7 Tasty Red Wine Recipes and How to Cook Them

While it’s fun to drink red wine with dinner, there’s another way to get your daily dose – cook it right into the food! Red wine adds a ton of flavour into any recipe, and can create almost any kind of meal.

Part of making any recipe is pairing it with the right wine. It is generally agreed that tomato-based and red meat-based meals pair well with red wine, although it is more complex than that, as it is all about finding the wine that will be complemented by the dish, and which will complement the dish.

Here are seven red wine recipes and the instructions on how to cook them:

1. Vegetarian Recipe – Red Wine Pasta

For this, simply add 8 cups of wine and 8 cups of water into a pot and bring to a boil. Once it’s boiling, add the pasta and cook until it’s al dente (slightly firm). Sauté the cooked pasta in a pan with garlic, an additional cup of wine, and a healthy splash of the cooking water/wine mix.

Add pepperoncino (chili peppers) for spice, and there you have it, a quick and simple dinner. The purple hue the wine gives the pasta makes it look super fancy, and makes it very flavourful.

2. Vegan Recipe – Gravy

While you would obviously have to find something to put the gravy on (mashed potatoes or a portobello mushroom “steak,” for example), red wine can go in a beautiful vegan-friendly gravy.

This recipe calls for flavourful vegetables like carrot, onion, celery, and mushroom to be fried up, and then for a vegetable or mushroom broth to be added along with about a cup of red wine. This flavourful and unique recipe will be an instant family favourite.

3. Beef Recipe – Beef Bourguignon

Beef Bourguignon (a.k.a. Beef Burgundy) is a type of stew originating in France. This recipe uses red wine to stew the beef.

Traditionally, a Burgundy wine is used, which come from Pinot Noir grapes, but if not an actual Burgundy, most any Pinot Noir would serve as a good substitute.

4. Chicken Recipe – Coq au Vin

Coq au Vin is another traditional French recipe. The chicken marinates in the wine overnight, or for a few hours at least.

The wine is then reserved to make the sauce with later. This meal is typically served with vegetables like onions – especially shallots – and mushrooms.

5. Pork Recipe – Red Wine Pork Roast

This recipe can be prepared in 10 minutes or less, and then you just walk away and let it do its thing. Made in a slow cooker, all you have to do is layer the bottom with sliced onions, spice the pork roast to your liking (use herbs like basil, thyme, and marjoram), then you pour ¾ of a cup of water and one cup of red wine – go for a dry Pinot Noir or Cabernet – and leave it for about seven hours.

6. Seafood Recipe – Fish in Red Wine Butter Sauce

Although fish is often paired with white wine to drink, this lovely fish dish uses a sauce made with red wine. The sauce is basically a wine reduction using a ½ liter of red wine and flavoured with sugar, thyme, and other similar herbs. Butter is added once the mixture has reduced, and then poured over the cooked fish. A white fish like tilapia is recommended for this recipe.

7. Dessert Recipe – Red Wine Chocolate Brownies

Kick your brownies up a notch by infusing them with a nice, full-bodied Merlot or Cabernet. To do so, bring one cup of the wine to a boil and reduce it by half. Mix it in with all other wet ingredients, then follow your traditional brownie recipe and voila!