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:

• Korean chile-braised brisket + kimchi coleslaw from Dinner in an Instant by Melissa Clark
• Steak, Guinness and cheese pie with a puff pastry lid from Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver
• Beer-braised beef casserole (Carbonnade à la Flamande) from Nigella Kitchen by Nigella Lawson
• Gramercy Tavern's gingerbread from Smitten Kitchen by Deb Perelman and Claudia Fleming (pictured)
• Slow cooker chicken tortilla soup with all the fixings from Serious Eats by Jennifer Olvera
• Beer-braised pork and carrot stew from The Washington Post by Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
• Spiced stout waffles from Food52