Beer Cheese Soup

I’ve been thinking about doing this for awhile now, and I’m finally getting myself together and doing it. I’d like to explore other uses for beer, namely in cooking.  I love using beer when I cook … as rare as that is. Beer can be extremely useful, adding liquid when needed and even imparting some extra flavor into your recipes.  Over the next few posts, we’ll explore some recipes that can use beer.  And then maybe we’ll hit some tips and tricks for cooking with beer too.

For the first installment, we’ll go with the easy, the standard, the ubiquitous Beer Cheese Soup. Chances are you’ve seen this staple at plenty of restaurants.  You can find thousands of recipes for something similar all over the interwebs, and this is somewhat of a compilation of many of them. For the most part, the concept is the same across most recipes.

The Ingredients …

The Directions …

Using a large stockpot, cook the bacon until crisp and then remove with a slotted spoon. Drop the heat back to medium, add the butter and melt. Add the celery, onion, and peppers and cook while stirring until soft.  Give it 5 minutes-ish. Add the flour and make sure it gets fully incorporated – another 5 minutes.

Crank the heat down to medium-low. Add the chicken stock, beer, and half & half and cook at a slow simmer for about 15 minutes. Add the cheese slowly … about 3 ounces at a time … and stir into the su until it is completely smooth. Once all the cheese is in, add the Worcestershire sauce, 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper, Dijon mustard and lemon juice. You’re basically done.

Puree the soup with an immersion blender … one of the greatest kitchen inventions of all time. If you don’t have one, get one.  If you refuse to get one, re-consider. If you still won’t get one, you can do this in a blender.  Word to the wise, do it in small batches so it doesn’t blow up all over the kitchen. 

Just before you serve it, cover it with the bacon you set aside earlier. You can also dice some chive for the top and throw a little more cheddar on top – just for fun. 

Enjoy! And yes, it would be totally appropriate to open another Spotted Cow to enjoy with dinner.The whole thing will take about 30 minutes once you start the cooking process.