A Dutch oven is the one pot that will do almost every job in your kitchen, and most people use it for about three of them. This guide to What To Cook In A Dutch Oven walks through every job the pot actually does well, which foods belong in bare cast iron versus enamelled, and the recipes to start with. If you only own one piece of cookware, this is the one that earns its shelf space.
If you want the full recipe list rather than the guide, start with my Dutch oven recipes. For the pot in specific situations, there is also Dutch oven soup recipes, Dutch oven bread recipes and Dutch oven camping recipes.
Quick Look at this Guide
- ✅ What This Covers: Every job a Dutch oven does well, and the recipe to start with for each one
- 🔒 The Pot Question: Enamelled versus bare cast iron, and which foods suit each
- 🍲 Best At: Braising, soups and stews, bread, casseroles, whole birds, frying, cobblers
- 🔥 Works On: Stovetop, oven, and a bed of coals
- 📚 Recipes Linked: More than 50, all from this site
- ⭐ Why You'll Love It: One pot replaces a stockpot, a roaster, a casserole dish and a bread cloche
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Why You Will Love Cooking In A Dutch Oven
- It goes from stovetop to oven. Brown on the burner, then move the whole pot into the oven without dirtying a second dish.
- The heat is steady. Thick iron holds temperature, so a simmer stays a simmer instead of creeping into a boil the moment you turn your back.
- The lid does real work. A heavy lid traps steam, which is what turns a tough cut tender and gives bread its crust.
- It replaces four other pieces. Stockpot, roaster, casserole dish and bread cloche, all in one pot.
- It works away from the kitchen. Set it in coals and the same pot cooks dinner at a campsite.
What A Dutch Oven Actually Does Well
A Dutch oven is a heavy pot with straight sides and a tight lid, and everything it is good at comes from those three facts. The weight means it holds heat instead of reacting to every change in the burner. Depth keeps liquid deep enough to surround what you are cooking. And a tight lid means steam stays put.
As a result, you get the one thing the pot does better than anything else in the kitchen: it cooks with moist, even, surrounding heat for a long time without you touching it. That is the whole answer to what a Dutch oven is used for. Anything that wants low heat and time belongs in it.
However, it is also the reason the pot is bad at a few things. Quick, dry, high-heat cooking with a lot of surface area is a skillet job. If you are searing two steaks or crisping a hash, reach for a cast iron skillet instead.
The short version of what it does well:
- Braising. Tough cuts, low oven, hours. This is the pot's best trick.
- Soups, stews and chili. Brown, deglaze, simmer, all in one pot.
- Bread. The lid turns the pot into a steam oven.
- Casseroles and baked pasta. Deep enough for layers, heavy enough to brown the top.
- Whole birds and big cuts. A whole chicken fits with the lid on.
- Frying. Tall sides contain the splatter and the iron holds oil temperature steady.
- Cobblers and dump cakes. Fruit bubbles underneath while the top browns.
Enamelled Or Bare: Which Pot For Which Food
This is the question I get more than any other, and the honest answer is that both are good pots that fail at different things. I cook in three: a bare cast iron camp oven with legs and a flanged lid, a bare cast iron kitchen Dutch oven, and an enamelled one. They do not get used for the same food.
In short, the difference comes down to one thing. Bare cast iron has a seasoning layer, which is polymerised oil bonded to the iron. That layer is what makes it non-stick, and acid dissolves it. Enamelled cast iron has a glass coating instead, which acid cannot touch, but glass chips and it never becomes non-stick.
| Bare cast iron | Enamelled cast iron | |
|---|---|---|
| Surface | Seasoning, which improves with use | Glass enamel, which stays the same |
| Acidic food | Fine on mature seasoning, risky on new | No limits at all |
| Searing | Better. Takes higher heat and browns harder | Good, but light enamel stains and scorches |
| Non-stick | Yes, and it gets better every time you cook | No. Food sticks unless you use fat |
| Maintenance | Soap is fine. Dry it, oil it, never soak it | Wash it like a pan. Soap is fine too |
| Can it be ruined | Rust and stripped seasoning, both fixable | Chips and cracks, neither fixable |
| Open fire and coals | Yes. This is what it was built for | No. Thermal shock cracks enamel |
| Seeing your fond | Hard. Black on black | Easy. Light interior shows the browning |
What To Cook In Bare Cast Iron
Anything that wants a hard sear, anything going near a fire, and anything that benefits from the seasoning. Pot roast, short ribs, brisket, fried chicken, cornbread, and every campfire meal. My camp oven with legs and a flanged lid is bare cast iron and it will never be anything else, because coals on an enamelled lid is how you crack the enamel.
