” Murray says. “Our mushroom forays and classes fill up faster than ever, and the excitement around wild edibles like porcini, chanterelles, and morels has become mainstream.”

While you can visit the specialty mushroom vendors at any local farmers’ market to get your lion’s mane and blue oyster fix, more and more Coloradans are hunting for delicious edible fungi in our forests or growing their own in backyards and basements.

Mushroom Foraging 101

There are few gastronomic experiences as satisfying as enjoying dishes made from wild mushrooms you’ve hunted for yourself. But before you go wandering into the woods and harvesting any old mushroom with the intent to consume it, it’s imperative to learn how to identify the choice specimens (savory Rocky Mountain king boletes or porcini, earthy morels and fruity chanterelles, for example) from the gastronomically dangerous and deadly poisonous.
Orion Aon, a Fort Collins-area resident who works full-time for the Colorado State Forest Service, has been helping folks learn how to do just that since starting his localized foraging information platform, Forage Colorado, in 2015. Aon, who boasts nearly 84,000 Instagram followers and more than 57,000 on TikTok, as well as a YouTube channel filled with wild food cooking tips,and an educational website and newsletter, credits the pandemic with the uptick in foraging interest.

“People became more interested in being outside, in sustainability and in food resourcefulness,” he says. “There was also a big social media push of people offering entertaining and informative videos on the topic, me included. That drove a mainstream push on wild foods.”

Last year, in response to increased interest in mushroom foraging, he teamed up with Loveland’s serendipitously named Orion’s Apothecary to offer educational foraging classes. The classroom-based, presentation-style classes are affordably priced at just $30 and designed to give beginners a safe and approachable starting point for learning about Colorado’s most popular edible wild fungi.

“We started the classes in late 2024 and have been doing one a month since then. All of them have sold out,” he says; the next classes are on August 30 and September 21.

As for in-the-field foraging experience, Aon offers private classes on a limited basis for intimate, small groups of five people and under — and his 2025 schedule is already booked out. He recommends joining the Colorado Mycological Society or the Pike’s Peak Mycological Society for guided forays, meetings, educational seminars and more. The memberships are affordable and a great way to meet and learn from fellow fungi nerds, he says.

Home Mushroom Cultivation

If foraging-your-own sounds a little too wild, Orion’s Apothecary also caters to those looking to grow culinary mushrooms at home. Considering that many cultivated mushrooms at the grocery store are imported and tariffs are driving up prices, there’s never been a better time to adopt the hobby. Eric Sudhalter, a former elementary school teacher who founded Orion’s Apothecary in 2019, also reports a significant rise in interest in Coloradans cultivating home crops of oysters and lion’s mane. “I think it comes down to an interest in wellness. People just want to grow something super local for eating at home,” Sudhalter says.
Twice a month, Sudhalter teaches a $5 Intro to Mushrooms class and a $160 Mushroom Growing with Inoculation class. The latter includes a full-flush growing kit, liquid culture syringe, a thermometer and detailed instructions from inoculation to harvest — and it’s incredibly popular. His shop stocks functional mushroom supplements, additional mushroom growing supplies, and educational materials for adults and children alike. Sudhalter has also begun collaborating with the NoCo Myco group to build an even bigger Colorado mycology community, hosting monthly spore swap events at the apothecary.

“Mushrooms are having much more than a moment,” Sudhalter says. “It’s big.”

Orion Aon’s Foraging Tips

#1: Never eat any wild food until you are 100 percent certain of the ID. “This will prevent you from getting sick. I’ve never been poisoned in more than 25 years of foraging for eating the wrong thing.”

#2. Don’t be afraid to pick mushrooms for educational purposes. Mushrooms are the fruiting body of the mycelium, the fungal organism that lives in the soil, so picking won’t deplete the population. “Picking is often required for a full picture of the mushroom,” Aon says.
#3. Walk gently. “Trampling native plants or going off trail in high-traffic areas can damage the native ecosystem.” While you may have to stray off trail on your foray, be mindful about where you step.

#4. Consult a guidebook. While Aon is currently working on his own book, Foraging Colorado, which is slated to publish in 2027, he’s also a contributing author to Falcon Guides’ Foraging Mushrooms of the Rocky Mountains: Finding, Identifying, and Preparing Edible Wild Mushrooms, an excellent, photo-rich tome great for experienced and newbie foragers alike.

#5. Adopt a different mindset and slow down when you’re outdoors. “Oftentimes, people are so focused on getting to the top of a Fourteener, but I’d say just be curious. Engage and interact with the world around you.”

Learn more about Orion Aon's classes here; the Colorado Mycological Society's website is cmsweb.org.