As we get ready for finals, odds are that most of us have some leftover alcohol around the house. There’s not enough to really drink–unless you’re one of those weird people who drinks in moderation–but enough that we don’t want to just get rid of it. Luckily for you, we’ve discovered that you can actually make use of that extra booze. You can cook with it. Won’t Mom be excited if you show up at home for winter break with something other than your dirty laundry? Here are our seven favorite food recipes you can make with alcohol.
Tequila Lime Guacamole
Everyone loves guac, and like most things in life, it’s better when you add booze to it. Although your instinct may be to add more tequila, be careful: too much and it tastes gross (trust us, we’ve made the mistake). This recipe is a great one to bring to parties or serve to friends when you have them over. They’ll wonder what the secret ingredient is, but you’ll never tell.
Spiked Caramel Corn
This is another yummy tequila recipe. Caramel corn is one of our favorite fall treats, and it’s made all the better by spiking it with a little tequila. Be sure to watch it when it’s in the oven, and stir occasionally or you’ll wind up with one big sheet of burnt popcorn mess. This recipe makes 16 delicious, sweet, booze-soaked servings, so it’s also great for parties or even a tailgate.
Creamy Parmesan Risotto
What to do when there’s barely enough wine left in the bottle for a full glass? Make some risotto, of course! Risotto is one of those things we order at restaurants and never make at home–until now. This recipe is pretty easy, too. You can serve it as a side dish or add chicken or shrimp to make it a main course. It’s great for date night or a potluck dinner with your friends. Just don’t forget to buy another bottle of wine to serve with it.
Penne With Vodka Sauce
This is another great date night recipe. Sure, you can buy pre-made vodka sauce but isn’t it more fun to make your own? There’s also an option here to make your own marinara sauce for the base, but let’s not go too crazy. If you want to lighten this one up a bit, since we are all looking to save some calories, you can replace the heavy cream with low-fat milk, but you’ll want to add a little bit of butter and flour to make up the thickness. Serve over pasta with a hunk of garlic bread and you’ll go straight to carb and vodka heaven.
Vegetarian Beer Chili
We gave you a turkey chili recipe before, so here is a vegetarian version, made with that leftover beer in your fridge. The great thing about chili is that you can pretty much use whatever veggies you want, so don’t be afraid to make a substitution if there’s something you don’t like. In this case, we don’t care for beans they’ve included, so we tend to leave them out and add a bag of corn instead. This recipe works with whatever kind of beer you have on hand, but does taste a bit better with darker beer.
Cheddar Ale Soup)
This is another one of our fall favorites. Soup is great all year long, but there is something extra special about it in the fall. While we usually wouldn’t ever try to make a soup ourselves — that’s what Panera is for, right? — this easy to make soup will warm you up and get rid of that other random beer you have in the fridge. Even if you don’t care for beer, you can barely taste it in the soup, so no worries there. Another great thing about this recipe (as well as the chili recipe) is that you can make a bunch, freeze it, and eat it later. Store it in single serving containers and you’ll have a quick lunch to grab on the go.
Red Wine And Dark Chocolate Cookies
Cookies. Chocolate. Wine. Essentially, this recipe is the sorority girl trifecta. What else could you want? Make these for your next sisterhood event and you’ll be the most popular girl there…even though you probably were already.
Some thoughts on these delicious cookies after we made them this weekend: instead of making them into sandwiches, since finding two similarly sized cookies was too much for our hungover brains, we instead just drizzled the melted chocolate over each cookie. Just as yummy, and you get more cookies per batch..
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Jenna Crowley
Jenna used to be known as 2NOTBrokeGirls, but then one of the girls actually went broke, so she's struck out on her own. Jenna spends her free time saving the world, one sorority girl at a time (usually while wearing yoga pants), questioning why she decided to get a doctorate, and documenting her love of all things cheese related. You can ask her anything you want about football, using your boobs to get what you want, and pizza at @JennaLCrowley on Twitter or via email at JennaLCrowley@gmail.com.
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