Cooking is a kind of meditation for me, and I do not mind spending hours in a kitchen, which is probably why dutch oven recipes suit me so well. A dutch oven is just a heavy lidded pot that goes from the stovetop into the oven or straight onto a bed of coals, and that one trick is what lets you brown, braise, simmer and bake dinner without ever changing pans. So here are one pot meals worth the pot: pulled pork and short ribs and pot roast, whole chickens, a duck, soups and chili and jambalaya, no knead bread with a crust you cannot get any other way, and yes, lava cake baked over charcoal. Some are four hours of doing almost nothing, some are twenty five minutes start to finish. Perfect for Sunday dinner, a campsite, a potluck or the night you want to wash exactly one thing.
1. Dutch Oven Ham
Ham usually shows up as the thing nobody planned, sliced cold and forgotten. This one goes in cut side down over sliced onion with brown sugar, honey and pineapple juice whisked and poured over the top, thyme laid across, lid on at 350. Figure fifteen minutes a pound until the middle reads 145, baste it halfway if you can reach, and the pot doubles as the glaze pan afterward.
Get the full tutorial at Temecula Blogs.
2. Dutch Oven Garlic Chicken
A whole chicken, two tablespoons of minced garlic split between the bottom of the pot and the top of the bird, and a whole apple pushed into the cavity to steam it from the inside. It cooks covered at 375 for an hour and a half to two hours, and the molasses and Dijon glaze only goes on once the bird hits 160. Then twenty to thirty minutes uncovered, which is where the skin finally crisps.
Get the full tutorial at Yummi Haus.
3. Dutch Oven Herbed Potatoes
No peeling, no boiling, no oven. Half a stick of butter melts in the pot, two and a half pounds of small white or Yukon golds go in whole with salt and pepper, and then the lid stays on over low heat for twenty to thirty minutes. Shake the pot every five minutes or the bottoms catch. Herbs get tossed in at the very end, off the heat, so they stay green instead of turning to hay.
Get the full tutorial at Vodka and Biscuits.
4. Dutch Oven Bread
This is the milk version rather than the water one, which gives a softer crumb and a bread that slices without shattering. Yeast blooms in warm milk with a pinch of sugar, then five cups of flour and a tablespoon of salt, and an egg if you want a richer loaf. It rises an hour or two depending on how warm your kitchen runs. Good first loaf if the no-knead ones have intimidated you.
Get the full tutorial at Sandra's Easy Cooking.
5. Butternut Squash Dutch Oven Lasagna
Lasagna with no noodles in it at all. The neck of a butternut squash gets run over a mandolin on the thinnest setting, and those thin rounds layer in exactly where pasta would go. Meat sauce and a ricotta, egg and parsley mix build up in the pot, mozzarella and Parmesan over the top, then 350 for about fifty minutes. Cut the small bulb end off first, since only the solid neck slices cleanly.
Get the full tutorial at The Toasted Pine Nut.
6. Dutch Oven Roasted Duck
Two ingredients. A whole duck, about five and a half pounds, and salt and pepper. You score the skin in a criss cross pattern, cutting only through skin and fat and never into the meat, season it hard, and put it in a seven quart pot at 325 for four to five hours. Baste about once an hour. It comes out falling off the bone with genuinely golden skin, and it is far less fussy than duck has any right to be.
Get the full tutorial at The Healthy Foodie.
7. Italian Shellfish Stew
Everything builds in one pot and nothing leaves it. Onion and minced garlic soften in olive oil, then eight diced plum tomatoes and red pepper flakes, then tomato sauce and dry red wine brought to a boil and covered for ten minutes. The shellfish goes in by cooking time: squid first, then white fish, scallops and shrimp, then a dozen littleneck clams for the last four or five minutes. Toasted bread rubbed with a cut garlic clove sits under every ladle.
Get the full tutorial at Williams Sonoma.
8. Cheesy Dutch Oven Potatoes
Five ingredients and no measurements to speak of, which tells you what kind of recipe it is. Diced bacon goes into the warm pot first, then gets spooned out while the grease stays behind. After that it is layers: potatoes, salt and pepper, onions, cheese, bacon, and repeat. Forty five minutes over a grill or hot coals until the potatoes give. Camping food that people ask for at home.
Get the full tutorial at One Sweet Appetite.
9. Braised Dutch Oven Pulled Pork
No smoker, no slow cooker, no ten hour wait. A four pound boston butt gets cut into four inch chunks, which is the trick, because smaller pieces mean more crust and less time. Paprika, kosher salt, pepper, garlic powder and oregano make the rub. Sear in batches until a real crust forms, then back in the pot in one layer and into a 300 degree oven. Twelve servings out of one pot.
Get the full tutorial at Our Salty Kitchen.
10. Beer Braised Short Ribs
Eighteen ounces of stout, four or five pounds of short ribs and two and a half hours you mostly spend elsewhere. Brown the ribs first, then onion, then garlic, carrot and celery, then tomato paste and brown sugar cooked for a minute so they lose their raw edge. One cup of stock deglazes the pot and every brown bit on the bottom goes into the sauce. Then the lid, and 375 until a fork goes through.
