32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (2024)

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.

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Classic Beef Chili

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (1)

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.

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Fried Cheese Curds with Buttermilk Ranch Dipping Sauce

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (2)

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.

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Beer-Battered Fish Tacos

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (3)

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.

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Frito Pie

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (4)

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 amber beer and sweetness and acidity from tomatoes.

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Steamed Mussels with Coconut Milk and Thai Chiles

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (5)

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.

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Blue Crab Beignets

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (6)

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.

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Beer and Cheddar Soup

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (7)

This creamy beer cheese soup is mildly spiced with jalapeños and enhanced by smoky bacon. Served with garlic toast, it's a comfort food classic.

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Beer-Steamed Shrimp with co*cktail Sauce

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (8)

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.

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Porter Bundt Cake with Whiskey-Caramel Sauce

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (9)

This richly flavored cake features quintessential Irish ingredients such as dark porter beer, dark brown sugar, and whiskey.

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Hungarian Sausage Stew with Ale

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (10)

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.

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Brazilian Beer-Marinated Chicken

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (11)

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.

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Daube de Boeuf with Belgian Ale

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (12)

"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."

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French (Canadian) Onion Soup

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (13)

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.

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Scallop Fritters

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (14)

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.

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Cider-Glazed Turkey with Lager Gravy

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (15)

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.

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Beer-Battered Buttermilk Fried Chicken

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (16)

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.

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Beer-Braised Turkey Tacos

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (17)

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.

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Smoked Porter-Braised Beef Short Ribs

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (18)

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.

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Fennel and Sweet Onion Pizza with Green Olives

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (19)

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.

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Guinness Ice Cream with Chocolate-Covered Pretzels

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (20)

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.

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Beer-Braised Carrots with Coriander and Feta

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (21)

“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.

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Mo's Sticky Ribs

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (22)

Pit master Fred Donnelly makes these spectacularly sticky ribs at home. "Anyone you make them for falls in love with you," he says.

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Spicy Beer Mustard

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (23)

Chef Jeremy Nolen honed his skills by updating German classics at Brauhaus Schmitz in Philadelphia, including this intense mustard for sausages.

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Stout-Braised Short Ribs

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (24)

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.

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Spiced Beer Bread with Pumpkin Ale and Pepitas

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (25)

Pumpkin ale and pumpkin pie spice dial up the flavor in this savory beer bread, which is studded with toasted pumpkin seeds.

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Beer-Battered Fish with Malt Vinegar Aïoli

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (26)

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.

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Carbonnade à la Flamande (Flemish Beef Stew)

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (27)

This classic Belgianbeef stewis known for its sweet-sour combination of caramelized onions andbeer. 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.

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Beer-Braised Baby Back Ribs with Orange-Tamarind Sauce

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (28)

"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.

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Creamy Risotto with Edamame

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (29)

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 and "ended up preferring it to wine in this dish."

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Beer-Braised Cabbage and Sausage

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (30)

This hearty one-pot meal brings together bratwurst and green cabbage simmered with Worcestershire, mustard, caraway, and a beer to round things out.

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Beer-Braised Chicken Stew with Fava Beans and Peas

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (31)

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.

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Beer-Braised Pot Roast

32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (32)

A perfect pot roast, delicious served over buttered egg noodles. Go for an amber ale here.

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32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (2024)

FAQs

What food is cooked with beer? ›

Recipes to Try:
  • Cheddar Broccoli Soup with Bacon and Egg Croutons made with Bavarian Wheat Beer.
  • Drunken Cabbage.
  • Salmon with Hops Bearnaise over Cauliflower Puree.
  • Beer-battered Asparagus with Garlic Aioli.
  • Ale-Brined Roasted-Turkey Sandwich with Red-Pepper Pesto.

What beer is used for cooking? ›

Wheat beers are great for chicken and seafood. If you're cooking pork, beef, and lamb, you will need ales, porters, and stouts. Hearty meat goes well with belgian ales. Stews pair well with ale.

When a recipe calls for beer? ›

Easy Substitutions

Use beef broth, chicken broth, mushroom stock, apple juice, apple cider, root beer, or co*ke instead of dark beer. With all of these ingredients, you want to be sure to replace the beer measure for measure to keep the liquid volume the same in your recipe.

What food is cooked with alcohol? ›

Such dishes include coq au vin, chicken cacciatore, chicken marsala and boeuf bourguignon. More modern examples are beer grilled chicken and bratwursts boiled in beer. Adding beer, instead of water, to chili during cooking is popular. An overnight marinade of chicken, pork or beef in beer and spices is another example.

Can you bake with beer? ›

Beer can be a baker's secret weapon. It adds complex depth to sweets and amplifies the toasty flavor of savory breads and crackers. Its natural leavening abilities give extra lift to quick breads and layer cakes. It adds moisture and can cut down on proof time in yeast breads.

What foods dont go with beer? ›

Here are some foods experts believe should be avoided:
  • Bread. Feeling bloated after enjoying that glass of beer and trying to soak it all up with bread? ...
  • Chocolates. ...
  • Beans Or Lentils. ...
  • Caffeine. ...
  • Salty Foods.
Jun 23, 2021

What meats go with beer? ›

What Kinds of Meat Go Best With Beer?
  • Steaks and IPAs.
  • Pork and amber ales.
  • Fish and brown ales.
  • Seafood and porters.
  • Game meat and porters.
  • Shellfish and stouts.
Jun 15, 2022

What not to mix with beer? ›

Tranylcypromine (Parnate), phenelzine (Nardil), and other antidepressants in the class of monoamine oxidase inhibitors may cause a dangerous rise in blood pressure when mixed with tyramine, a byproduct found in beer and wine, particularly red wine.

Why put beer in chili? ›

Not only does beer work to cut the heat and spice of a proper bowl of red, but the residual sweetness in most beers nicely complements the caramelized meat. Since it's the perfect thing to drink with chili, plenty of people consider adding beer to their chili recipe, but which beer style should you choose?

What is the best beer to bake with? ›

If you're new to baking with beer, porters and stouts are the best place to begin. Because they're brewed with dark roasted malt, they lend flavor notes of cocoa and coffee. Porters lean more toward chocolate and malted flavors with less bitterness.

What is the best beer to add to chili? ›

Stout is a perfect base ingredient for stew, so it's also a natural ingredient for chili. Hey, chili is a kind of stew, right? And we know that beef goes well with stouts. You can go for the rich malts of a time-honored favorite like Guinness, but imagine the possibilities.

Why is meat cooked in beer? ›

Baking or broiling meat in beer for dishes such as pork chops, short ribs, or pulled pork can add a dark, rich color to the meat and give it a deeper flavor. Some people prefer to use beer as a brine or marinade for meat.

Does cooking with beer cook out the alcohol? ›

The science:

Alcohol does partially evaporate during cooking, but not as much as you might think. Depending on the cooking method and how much alcohol is used, anywhere from 4 to 85 percent of the alcohol may remain.

Does cooking with beer make meat tender? ›

Beers can add rich, caramel-like flavor to the meat with minimal cooking time. One of the most effective ways to tenderize your meat is by using beer. Beer contains alpha acids and tannins that help break down fibers in meat, making it more tender and flavorful. Marinate using beer for an hour or more before grilling.

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