From Campfire Cooking to Cassoulet: 22 Delish Dutch Oven Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How to cook with a Dutch oven on a campfire? ›

If you need to sear or sautee, place your Dutch oven on a squat little pile of coals and let it heat up. This direct heat is too hot for low-and-slow braising, but it works well for browning meat or turning onions translucent. Once you're done with this step, though, you'll want to chill things out a bit.

Camp Oven Seasoning

The seasoning process works best when the cast iron is hot so heat your camp oven up on campfire coals, in an oven or hooded BBQ. Make sure it is extremely hot. While the pot is still hot, add cooking oil (vegetable oil is fine). Carefully swish the oil around to coat the entire pot.

Fill your dutch oven no more than halfway with oil and then heat to your recipe's prescribed temperature. Submerge your ingredients in the heated oil until cooked, then rest them on a paper towel or wire rack to remove excess oil.

When using a Dutch Oven in the oven, however, you should check with the manufacturer to determine the maximum safe temperature for baking. Generally, most enameled Dutch Ovens should be safe to about 450 degrees Fahrenheit, but you'll want to be sure before you get started.

To keep a cast iron Dutch oven in top shape, it requires seasoning with vegetable oil. This process creates a non-stick surface and protects the metal from rust. Cleaning this type of Dutch oven is straightforward but crucial.

All cooking oils and fats can be used for seasoning cast iron, but based on availability, affordability, effectiveness, and having a high smoke point, Lodge recommends vegetable oil, melted shortening, or canola oil, like our Seasoning Spray.

CC: A Dutch oven is intended to cook with coals on top and underneath to create an oven effect of the heat surrounding it. Make sure the oven lid has a lip around the edge to keep the coals from falling off and 3 legs. If you have one without legs you can use a trivet made for a Dutch oven.

The most common method is: Preheat Dutch oven in the oven with the lid off at 500F/260C. Many bakers will continue preheating for 10-20 minutes after the oven reaches target temperature to ensure the Dutch oven is at its hottest. Lower the loaf into the Dutch oven using a sling made of parchment or silicone.

What is a Dutch oven trick? ›

In that case, we recommend the infamous Dutch oven prank. For the uninitiated, a Dutch oven involves farting in bed, then quickly pulling up the sheets to trap your significant other with the smell. It's a decades-old trick that has surely ruined countless relationships, yet many dudes still dare to try it.

Take your oven's diameter in inches and double it. This is the number of high-quality, standard-size charcoal briquettes you will need to heat your oven to 325 degrees every time. For a 10-inch oven, you need 20 briquettes. For a 12-incher, you need 24 briquettes, and so on.

Dutch Ovens for Open Fire Cooking: Differences and Similarities. There are two types of cast iron Dutch Ovens, Enameled and Unfinished. The Enameled Dutch oven is stove-top and oven safe yet not recommended for open-fire cooking due to its enameled finish and the possibility of it cracking, chipping, or flaking.

The indoor Dutch oven has no legs. You can easily use it on a stove top or in a standard household oven. Now look at the outdoor Dutch oven. It has legs that are designed to keep it just above coals, preventing direct contact with the heat and permitting oxygen to get to the coals.

Here, you would put the Dutch oven directly in your Kettle or fire pit, as dual-direction heating is required when braising in a Dutch oven. Coals must be put on top and below the pot to ensure juicy, even cooking of braised short ribs, chicken thighs, or pot roast. Bake in a bed of coals or wood embers.

The Dutch oven, an 18th-century invention from the Netherlands, is much more than a cooking pot—it's a symbol of culinary history that has stood the test of time. Rugged and dependable, a Dutch oven's ability to evenly distribute and maintain heat makes it ideal for the unpredictable conditions of campfire cuisine.