The Jalapeño Beer Bread Recipe Anyone Can Make

It seems everyone’s been bit by the baking bug these days. If Instagram were any indication, you’d think sourdough starter was growing on every American’s countertops right this very minute! But truth be told, I know a much easier way to get homemade bread to your table in a matter of hours, not days. It starts with beer and it ends with bread.

How To Make Beer Bread From Scratch

All these fancy-pants bread recipes that are floating around are fine and dandy, but what if you are new to baking and growing yeasty muck in a jar is about 20 million steps too many?

I hear you. Even I, a person who used to bake bread for a living, has no interest in fiddling around with making a mother right now. You know what’s way easier and virtually foolproof? Using beer instead!

Beer bread recipes are perfect for these bare store shelf days because they require:

• no yeast
• no eggs
• no dairy

The beer does all the heavy lifting! It acts as the leavener, the liquid, and the yeasty flavor component. And even if we aren’t going to be able to find yeast until 2022, you know we will never run out of beer.

Making beer bread requires three simple steps:

1. Heat the oven. Grease the pan.
2. Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl with a spoon.
3. Bake. That’s it!

What Does Beer Bread Taste Like?

Um, heaven?

Essentially the beer gives a sweet, gently yeasty flavor. It has a nice, crusty top and a soft, tender crumb on the inside.

I, of course, needed to add jalapenos, because I love a kick of heat. Jarred jalapeños work best here. They’re pantry-stable, and melt tenderly into the bread instead of raw jalapeno which would remain in hardish chunks. That being said, if you want to substitute one for the other, it wouldn’t be terrible or even pickled jalapeños would work.

The bread isn’t spicy but leaves a slow burn which is balanced by sweetness from honey and a crunchy sprinkling of turbinado sugar on top (you can leave that off too or use brown sugar instead).

One Beer Equals How Much Bread?

You get a whole loaf out of one 12-ounce bottle of beer! Which if you’re like me serves 1 or if you are a normal, non-beer-bread-binge-eating person, serves like 4 people. Essentially about 10-12 slices. That’s a lot of bread for one beer.

While we’re on the subject, let’s talk about what kind of beer to use. The short answer is, any kind. But, just like anything the more flavorful or darker the beer, the stronger the beer flavor will be in your bread.

This is a great article from King Arthur Flour about baking with beer if you want more info, but essentially, just like cooking with the wine you like to drink, bake with the beer you like to drink for best results.

How To Store Your Homemade Bread

Let’s assume you haven’t devoured the entire loaf while still warm with butter and honey and you have some left over. In this case, you will wrap it tightly with plastic wrap and leave it on the counter. It will be fine for 2-3 days this way.

If you don’t plan on eating it that soon, you can freeze it (tightly wrapped as described above) for up to 3 months.

After the first day, I think it is best to cut off slices and toast in the toaster.

What Goes With It?

Even though this recipe has honey and is topped with sugar, it’s not exactly sweet per se. It makes perfectly good sandwich bread and excellent toast but I especially love it to dip into soups and stews. Here are a few of my favorites:

• Creamy Mexican Vegetable Soup
• Slow Cooker Mexican Chicken Soup {Caldo de Pollo}
• Green Chile Vegan Pozole

Bread Baking Success!

I want to see your legions of loaves. Make sure you tag @holajalapeno and #holajalapeno on Instagram when you post your Beer Bread pics!

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