Cooking with Beer: Tips for Leftovers
Game time is approaching, which can only mean one thing. Face paint and Buffalo wings? No, my friends.: Leftovers.
Without a doubt, whenever I invite people into my home for food, drink, and a raucous good time I am always left with an abundance of leftover beer. I love beer, think it’s a mighty tasty drink, but I’m certainly not the kind of girl to kick back at the end of the day and throw one back alone. To me, drinking is a social sport.
So what’s a girl to do with a brewery left to her name with no one to drink it with? Cook with it, of course. When it comes to cooking with alcohol most people think of wine, but beer is amazingly versatile. I actually use it much more when it comes to my kitchen trials than I ever have wine.
Here’s some must-do’s for your left over game-day beer supply:
Beer Bread: I love making homemade bread, but sometimes I forget to buy yeast. I mean really now, how often are you in the grocery store and pick up a packet of yeast as an impulse buy? Luckily, there is yeast in beer and it’s great for making bread (that rises!) in a pinch.
Beer Can Chicken: This is truly the only way I make chicken now. I even have a contraption that holds the beer can and stands the chicken up (which is actually kind of creepy). Even without this, you can shove a can of your favorite brew right up a chicken’s hoo-ha and let all that yummy beer marinate your chicken from the inside out. It really is as good as everyone says. Throw some dry seasonings in with the beer for some extra flavor.
Cupcakes: Yes, you can bake with beer (same effect as the bread). Beer has the added bonus of making baked goods soooooooper moist. Which is how they should be, but even more so.
Guinness Stew: Okay, so this is beer brand specific, but I honestly don’t see why you couldn’t try it out with whatever you have laying around. Cooking is an adventure, right? Right. I think the Irish get a bad rep when it comes to cooking. When I visited the home country I had really tasty food, and the Guinness stew I had there has become a lifetime love.
Beer Battered Everything: The recipe linked is for fish tacos, because fish tacos are the best thing in the world, possibly even better than sex (don’t tell my boyfriend that). I know there is a god because if not for divine intervention how would anyone would have guessed that beer, flour, egg and some seasonings wrapped around anything then deep fried could create world peace? Best thing ever.
Beer is a great marinade and tenderizer for tough cuts of beef. Beer is great for simmering cabbage and sausage in. Beer can be added to soups and stews for a little oomph. Heck, you can even put it in pancakes!
So don’t just throw those leftovers in the back of the fridge and wait for company to come by. Eat it!
My mom uses beer to marinate her pork. Wine is too heavy, but the beer leaves a nice crisp taste. Hmm..I can taste it now.
On a related note, this girl in my high school (let’s just say she would have given Snooki a run for her money) used beer to make her hair curly. Yeah, I’m sure that was the only thing she used it for.
Lately there’s been a lot of sauteed chicken breast, pork chop, and thin steak in my house. There’s also been a supply of yuengling. Since we cook with large onion slices when sauteing any of the above meats, we decided that adding some beer to finish off the onions might be nice after removing the meat from the pan. What results are carmelized, unbelievably flavorful onions to top of the meal. We’ve tried with other light beers to but a heavier flavorful beer like yeungling makes for tastier carmelized onions. Wonder what guiness would be like. Pardon the typos