The two bare pots I actually cook in are the Smithey 5.5 qt Dutch Oven, which has a polished interior that is smoother than standard cast iron and genuinely non-stick once it is seasoned in, and the Lodge Blacklock 5.5 qt, which is thinner and lighter than regular Lodge and comes triple seasoned out of the box. Smithey also makes a 3.5 qt for two people and a 7.25 qt if you cook for a crowd.
While we are here, one myth worth killing: soap is fine on bare cast iron. The old rule about never letting soap near it comes from the days of lye based soap, which genuinely did strip seasoning, but household dish soap has not been made that way for decades. Seasoning is oil polymerised onto the iron, not a greasy film sitting on top, so a squirt of Dawn and a brush will not touch it. What actually wrecks a pan is leaving it to soak, scouring it back to bare metal, or putting it away wet.
One thing worth knowing about bare cast iron: boiling plain water or pasta in it is not doing your seasoning any favours. Build the seasoning up with baking and frying first, then it will handle tomatoes and wine without complaint. If yours needs work, start with cast iron seasoning.
What To Cook In Enamelled Cast Iron
Anything long, wet and acidic. Tomato sauce, wine braises, chili that simmers half a day, beans, anything with vinegar or citrus in it. Enamel does not care. The light interior is also the quiet advantage nobody mentions: you can see the fond building on the bottom, which makes it much easier to deglaze at the right moment instead of guessing.
However, the catch is that enamel is glass. Do not heat it empty, do not take it from a hot oven to a cold sink, and keep it out of the fire. A chipped enamel pot is a dead enamel pot.
Which one should you buy if you are starting from nothing? That deserves a longer answer than a section, so it is getting its own post next week with a proper comparison by size, price and tier.
What To Cook In A Dutch Oven
So here is the pot working job by job, with somewhere to start on each one. These are grouped by what the Dutch oven is doing to the food rather than by protein, because once you see the pattern you stop needing a recipe to know whether something belongs in the pot.
Braises And Pot Roasts
The pot's best work. Brown the meat hard, add enough liquid to come partway up, put the lid on, and leave it in a low oven for three hours. Tough collagen turns to gelatin and a cheap cut eats better than an expensive one.
- Dutch Oven Pot Roast is the one to learn first. Chuck roast, root vegetables, and a gravy that builds itself.
- Dutch Oven Mississippi Pot Roast takes the same cut somewhere tangier with pepperoncini and butter.
- Whiskey Pot Roast deglazes with whiskey and reduces it into the sauce.
- Dutch Oven Braised Short Ribs is the richest thing on this list and the easiest to get right.
- For something a little fancier, Dutch Oven Lamb Shanks falls off the bone after a long, slow afternoon.
- Dutch Oven Birria simmers chiles and beef down into something worth the wait.
- Pork Ragu shreds into pasta after three hours of doing nothing.
- Dutch Oven Beef Brisket proves you do not need a smoker to cook a brisket properly.
- Come March, Dutch Oven Corned Beef And Cabbage puts the whole St Patrick's Day plate in one pot.
- Dutch Oven Pork Roast stays juicy because the lid keeps the steam in.
Soups, Stews And Chili
Brown, deglaze, simmer. The Dutch oven does all three without a change of pan, and the heavy base means the bottom will not scorch while you are doing something else.
- Dutch Oven 7 Can Soup is dinner in fifteen minutes out of the pantry.
- Dutch Oven Ham And Bean Soup is what a leftover ham bone is for.
- New England Clam Chowder stays creamy because the heat is steady.
- Chicken And Wild Rice Soup thickens on its own as the rice softens.
- Old Fashioned Chicken And Dumplings steams the dumplings under the lid.
- Ground Beef Stew is a weeknight stew that does not need a long braise.
- Dutch Oven Awesome Chili won a cook off in 2005 and has not changed much since.
- Dutch Oven White Chicken Chili is the lighter one for when you want chili without the tomato.
There are more of these than will fit here, so the full set lives in my Dutch oven soup recipes.
Bread
Above all, this is the trick that surprises people. Preheat the empty pot, drop the dough in, bake with the lid on for the first half. The dough releases its own steam, the lid traps it, and you get a crackling crust that a home oven cannot produce on its own. Then take the lid off to brown the top.
- Dutch Oven Bread is the no knead loaf to start with.
- Dutch Oven Sourdough Bread for when you have a starter going.
- Artesian Italian Bread With Dipping Oil comes out bakery shaped.
- Rosemary Garlic Bread fills the kitchen while it bakes.
- Dutch Oven Cinnamon Rolls proves the pot does breakfast too.
- Dutch Oven Raspberry Bread is the sweet quick bread of the group.
The technique side of this is covered properly in my Dutch oven bread recipes.
