32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer
Diana Chistruga
Cooking with beer is a great idea — both as an ingredient and as an enjoyable beverage to keep you whistling while you work in the kitchen. That special combination of malt and hops provides a beautiful backdrop of flavor in all kinds of dishes. It makes a sensational braising liquid for everything from carrots to short ribs; it adds complexity to stews and chilis. Beer batter imparts amazing crunch to fried foods like cheese curds and fish, and even works in sweet applications such as Guinness ice cream (which you'll definitely want to serve with chocolate-covered pretzels). Pour yourself a cold one and make sure you've got another bottle or can handy for whichever recipe you choose to make first.
Classic Beef Chili
Fresh poblano, toasty ancho chile powder, oregano, and beer come together to make a flavorful bowl of chili perfect for game day with friends. Use a pilsner or amber beer, depending on your preference; IPAs and stouts won't work as well here, as their flavors are too strong and can make the chili taste bitter.
Fried Cheese Curds with Buttermilk Ranch Dipping Sauce
White cheddar cheese curds are battered and deep-fried until they're golden brown for an irresistible appetizer or snack. The batter includes white rice flour, which is the secret to extra-crispy frying. It's spiked with lager and gets a subtle zip from yellow mustard.
Steamed Mussels with Coconut Milk and Thai Chiles
Diana Chistruga
This is chef Tyler Florence's idea of a party-friendly one-pot dish. He simply steams plump mussels in reduced lager until they're just starting to open and then adds a creamy, spicy, slightly tart mixture made with garlic, ginger, chiles, cilantro, coconut milk, and lime juice.
Beer and Cheddar Soup
This creamy beer cheese soup is mildly spiced with jalape?os and enhanced by smoky bacon. Served with garlic toast, it's a comfort food classic.
Beer-Battered Fish Tacos
IPA adds depth to the crunchy coating on perfectly cooked, beer-battered cod fillets. The tacos also feature bright homemade pickled red onions and a cabbage slaw that gets tart creaminess from lime crema and a hint of sweetness from honey.
Beer-Steamed Shrimp with Cocktail Sauce
This recipe comes courtesy of Suzanne Goin and her husband, David Lentz — he’s been cooking beer-steamed shrimp for his family for years. It’s easily scaled up to serve even more people.
Porter Bundt Cake with Whiskey-Caramel Sauce
This richly flavored cake features quintessential Irish ingredients such as dark porter beer, dark brown sugar, and whiskey.
Hungarian Sausage Stew with Ale
This recipe for lecsó (LEH-tcho) — a traditional sausage, tomato, and bell pepper stew from Hungary — is made with beer for a deep, rich flavor.
Frito Pie
Frito Pie is a glorious mess of corn chips, chili, cheese, and other toppings piled together — often right in the chip bag — for a satisfying meal that's perfect for tailgating or other casual get-togethers. Our recipe relies on homemade chili, which gets a bite and some bitterness from the inclusion of amber beer, and sweetness and acidity from tomatoes.
Blue Crab Beignets
Here, beignet batter thinly coats a creamy, warm crab filling with a crisp, light crust. The batter, which includes amber lager, is loose and can be tricky to shape at first; keep frying and practicing — your beignets will improve with each batch. These are ideally eaten while still very hot, so make them while enjoying aperitifs in the kitchen.
Brazilian Beer-Marinated Chicken
Cookbook author Steven Raichlen flavors this speedy chicken dish with Xingu (a Brazilian black lager that has a distinctive cola-like flavor), plus mustard and onion — evoking the classic combination of beer and bratwursts. "The marinade brings a lot of flavor to a meat that really needs it," he says.
Daube de Boeuf with Belgian Ale
"January in Minnesota. End of story," writes chef Andrew Zimmern. "We know a thing or two about cold-weather comfort food, especially a one-pot rock star beef stew that will warm you from the inside out. This is 'food with a hug' at its best. On the technical side, it’s simple. Resist the temptation to fussy it up until you’ve made it a few times, then you can do what you want with it."
French (Canadian) Onion Soup
? Kate Mathis
Chef Hugue Dufour makes a pork broth for his French onion soup using bacon for smokiness and a pig's foot for richness, along with two bottles of brown ale. Omit the pig's foot for a lighter broth.
Scallop Fritters
These light, crisp fritters include bits of chopped scallops in a batter made with clam broth and pilsner — the perfect expression of chef Jimmy Bradley's New England tastes.
Cider-Glazed Turkey with Lager Gravy
Lots of people brine their turkeys. Not chef Michael Symon, who thinks brining makes the bird a little rubbery. He salts his turkey well and refrigerates it overnight to season it. Before roasting, he covers the breast and legs with cheesecloth that's been soaked in a cider-infused butter. For his beer-spiked gravy, Symon recommends the German-style Dortmunder Gold, made by Great Lakes Brewing Company, from his home state of Ohio.
