32 Recipes to Get Things Cooking with Beer (2024)

FAQs

What can I use beer for in cooking? ›

Beer can create light, airy fried foods and baked goods

You've probably heard of beer-battered fish, but imagine dishes like fluffy Blue Crab Beignets and Fried Cheese Curds coated with beer batter, too.

The Basics

Beer adds a rich, earthy flavor to soups and stews that makes them taste like they've been simmering for hours. Beers with a sweet or nutty taste can add depth to desserts. And don't worry about getting drunk – virtually all of the alcohol evaporates during the cooking process.

tif. Surprising but true: Cooking with beer can actually be a healthy way to flavor food—here's why. A 12-ounce bottle of regular beer has about 150 calories and is free of fat and cholesterol. It also has very little sodium-only 1% of the recommended daily allowance.

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.

I first cook the pasta in beer, then while making the roux for the sauce, I begin slowly adding in beer to make the sauce. It's a great new take on a mac and cheese, and is geared towards any beer lover.

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.

Baking with beer starts with flavor and moves into science. Because of its carbonation, it assists with leavening baked goods. When used as the liquid in a recipe, it gives extra lift and tender texture to breads and cakes. If you're new to baking with beer, porters and stouts are the best place to begin.

But if you have some unfinished brews sitting in your fridge, you don't have to drink them right away or toss them out. Instead, try freezing your leftover beer to cook with at a later time. When freezing your beer, don't leave it in the bottle or can, as the liquid can expand and explode all over your freezer.

The short answer: Yes, you can safely drink beer past its drink-by date. Beer doesn't expire in the same way milk does, in the sense that old beer won't make you sick. Even if it's an 80-year-old can of PBR, the worst that'll happen is the beer will taste bad. Still, its flavor can taper off and turn tremendously.

Cooking with beer is an excellent idea, not only for the bottle you're apt to crack open while a steak sizzles away. A beer marinade tenderizes meat and adds another layer of flavor—that you already knew—but a new study finds a beer marinade might also help combat nasty substances and help keep you healthy.

Can kids eat food cooked with beer? ›

There is no evidence to suggest that alcohol is detrimental to health especially when used in cooking. So the answer is yes. Children can eat food cooked with beer or wine and even spirits.

Beer can be used in marinades to add flavour or used to simmer vegetables and meat.

By spending less time on the grill the brat is less likely to dry out, and some pre-soakers believe the brat soaks up a meaningful enough amount of beer to influence the flavor and juiciness. The beer also makes the sausage casings more pliable, and less likely to split.

The carbonation in beer helps to break down the proteins in meat, making it more tender and easier to chew. Plus, the sugars in beer caramelize when cooked, creating a delicious crust on the outside of your meat.

Beer can be bitter, which can quickly overpower a dish. It's much harder to reduce a beer's flavor once you've over-poured than to add some more later on. Plus, the longer you cook beer, the stronger the flavor becomes. This is all the more reason to start light and not underestimate a beer's potency.

First, the bubbles provide lift as they escape from the batter during frying. Second, the carbonation makes the batter slightly more acidic, which limits how much gluten can form when the beer and flour mix, preventing the batter from turning tough.

Did you know that cooking with beer uses about 50 percent fewer calories than cooking with oil? One tablespoon of olive oil has approximately 120 calories, while an entire 12-ounce can of beer has around 146, breaking down to fewer than seven calories per tablespoon.

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.