Pasta Bakes And Casseroles
Deep enough to layer, heavy enough to brown the top, and it goes to the table as the serving dish. This is where the Dutch oven quietly replaces a 9x13.
- Dutch Oven Lasagna layers up in the round pot better than you would expect.
- On a weeknight, Dutch Oven Baked Ziti gets you there faster.
- Dutch Oven Mac And Cheese goes from stovetop sauce to baked top without changing dishes.
- Two comfort foods land in one pot with Dutch Oven Chili Mac.
- Philly Cheesesteak Pasta cooks the pasta in the sauce.
- Baked Spaghetti Casserole feeds a crowd out of one pot.
- Dutch Oven Pizza Pasta is exactly what it sounds like and the kids ask for it.
Whole Birds And Big Cuts
A whole chicken fits in a 5.5 quart pot with the lid on. Roast it covered so it steams itself, then take the lid off for the last stretch to brown the skin.
- Dutch Oven Chicken is the whole bird done simply.
- Want a sauce that builds itself? Dutch Oven Italian Chicken In Gravy does exactly that.
- Dutch Oven Teriyaki Barbecue Chicken glazes under the lid.
- For a holiday table, Dutch Oven Ham stays moist instead of drying out in a roasting pan.
- Citrus Spice Prime Rib Roast is the holiday version.
- Herb Butter Turkey fits a smaller bird if you are not feeding twenty.
- Dutch Oven Ribs goes low and slow without a smoker.
Frying
Tall sides contain the splatter and the iron holds oil temperature steady when cold food goes in, which is the whole battle in frying. Fill no more than a third of the way up.
- Buttermilk Onion Rings come out crisp because the oil does not crash.
- Beer Battered Fish is the Friday night one.
- Mini Corndogs are worth the oil.
- Fried Potatoes are the simplest thing on this page and hard to beat.
Cobblers, Dump Cakes And Desserts
Fruit bubbles at the bottom while the topping browns under the lid or in the oven. This is the campfire dessert that also works on a Tuesday.
- Dutch Oven Peach Cobbler is the classic and takes about four ingredients.
- Peach Dump Cake is even less work than the cobbler.
- Dutch Oven Apple Cake is the autumn one.
- Dutch Oven Graham Cracker Brownies bake surprisingly well in the pot.
- Cast Iron Cherry Cobbler works in either the pot or a skillet.
- Peach Blueberry Cobbler is the summer version.
If dump cakes are your thing, there are more in my dump cake recipes.
Sides And Vegetables
The lid steams and the iron browns, which covers most of what a vegetable needs.
- Dutch Oven Potatoes are the side dish that disappears first.
- Feeling richer? Dutch Oven Cheesy Potatoes pile on the cheese.
- Dutch Oven Baked Potatoes work without an oven at all.
- Sweeter and simpler, Dutch Oven Honey Glazed Carrots glaze themselves under the lid.
- Dutch Oven Steamed Corn On The Cob takes about ten minutes.
- Skillet Baked Beans And Bacon move straight into the Dutch oven if you are scaling up.
- Dutch Oven Summer Squash is the quick one.
- Dutch Oven Cashew Broccoli keeps some crunch.
How To Use A Dutch Oven
In fact, most Dutch oven mistakes come down to four things. Get these right and the rest follows.
- Preheat slowly. Cast iron is slow to heat and slow to let go. Give it five minutes on medium rather than two on high. Rushing it gives you a scorching centre and cold edges, and on enamel it is how you get a permanent scorch mark.
- Brown in batches. Crowding the pot drops the temperature and the meat steams instead of browning. Two or three batches with space between the pieces is the difference between grey beef and a real crust.
- Deglaze while the pot is hot. The brown stuff stuck to the bottom is the flavour. Splash in stock, wine or even water, scrape it up with a wooden spoon, and it dissolves into the sauce.
- Use the oven for long cooks. A burner heats the bottom only, which is why long stovetop simmers scorch. A 300F oven surrounds the pot and holds a braise steady for hours with no stirring.
As for size, a 5.5 to 6 quart pot is the one to own if you are only owning one. It takes a whole chicken, a four pound roast, or a double batch of soup. Anything smaller gets crowded fast, and anything bigger is heavy enough that you will avoid reaching for it.
Both types go in the oven. Check your lid knob rating if it is plastic, though most are good to 400F or better. Both work on a stovetop, including induction, since cast iron is magnetic either way.
Cooking Over Coals
This is the part of Dutch oven cooking that gets left out of most kitchen guides, and it is where the pot came from. A camp oven with legs and a flanged lid sits above the coals and takes more on top, so heat comes from both directions and you have a real oven in the middle of nowhere.