Get the full tutorial at Fox Valley Foodie.
11. Dutch Oven Grecian Chicken
Three quarters of a cup of peeled garlic cloves. Not minced, whole, and most of them go in around the bird rather than inside it. Two sliced lemons, dried oregano, salt and pepper, and a pat of butter on top if you want crisper skin. It cooks at 375 for about an hour and a half. Pull it at 160 and let it sit ten minutes, because carryover heat takes it the rest of the way to 165 on its own.
Get the full tutorial at Sweet C's Designs.
12. Dutch Oven Chili Mac
Chili mac is what happens when nobody can agree on chili or macaroni, so you stop choosing. Browned beef and the chili end of the spice rack go in first, the pasta cooks right in the same pot in the sauce, and the starch that comes off it does the thickening for you. Cheese on top at the end. It is a school night dinner, it feeds a crowd, and it is one pot to wash.
Get the full tutorial at Fueling a Fit Fam.
13. Dutch Oven Broccoli Cheddar Soup
Five strips of bacon cook first, come out, and the onions, carrots and celery soften in the drippings. That is the whole reason this one tastes better than the version you have had. Four cups of broccoli, cream and broth simmer until the florets are tender, then three cups of cheddar go in gradually so the cheese melts instead of seizing. Salt at the very end, because cheddar and bacon have already done a lot of that work.
Get the full tutorial at Savory Tooth.
14. Fall-Apart Dutch Oven Chicken
The spice mix here is cinnamon, cloves and star anise with kosher salt, and it goes under the skin, not on it. Loosen the skin gently with your fingers, rub almost all of it underneath, sprinkle the rest on top. Then the bird goes in breast side down at 250 for four to five hours. Not a typo. Low enough that it falls apart when you lift any part of it, and the skin pulls right off.
Get the full tutorial at Cooking on the Weekends.
15. Dutch Oven Chocolate Lava Cake
Boxed chocolate cake mix into a greased four quart pot. Then a cup of brown sugar, a cup of white sugar and two thirds of a cup of cocoa sprinkled over the raw batter, which looks like far too much dry powder. It is not. Two and a quarter cups of very hot black coffee goes over the whole thing without stirring, and that becomes the sauce. Eight coals underneath, sixteen around the lid, fifty five minutes.
Get the full tutorial at Happily Homegrown.
16. Chuck Roast with Balsamic and Dijon
A third of a cup of balsamic gets boiled down with the onions until it is reduced and slightly syrupy, four or five minutes, and then the Dijon goes in off the heat. That is the whole flavor of this roast decided in one step. Four pounds of chuck sits on top with beef broth and thyme, covered, at 300 for three hours. Carrots and small potatoes join for the last thirty to sixty minutes.
Get the full tutorial at The Wicked Noodle.
17. Dutch Oven Pumpkin Pie
Pumpkin pie baked over coals, which sounds like a stunt and is actually the practical answer when the oven is full. The pot holds heat so evenly that a custard sets without cracking, and you control the temperature by how many coals sit on the lid rather than by a dial. Worth trying once in November purely so the real oven stays free for everything else.
Get the full tutorial at Self Reliant School.
18. 4-Ingredient Dutch Oven Bread
Four ingredients: 600 grams of all purpose flour, two cups of lukewarm water between 90 and 110 degrees, a tablespoon and a half of salt and one envelope of dry active yeast. No eggs, no dairy, no kneading. Wet your working hand before you mix and the dough stops gluing itself to your fingers, which is the tip nobody tells you. It rises an hour and a half to two hours until doubled.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
19. Campfire Dutch Oven Jambalaya
Jambalaya was built for this pot long before anybody called it camping food. Sausage renders, the trinity softens in the fat, rice and stock go in and then the lid stays shut while it absorbs. The discipline is the same over a fire as on a stove: do not stir it and do not peek. Feed a whole campsite out of it, and there is one thing to scrub afterward.
Get the full tutorial at Road Trip Republic.
20. Award-Winning Beef Stew
Bacon goes in the pot first and comes out crispy, and the chuck roast browns in what it left behind. That is the base. Then baby potatoes, brown mushrooms, carrots, celery, a cinnamon stick, four allspice berries and a bottle of dark beer, which sounds like a lot until you taste it. Browning the meat in batches matters more than any single ingredient here, so give it the room.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
21. Homemade French Onion Soup
Three pounds of thinly sliced Spanish onions, cooked down in the pot while a broth simmers separately for an hour with carrot, thyme, parsley, bay, peppercorns and a Parmesan rind. Keep moving the onions and scrape up anything catching on the bottom, because that is flavor and not a mistake. Gruyere and toasted bread on top. It sounds like a restaurant order and it is genuinely beginner territory.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
22. Braised Chicken with Olives and Orange
Olives and orange is the kind of pairing that sounds odd written down and makes complete sense in your mouth. A chicken cut into ten pieces gets dusted with two and a half teaspoons of paprika and browned in batches, then red wine lifts everything stuck to the bottom. Broth, canned tomatoes, olives, strips of orange zest, fennel seeds and roasted red peppers go in, covered, at 350 for an hour or more. The orange juice goes in last, to thicken.
