Beer-Braised Chicken Stew with Vegetables

Light and delicious beer-braised chicken drumsticks. Sear the chicken skin until golden and crispy, then braise in a light 18 Days lager until tender and juicy, with potatoes, carrots, corn, kale, and Italian herbs. Finish with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice for an easy, fresh, and tender chicken and vegetable stew. Crack open an ice-cold beer and you’re ready for the summer heat!

Cooking with beer

As the weather heats up, we can’t be without ice-cold beer at home! Besides being refreshing to drink, beer is also great for braising meat. If you’ve never tried braising with beer and all its creamy foam, you have to give it a try! It makes dishes richer in flavor, brings a refreshing note to savory stews, and best of all, beer makes meat more tender.

My husband loves beer. Even though he tries really hard not to drink too much so he can shrink his beer belly, a hot summer just isn’t enjoyable without a couple of cans! There are hundreds of kinds of beer, with alcohol content anywhere from 16% down to 3%, and dark beers and lagers bring different flavors to a dish. The recipe I’m sharing today uses everyone’s favorite everyday lager (for example, Taiwan Beer). Beer makes the chicken broth sweeter and more savory, and while you cook, you can enjoy the other half of the beer~ Enjoy your beer without worrying about overdoing it 👈 the more I say it, the more it sounds like an excuse.

For the beer, I used everyone’s favorite basic: Taiwan Beer

One-pot cooking

I’ll be honest, I really don’t like a lot of fuss, so the recipes I share are, as a rule, very easy. My principles for home cooking are simple, fast, and nutritionally balanced. Simple means not only that the steps aren’t complicated, but also that the ingredients are easy to find at the supermarket. If you can’t find some of the ingredients at a supermarket near you, no problem, just swap in ingredients you like.

For this beer-braised chicken, you’ll need a deeper skillet (I use a Swiss Diamond deep pan) or a cast-iron pot. You want a pan that heats well, because it heats the drumsticks evenly as they sear, keeping the chicken juicy and tender while giving it beautiful golden skin. Once both sides of the drumsticks are golden, remove them and set aside. In the same pan, saute the vegetables until fragrant, then return the drumsticks and add the beer and chicken stock to braise everything together. All the rich flavors of the ingredients come together, all in one pot.

A one-pot dish full of vegetables and drumsticks, rich in color and flavor.

How to make beer-braised chicken

Besides drumsticks with golden, juicy skin, this beer-braised chicken recipe is loaded with vegetables: potatoes, corn, carrots, kale, and more. This one pot of stew is a nutritionally balanced meal.

Choosing the beer:

I use a light lager. Besides being the easiest to find, it has a light bitterness and malty aroma, and it’s more refreshing than amber or dark beers. Of course, you can also try other beers you like, and you might discover different flavors!

Choosing the chicken:

In this recipe I used bone-in, skin-on drumsticks. Besides drumsticks, I also love using skin-on thighs. Drumsticks and thighs have more fat, and with the skin seared until golden and crispy before braising, they’re extra flavorful. If you prefer leaner meat, you can of course swap in chicken breast, which instantly turns it into a low-fat, fitness-friendly meal.

If bone-in, skin-on drumsticks are too fatty for you, swap in chicken breast.

Vegetables:

Choosing fresh vegetables to braise with the chicken adds flavor to the broth. Root vegetables are best for braising along with the chicken, such as potatoes, carrots, and corn. These all need to cook in the pot for a while, so to make sure they all finish cooking at the same time, be sure to cut them into pieces of about the same size. The only leafy green in this dish is kale, which cooks much faster than the root vegetables, so I only add it 3-5 minutes before turning off the heat. If you can’t find kale, just swap in any seasonal dark leafy green.

Seasoning:

First saute the onion until fragrant, then add the distinctive tang of Dijon mustard, and finally Italian seasoning for extra flavor. Perfect.

Braising:

You can use a deep skillet for this dish, but ideally a deep cast-iron pot with a lid, big enough to hold all the ingredients. Cast iron is great for searing chicken. Once the chicken is golden and crispy, use its fat to quickly saute the vegetables, then cover with the lid so all the flavors stay in the pot as everything braises slowly. In about 20 minutes you’ll be enjoying juicy chicken and sweet vegetables.

Making it without beer

Although beer is one of the main ingredients in this dish, what if you don’t want to use alcohol? Just replace it with the same amount of chicken stock, so 300ml of chicken stock in total.