Wood ears rewards a little know-how: how to choose them, cook them, store them, and substitute in a pinch. Browse 16 recipes to cook with them.

What are wood ears?

Wood ears are a dark, ruffled edible fungus sold dried in Chinese and other Asian markets, also labeled black fungus or cloud ear, or by the species name Auricularia. The dried pieces look like brittle black flakes until you soak them.

They are valued almost entirely for texture, not flavor.

Rehydrated wood ears have a remarkable snap and a gentle, gelatinous give at once, crunchy and slippery in the same bite, while their taste stays so mild it is nearly neutral.

That blank flavor is the point. Wood ears soak up the broth or sauce around them and contribute pure texture, which is why they turn up in hot and sour soup, in stir-fries, and in cold salads across China.

How to Use Wood Ears

Always start by rehydrating them. Cover the dried pieces in warm water and soak for 20 to 30 minutes until they soften and unfurl into floppy, ear-shaped sheets.

Be warned: they expand dramatically. A small handful of dry flakes can swell to three or four times its size, so a little goes a long way and an overzealous soak leaves you with far more than you need.

Once soft, trim away the hard, knobby nub where the fungus attached to the wood, since that bit stays tough.

Then slice or tear the pieces into thin strips so the texture reads as delicate rather than rubbery.

From there they go in nearly anywhere. They give hot and sour soup its signature slippery-crunchy bite, as in Chinese Hot & Sour Soup and Awesome Mandarin Hot & Sour Soup.

They lend the same snap to stir-fried Sliced Pork with Wood Ear Fungus and to chilled dishes like Lotus Root & Wood Ear Salad with Soy-Ginger Dressing.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

Wood ears pair naturally with the flavors of their home cuisine: soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, garlic, ginger, and chili. Because they bring no flavor of their own, they take on whatever they are cooked in, so a punchy dressing or a deeply seasoned broth carries them.

In cold preparations the contrast is the whole appeal. A Chilled Cucumber & Woodear Mushroom Salad sets the springy fungus against crisp cucumber in a sharp, garlicky dressing.

The most common mistake is under-soaking. Wood ears that are still firm or leathery in the center never soften properly in a quick stir-fry, so give them a full half hour and check that they are pliable throughout.

The second is leaving the woody stem on. That hard nub never tenderizes, and biting into one in an otherwise silky soup is unpleasant, so pinch it off before slicing.

Substitutes

There is no exact swap, because wood ears are valued for a texture nothing else quite matches. The closest is another dried Asian fungus, such as snow fungus or silver ear, which brings a similar gelatinous crunch though it is paler and even milder.

Fresh wood ears, sometimes sold in the produce section, work directly. Skip the soaking, just trim the stems and slice, since they are already hydrated.

If you only need a mushroom presence and not the specific crunch, soaked dried shiitake will add savory depth instead, but understand you are trading texture for flavor. The two fungi do very different jobs in a dish.

Buying and Storing

Buy wood ears dried, in cellophane bags, from the dried-goods shelves of an Asian grocery.

Look for whole, unbroken pieces with a deep blackish-brown color; a faint dusty look is normal.

Dried, they keep almost indefinitely. Store the bag in a cool, dry cupboard in an airtight container, and they stay good for a year or more without losing much.

Once rehydrated, treat them like any fresh vegetable. Use soaked wood ears within a day or two, kept covered in the fridge, and drain them well before cooking so they do not water down a stir-fry.

Soak only what a recipe calls for, given how much they expand. It is easy to rehydrate a whole bag by mistake and end up with bowls of fungus you have no plan for.

Quick facts

In Chinese

木耳边

British (UK) term

Wood ears

en français

oreilles de bois

en español

orejas de madera

Recipes using wood ears

There are 16 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 16 recipes