Chicken with Honey Sofie Beer Sauce

A few weeks back I was invited to go to a super cool event hosted by Goose Island Beer. The last week in September was Goose Island Migration Week in Philadelphia and one of the events was a Painting and Tasting at New Deck Tavern. While sipping on Goose Island’s delicious beer, a painting instructor guided us through painting a Goose Island themed painting!

Creativity is not my strong suit. I can’t sing, dance, act, play an instrument… you get the idea. So I was excited and somewhat intimated by this whole process. But it was awesome. And here’s the end result!

Please ignore that my oranges look like peaches. And that my goose on the glass looks more like Nessie. I’m still pretty jazzed with how it turned out! Ericka’s turned out great! I tried to switch it with mine before she signed it, but alas.

The feature of our painting was a glass of Goose Island Sofie in its signature glass. Sofie is a Belgian Style farmhouse ale (Saison) that is aged in wine barrels with orange peel.

This beer is SO good. I first heard of it through my sister who just loves Sofie, but this was the first time I had ever had it. After the event, I couldn’t stop thinking about Sofie so I picked up a four pack the next day! I wanted to use Sofie in a recipe and highlight the citrus notes in it, so I used this recipe I found from Cooking Light that makes a honey-beer sauce to serve with chicken. I marinated the chicken in orange juice prior to cooking to emphasize the orange peel flavor of the Sofie beer.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup fresh orange juice (~2 oranges)
• 1 tablespoon olive  oil
• 4 (6-ounce) skinless, boneless chicken breast halves
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 3 tablespoons chopped shallots
• 1 cup Goose Island Sofie beer
• 2 tablespoons lower-sodium soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons whole-grain Dijon mustard
• 2 tablespoon honey
• orange zest, optional
• 2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves

About 30 minutes before cooking, add the chicken to a large bowl and cover with fresh orange juice.

When ready to cook, heat a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add the oil to pan and swirl to coat. Remove the chicken from the orange juice, sprinkle chicken evenly with pepper and salt and add to pan.

Sauté for 3 minutes on each side or until cooked through. Remove chicken from pan; keep warm.

Add shallots to pan, cooking for 1 minute or until translucent.

Combine beer and next 3 ingredients (through honey) in a small bowl, stirring with a whisk.

Add beer mixture to pan and bring to a boil, scraping pan to loosen browned bits.

Cook 3 minutes or until liquid is reduced to 1 cup. Return chicken to pan; turn to coat with sauce. Sprinkle evenly with parsley and orange zest.

I served this with some smashed potatoes (like the red smashed potatoes in this recipe), so I doubled the sauce.

This sauce is really delicious! You could still taste the citrus from the orange juice which I think really added to the flavor.

The Dijon Mustard blends really well with the Sofie and the honey helps to make it not too bitter without making the sauce too sweet.

Be sure to enjoy this with a nice glass of Sofie!