Get the full tutorial at Williams Sonoma.
23. No-Knead Dutch Oven Bread
Three cups of flour, two teaspoons of sea salt, one teaspoon of active dry yeast and a cup and a half of warm water, stirred with a spoon into a shaggy wet dough. Then it sits eight to eighteen hours and does the work without you. The part people skip: preheat the empty covered pot at 450 for thirty minutes before the dough goes in. That hot pot is what gives you the crust.
Get the full tutorial at Girl Versus Dough.
24. Dutch Oven Mac and Cheese
This is the camp version, built in a fourteen inch dutch oven. Two pounds of elbow macaroni boil and drain in a separate pot, then go into the buttered oven in layers with cubed Velveeta and cubed Monterey Jack, half at a time. Half a cup of milk and two tablespoons of spicy brown mustard go over the top. The mustard is the part nobody expects and the reason all that cheese does not taste flat.
Get the full tutorial at Lou Lou Girls.
25. Dutch Oven Enchiladas
Twenty five minutes, which makes this the fastest real dinner on the list. Red pepper strips and thin half moons of red onion soften first, then garlic, cumin and salt for thirty seconds. Half a cup of enchilada sauce lines the bottom so nothing sticks, then four to six rolled tortillas go in seam side down, sauce and cheese over the top, lid on. Vegetarian as written and nobody notices.
Get the full tutorial at Fresh Off the Grid.
26. Dutch Oven Cheesy Funeral Potatoes
Know what you are getting into before you start, because this makes twenty servings. A cup of butter melts in the pot, then two cans of cream of chicken soup, a cup and a half of sour cream, four pounds of shredded hash browns and five or six cups of cheddar. Corn flakes tossed in melted butter go on top. The maker’s own warning is worth repeating: cook it over charcoal rather than straight propane, or the bottom burns before the middle is hot.
Get the full tutorial at Jamie Cooks It Up.
27. Jalapeno Cheddar Dutch Oven Crusty Bread
Crusty bread with jalapeno and sharp cheddar worked into the dough, which is the version that disappears at a chili dinner before the chili does. Cheese near the crust catches and goes crisp in a hot covered pot, and that is the best part of the loaf. If heat worries you, seed the jalapenos and you keep the flavor without the burn.
Get the full tutorial at Alaska From Scratch.
28. Dutch Oven Sausage Breakfast Pinwheels
Three ingredients: two cans of pizza crust, a pound of sausage and a pound of cheddar. Roll one crust out, layer the cooked sausage and cheese, roll it up long side first, pinch it shut and cut twelve slices. The clever bit is cutting rounds from the second crust to sit under each pinwheel so nothing leaks out. Twenty six briquettes, ten underneath and sixteen on the lid, which is roughly 350.
Get the full tutorial at Call Me PMc.
29. Dutch Oven Cornbread
Cornbread with a can of green chiles and a quarter cup of cheddar stirred through, sweetened with honey rather than sugar. Melt the butter in the hot pot first and pour the batter straight onto it, because that is what gives you the crisp edge cast iron is famous for. Seven coals under the pot and seventeen on the lid puts you around 425. Twenty minutes and it is done.
Get the full tutorial at Fresh Off the Grid.
30. Dutch Oven Cheese Potatoes
Five ingredients and a plan: cook the bacon, shred the cheese and dice the onion at home before you leave, so the only job at the campsite is slicing potatoes. Line the pot with heavy foil, layer potatoes, bacon, onion and slices of butter, and cook on low. Stir every fifteen minutes for thirty to sixty minutes total, then the cheese goes on at the end and the lid goes back until it melts.
Get the full tutorial at Spindles Designs.
31. Easy Chili Con Carne
Real chili, which means chuck roast cut into cubes and no ground beef anywhere near it. Four guajillo and four ancho peppers get toasted in a dry pan for a minute or two a side, soaked in very hot water for twenty minutes, then blended with half a cup of the soaking water into a sauce. Chili powder works if you cannot find the dried peppers, but toast them if you can. It is a different dish.
Get the full tutorial at DIY Joy.
32. Campfire Nachos
Fifteen minutes and three layers, and the layering is the whole point, because nachos built in one flat pile are dry chips with a wet middle. Chips, sauce, black beans, cheese, avocado, green onion and cilantro, then repeat twice. Lid on, over the fire for about ten minutes until the cheese goes. Lime wedges at the table. Two of you can call this dinner, four of you can call it a starter.
Get the full tutorial at Fresh Off the Grid.
33. No-knead Dutch Oven Nutty Boule
A no knead loaf with 125 grams of nuts, seeds and dried fruit stirred right into the dough, walnuts and pistachios and sunflower seeds in the original. A tablespoon of honey goes in with the water. Twelve to eighteen hours of rise, then score an X across the top with a very sharp knife or a razor before it bakes. This is the loaf for cheese, and it makes a genuinely good gift.
Get the full tutorial at Pardon Your French.