Fortunately, the rule of thumb is simple. Take the diameter of your pot in inches, add three for the coals on the lid, subtract three for the coals underneath, and you are close to 350F. A 12 inch oven wants fifteen on top and nine underneath. Rotate the pot a third turn every fifteen minutes and rotate the lid the other way so no hot spot sits still.
Use bare cast iron for this and nothing else. An enamelled pot on direct coals is a cracked pot. The full numbers are in my Dutch oven temperature chart, and the recipes are in my Dutch oven camping recipes.
Dutch Oven Mountain Man Breakfast is the one to cook first at a campsite. It feeds everybody and it is hard to get wrong.
What Not To Cook In A Dutch Oven
Short list, but worth knowing.
- Long acidic simmers in new bare cast iron. Tomato sauce or a wine braise left for hours in a pot with young seasoning will strip it and pick up a metallic taste. Mature seasoning handles it fine. If yours is new, use the enamelled pot for that one.
- Plain boiled water and pasta in bare cast iron. It will not ruin the pot, but boiling water does nothing good for seasoning. Use a regular pot and save the iron for the sauce.
- Anything quick and dry. Eggs, pancakes, a couple of steaks. The pot is too deep and too slow to react. That is skillet work.
- Delicate fish. The sides make it almost impossible to get a spatula underneath without breaking the fillet.
- Anything on an empty preheat in enamel. Heating an enamelled pot dry is the fastest way to crack or discolour it. Get fat or liquid in first.
Finally, storage is the other one people get wrong. Bare cast iron wants to go away bone dry with a thin film of oil, and never with the lid clamped on tight, because trapped moisture is how rust starts. Leave a folded paper towel between the pot and the lid.
Dutch Oven FAQs
Questions About The Pot Itself
A Dutch oven is used for anything that wants low, moist, surrounding heat over a long time. That means braises and pot roasts, soups, stews and chili, baked pasta and casseroles, whole chickens and large cuts of meat, deep frying, bread, and cobblers. Because it works on the stovetop, in the oven, and over coals, it is the most versatile pot in most kitchens.
Braising is what it does better than anything else. For example, a tough, cheap cut like chuck roast or short ribs, browned hard and then left covered in a low oven for three hours, comes out more tender than an expensive cut cooked quickly. Bread is a close second, since the heavy lid traps steam and produces a crust a home oven cannot manage on its own.
A few things. Long acidic simmers such as tomato sauce will strip young seasoning in bare cast iron, so use enamelled or a well seasoned pot for those. Quick, dry cooking like eggs, pancakes or a couple of steaks belongs in a skillet, because the Dutch oven is too deep and too slow to react. Delicate fish is hard to lift out without breaking. Finally, an enamelled pot should never go on direct coals or be preheated empty.
Questions About Enamelled Versus Bare
Neither is better. Instead, they fail at different things. Bare cast iron sears harder, becomes non-stick as the seasoning builds, and is the only option for open fire and coals, although acid can strip the seasoning. Enamelled cast iron, on the other hand, handles acidic food with no limits, cleans like an ordinary pan, and lets you see the browning on a light interior. However, the enamel chips permanently and cannot take thermal shock.
No. The enamel is a glass coating rather than a seasoning layer, so there is nothing to build up and nothing to maintain. In other words, wash it with soap and water like any other pan. Bare cast iron is the one that needs seasoning, and it improves every time you cook fat in it.
Yes. Modern dish soap will not hurt your seasoning. The rule against it dates from when household soap was lye based, which did strip seasoning, but that has not been true for decades. Seasoning is oil polymerised onto the iron rather than a coating sitting on the surface, so washing with soap and a brush is fine. What does damage a pan is soaking it, scouring it back to bare metal, or storing it wet.
Questions About Using It Day To Day
Yes, and that is half the point of the pot. First brown your meat on the burner and deglaze, then move the whole thing to the oven without changing dishes. Both bare and enamelled cast iron work on gas, electric and induction, since cast iron is magnetic in either form. Still, preheat slowly on medium rather than high.
Yes. Both bare and enamelled Dutch ovens are oven safe. In fact, long cooks are better in the oven than on a burner, because the heat surrounds the pot instead of hitting only the bottom. The one thing to check is the lid knob, as some are plastic or phenolic with a temperature limit, usually around 400F.
A 5.5 to 6 quart pot is the right single Dutch oven for most households. It holds a whole chicken, a four pound roast, or a double batch of soup. A 3.5 quart suits one or two people, while a 7 quart or larger suits a crowd. However, the weight starts to become a reason not to reach for it.
More Dutch Oven Recipes
If this guide to What To Cook In A Dutch Oven helped you figure out what to put in the pot, I would love to hear about it. Leave a 🌟 star rating and tell me in the 📝 comments what you cooked first.
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