Chicken of the Woods
Laetiporus sulphureus · Fomitopsidaceae
Also called Sulphur Polypore
Vivid sulphur-yellow and orange brackets on standing trees, with a texture famously like chicken breast.
Edible with caution. A minority of people react badly to it, and fruitings from yew, eucalyptus, conifers and laburnum should never be eaten. Eat only young soft edges, cook thoroughly and try a small portion the first time.
Read the full foraging safety guidance.
Season
April to October
Where it grows
- Oak
- Sweet chestnut
- Willow
- Yew
Identification
- Cap
- Overlapping fan-shaped brackets 10-40cm, orange above, sulphur-yellow at the margin, soft when young and chalky when old.
- Gills / pores
- No gills. Underside is a bright yellow surface of fine pores.
- Stem
- Effectively absent: attached directly to the trunk.
- Flesh
- Thick, pale yellow, succulent when young.
- Spore print
- White.
- Smell & taste
- Faintly sour and mushroomy.
Lookalikes
Few. Other bracket fungi are woodier and browner.
In the kitchen
Slice the tender outer margin, cook through properly in butter or batter. Never eat raw.
Recipes using Chicken of the Woods
Also caution
Wood Blewit
Lepista nuda
A late-season woodland mushroom with a striking lilac flush and a perfumed smell.
Field Blewit
Lepista saeva
A pasture mushroom with a dull buff cap and an unmistakable violet-blue stem.
Morel
Morchella esculenta
The great prize of spring: a honeycombed hollow cone, best hunted on disturbed chalky ground.