How to use beer in the kitchen

Have you ever hosted a gathering and found yourself with leftover cans or bottles of beer that you don’t plan on drinking? Instead of letting in languish in your refrigerator (it doesn’t keep forever), Food & Wine’s Merlyn Miller offers a bevy of ideas on how you can use it in your cooking and baking.

The first suggestion is to use it as you might use wine, to make a flavorful pan sauce. Beer “will deglaze the pan like wine, and add similar but slightly more muted acidic notes,” says Miller. You can also use beer in a marinade, and use it as part or all of the liquid for a braise. Different types of brews pair well with certain meats, with darker beers such as stouts working especially well with beef and lighter beers such as lagers pairing nicely with chicken and seafood.

Beer can be an excellent choice for making batters for fish, onion rings, or other items. You can even bake with beer; there are hundreds of quick bread and cake recipes in the EYB Library that call for a brew. Here are some of the most highly-rated online recipes that use beer as an ingredient:

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4 Comments

  • Jenny  on  April 28, 2024

    There is debate as to who said this but I got my husband a shirt that reads this “Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy” – I hate beer the drink but love to cook and bake with it – go figure.

  • Fyretigger  on  April 28, 2024

    One of my favorite lazy dinners is frozen meatballs simmered in 1/2 dark beer and 1/2 Better Than Bullion Beef flavor and some sautéd mushrooms (I always have a stock in the freezer). Sometimes I’ll finish with a splash of sherry and thicken the sauce.

  • Rinshin  on  April 30, 2024

    No beer ever gets wasted even when all carbonation gone. Just hand it to my husband.

    Those quick meatballs wit beer sounds hood.

  • slimmer  on  May 10, 2024

    That pork and carrot stew is one of my faves!

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