Beer is made for drinking, and I would never suggest you don’t drink beer, but there’s no reason you can’t have a Guiness and cook with it too. Below you will find several delicious dishes designed to get the iconic stout into your stomach, all of which should be made with a cold one in hand.
Bake With It: The stout’s dark and rich character plays particularly well with chocolate desserts, like this cake from The Kitchn, these cupcakes from Dave Lieberman, and this sweet and salty chocolate pie with marshmallow meringue. If you’re strapped for time, you can make a super quick cake with a box of devil’s food cake mix, a cup of Guinness, and a couple of eggs. Whisk everything together, pour it into a prepared cake pan, and bake according to the directions on the box.
Braise With It: Why cook with water when you have beer around? Short ribs, lamb shanks, and the classically Irish corned beef and cabbage all benefit from a bath in the dark beer. It also makes an excellent deglazing agent, and can be used to whip up a mean pan sauce for almost any hearty meat.
Get Saucy With It: A snappy sausage with a beer-based mustard is a thing of absolute beauty, and you can make a flavor-packed condiment by stirring in a couple of tablespoons of the stout into half a cup of your favorite coarse-grained mustard. If you want to get really fancy, you can take your cue from Epicurious and add a little Dijon, shallot, and brown sugar. (It also makes a great BBQ sauce for painting on a rack of ribs.)
Stew in It: Sometimes Guinness can get lost in a hearty, meaty stew, but this recipe from Serious Eats reinforces the beer’s flavor by adding dark and roasty coffee. The recipe calls for beef, but I personally wouldn’t be angry at you if you wanted to try it with lamb.
If you’re simply looking ways to drink Guinness more creatively, we’ve got you covered there too. A Guiness float—made by scooping a healthy amount of vanilla ice cream into a pint—is always delicious, but you can also blend it into a milkshake, or top it with bubbly for a surprisingly creamy cocktail.