Beer-Battered Buttermilk Fried Chicken
This is the quintessential recipe for crispy-on-the-outside, juicy-on-the-inside fried chicken. Allow two to four hours for the chicken to soak in the buttermilk mixture, which imparts tangy flavor while tenderizing the meat. Thanks to the carbonation in the beer, the resulting crust is especially crunchy and flaky.
Beer-Braised Turkey Tacos
Skinless turkey thighs and drumsticks are packed with flavor. Chef Deborah Schneider braises the meat in beer until ultratender, then shreds it for tacos. "It's also fabulous in a sandwich," she says.
Smoked Porter-Braised Beef Short Ribs
This rich braise is sweet, smoky, and pleasantly bitter all at once. The recipe calls for a smoked porter; if unavailable, substitute a regular porter or another dark beer. Polenta is the ideal accompaniment for the short ribs and their luscious sauce, but mashed potatoes or egg noodles would also work well.
Fennel and Sweet Onion Pizza with Green Olives
Miami chef Michael Schwartz makes this pizza with Pernod-braised fennel, caramelized onions, and Trugole, a semisoft Italian cheese that melts beautifully. His crust includes brown ale and a touch of whole wheat flour for extra flavor.
Guinness Ice Cream with Chocolate-Covered Pretzels
This ice cream has a strong, malty Guinness flavor that goes supremely well with the salty milk chocolate–covered pretzels. If you don't want to make the chocolate-covered pretzels, they're easy enough to buy.
Beer-Braised Carrots with Coriander and Feta
“When it comes to cooking with beer,” says chef Alex Guarnaschelli, “I like using Heineken because it adds a pleasant sweetness and a faint yeasty taste that I love.” The brown sugar and earthy flavor of the carrots are perfect with feta, which adds just the right amount of richness and salt.
Mo's Sticky Ribs
Pit master Fred Donnelly makes these spectacularly sticky ribs at home. "Anyone you make them for falls in love with you," he says.
Spicy Beer Mustard
Chef Jeremy Nolen honed his skills by updating German classics at Brauhaus Schmitz in Philadelphia, including this intense mustard for sausages.
Stout-Braised Short Ribs
Braising short ribs in beer makes them super tender and adds a slight bitter note. Chef Sarah Simmons cooks her ribs in Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout; you can use any dark beer you fancy.
Spiced Beer Bread with Pumpkin Ale and Pepitas
Pumpkin ale and pumpkin pie spice dial up the flavor in this savory beer bread, which is studded with toasted pumpkin seeds.
Beer-Battered Fish with Malt Vinegar A?oli
Chef Jeremy Sewall uses line-caught pollock for fish and chips at Row 34 in Boston because it's a firm fish that remains flaky when cooked. The beer batter should coat the fish without being too thick; when fried, the batter should puff and crisp while the fish steams inside the crunchy shell.
Beer-Braised Cabbage and Sausage
This hearty one-pot meal brings together bratwurst and green cabbage simmered with Worcestershire, mustard, caraway, and a beer to round things out.
Carbonnade à la Flamande (Flemish Beef Stew)
This classic Belgian beef stew is known for its sweet-sour combination of caramelized onions and beer. Any dark Belgian-style ale would be a good choice here. As with most stews, the dish will taste even better a day or two after it's made.
Beer-Braised Baby Back Ribs with Orange-Tamarind Sauce
"I started making my Abilene sauce 20 years ago, and every year I tweak it or add something," says chef James Holmes of his signature barbecue sauce. Despite its spicy intensity, the pork and beer flavors come straight through.
Creamy Risotto with Edamame
This risotto was created when Jeff Smith's daughter, Isabelle, tossed some Laughing Cow cheese into a pot of risotto. "It adds a lot of richness without making the dish taste too sharp," Smith says. The cup of Budweiser beer is his own addition, a last-minute fix on a night he found himself without white wine in the house. "I ended up preferring it to wine in this dish," he says.
Beer-Braised Chicken Stew with Fava Beans and Peas
Chef Paul Kahan is a big fan of chicken thighs because they have so much flavor and are so inexpensive — the best of both worlds. He braises the thighs in beer to make an excellent stew that he (naturally) pairs with more beer, such as Pere Jacques from Chicago's Goose Island Beer Company, a Belgian-style ale full of caramelized malt flavors. You can use frozen fava beans, but add them, blanched, in the final step.
Beer-Braised Pot Roast
A perfect pot roast, delicious served over buttered egg noodles. Go for an amber ale here.
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