What is dutch oven

Dutch ovens seem to carry the same weight pun intended and status of a KitchenAid in your home kitchen: They're often an investment piece that you can use to add a pop of color to your kitchen and keep on hand for a lifetime of use.

Mine sits out on my stovetop partially because it's big and heavy, but also because its Caribbean Blue hue brings me joy and reminds me of the gift I bought myself when I graduated culinary school. A Dutch oven is a heavy-duty pot with lid designed for browning meat and veggies and then simmering on the stovetop or braising in the oven. It can also be used for soup and more simple tasks like boiling pasta. It's often used to make bread as well.

Brands like Le Creuset and Staub are some of the best known, while others like Lodge and Cuisinart are standouts as well. Dutch ovens look like stockpots but have wider bases and slightly shorter but thicker walls that allow for better browning and caramelization of ingredients and retain heat well, as well as doubling as serving pieces that keep food warm on the table. They also have two short handles on either side versus one long on traditional pans for balanced and steady transferring in and out of the oven.

Instant Pots and other multicookers are essentially electric Dutch ovens. They can be used to brown ingredients and then gently cook them in a contained environment. Slow cookers can also double as Dutch ovens for the same reasons. If you don't have either, a good quality sauce pan with lid can work, but chances are it's too small for big batches and won't cook as gentle or even. Also double check the manufacturer's instructions to ensure it and its lid!

Dutch ovens can be used the same way you use stock pots or saucepans. The main thing that sets them apart is you can get them really hot to sear meat and then ultimately finish cooking by simmer or transferring to the oven. Here are Good Housekeeping's top tricks for using your Dutch oven:. Product Reviews. Home Ideas.

Like this kimchi bacon chicken braise , a personal favorite of mine. Or this rich pomegranate lamb shank stunner. Or pot roast —how you gonna make pot roast without a pot?

An enameled cast-iron Dutch oven is perfect for braises because of its heft, which helps with heat retention and distribution. This is a fact of life: Better browning equals better flavor. The Instant Pot cuts out a ton of work, so take the time to get some color on your meat in a cast-iron Dutch oven, which will do it more effectively and efficiently than pretty much any other pan in your kitchen. A cast-iron skillet will work too. See a theme here?

We all now know that the key to glossy, better-than-restaurant pasta is adding starchy-salty pasta water to your sauce and then cooking your noodles right in there so they soak up all that sweet, sweet ambrosia. Who ever makes a small amount of soup?! One day, anyway. And the Dutch oven will get preheated in a crazy-hot oven and the lid will trap steam and the even heat distribution will hit your loaf from all sides, allowing you to produce a puffy, crackly-crusted loaf of no-knead bread.

A Dutch oven is a thick-walled, lidded pot. This type of sturdy cooking vessel has been used for centuries to slow-cook soups, stews, sauces, and breads. Dutch ovens come in cast iron , enameled, aluminum, and ceramic varieties.

Related : 18 Delicious Dutch Oven Dinners. An English inventor realized cast iron was a much cheaper alternative, but he needed to use a Dutch process to make the molds work. The difference between a Dutch oven and a French oven is the material used to coat the interior of the pot. Dutch ovens are made completely of cast iron, while French ovens are coated with enamel. Here are some of our favorite ways to use Dutch ovens but let us know if you think of more :. Country Life. Design Ideas. Home Maintenance.

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