'Can't live without' one-pot recipes

Blue Ridge Chair Works

Supporting Sonsor
We're willing to carry the weight of cast iron pots because we love the taste of nearly everything you make in them. We'd love to collate a collection of your favorite one-pot meals you can prep and eat on the road to share on our blog. Give us your best, Top Chefs, and if you don't mind us sharing your recipe (with full credit!) let us know at the bottom too. Can't wait to start drooling at your ideas!
 

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dwh

Tail-End Charlie
Stew.

Brown meat (any kind), onions and garlic in a bit of oil. Chop up potatoes, carrots, celery till the pan is about full, then add water to cover. Add your favorite spices. Boil an hour or so then simmer to desired thickness.

Lot of people think you have to add flour to make gravy, but that's a hack if you ask me. The trick is, when chopping up the potatoes, chop big (1/2") chunks - except chop one or two taters smaller, like 1/4" or less. The smaller chunks will break down into starch and thicken the broth. Start just after lunch and simmer till dinnertime and you'll have stew you can eat with a fork.

Leftovers in pie crust for pot pies.

Use different spices to make curry served over rice.

Use cooked beans (any kind) instead of taters and carrots, and different spices to make chili.



And don't even get me started on gumbo or jambalaya.
 

NatersXJ6

Explorer
Dutch Oven Chicken

If you are carrying a Dutch oven, it is hard to beat feeding a group with simple Chicken dishes.

I like to stick with drumsticks, because they are cheap, easy to eat, and generally low waste.

throw some butter or oil in the pan, not much, just enough to coat the pan. I prefer to take the skin off, because it won't crisp in this recipe. I usually skin them at home and freeze them for the trip. Layer the bottom of pan with drumsticks. add a couple of garlic cloves, a coarsely chopped onion, salt and pepper, paprika, and some citrus juice (often OJ because I'm already hauling it). dump in chicken broth and white wine (cheap) until the chicken is covered. put in a layer of red potato and baby carrot, cover, and cook on low heat for a really long time. After you think it should be done, cook longer. something like 250 or 275 deg for about 3 hours is perfect.

you can do this in a covered pot, but a Dutch oven is nice too. check the fluid occasionally, you want to end the cook with about 25% of what you started with.

as an alternative to the seasoning here, the pre-made garlic herb white wine marinade in the black package at the grocery (McCormic Grill Mates Maybe?) is a pretty good selection, but salty.

you can also do this with pork chops.

best served with coarse crusty bread. bonus points for making that bread in your Dutch oven first.

The hardest part of making this is defending your camp against other campers and the occasional bear when your smell starts wafting about!
 

Buckru

Observer
What can't you make in one pot with some creativity? My normal 1 pot meals come from a dutch oven

Some of my favorites when camping; Lasagna, Chicken and rice, stew, Mexican cornbread, chili, Tomale pie, None of these take much time if you're prepared.

Chuck roast, brisket in onion gravy, chili verde. These are if hanging around camp in the afternoon or can be buried in coals.

Any one pot meal can crossover to camping. There isn't much difference between your stove at home and the one on the tailgate.
 

wagex

Adventurer
good ole pot of beans is one of my favorite things to make granted im in the same spot for a full day.
-bag of beans. (of your liking i usually use red or great northern white beans)
-bit of ham (i like to bring a frozen ham bone with a chunk of meat still on it from a smoked pork butt i make at home)
-water or broth
-jalapenos (lots! or less if you dont like spicey)
-salt and season to your liking
throw it all in the pot and let it barely simmer, i think i usually shoot for at least 4 hours cook time. the longer you cook it the more starches leach out into the broth and it gets thicker and better :)

edit: be sure and have a large dutch oven, or dont use a whole bag of beans. we generally sit it by or above the fire just watch it doesnt get too hot or they wont come out right.
 

IRISH

New member
30 MIN 1 POT JAMBALAYA

Quick down and dirty 30 min 1 pot sausage and chicken Jambalaya.

Need:
1 sausage of your choice.
1 green pepper and 1 onion.
for camping I use canned chicken breast usually 2 cans. you don't have to refrigerate or take up space in cooler.
minute rice.
chicken stock
spices are just salt, pepper and Cajun seasoning.


To start: Cut 1 sausage of your choice into coins and set to side. Rough cut 1 whole onion and 1 whole green pepper and set to the side. heat up pot or Dutch oven. add sausage and let cook for 3-4 minutes stirring to make sure it doesn't burn. add onion and green pepper. stir and cook till translucent. add 2 cans of chicken. add Cajun seasoning pepper and salt to taste. for about 3 min. Add 1 cup water and 1 cup chicken stock. stir then bring to boil. add 2 cups rice. stir and cover. let it simmer till rice is tender.

serve and enjoy.
 

dwh

Tail-End Charlie

Eh, woops. Didn't see this thread again till just now.

But IRISH just nailed it. Gumbo is technically supposed to be a soup, so you can take the above jambalaya recipe, leave out the rice and add (sliced) okra and shrimp and a can of chopped tomatoes and whip up a decent quickie gumbo.


I do it a bit different because I enjoy puttering around and taking my time (making an afternoon out of it)...

(This is a camp gumbo, not a proper Cajun resteraunt gumbo (no roux :) ).)

Brown about a foot and a half of a sausage (crosscut), three or four big onions (any color) chopped rough not fine, and way too much (two or three full bulbs worth) chopped garlic (with garlic and also sweet basil, there's pretty much no such thing as "too much") in a bit of oil, take out and set aside.

Toss in a chicken (whole or cut up, won't matter), or the equivalent weight of dressed game birds or rabbits. Fill pot with water and boil until whatever it is completely falls apart. Use a strainer spoon to fish out everything leaving only the broth/stock in the pan. Let the chunky stuff cool a bit.

Getcher fingers dirty and fish out all the hard inedible bits - bones, tendons, etc. (I despise picking bones out of my food while I'm eating, so I do it while cooking). I usually leave the skin (with birds, not rabbits :) ). Chop it up fairly fine and toss it back in the pot along with the sausage onions and garlic you set aside earlier.

Add chopped tomatoes (a large can's worth, juice and all), couple three chopped bell peppers, a head of celery (crosscut, leaves and all), a chopped up bundle of green onions and chives. Add a pound or so of okra (crosscut, no stems). In the field, I just use frozen.

If you happen to have a can of clams laying around, or just clam juice, toss that in too. (The fish/shrimp goes in last, but clams, muscles or oysters go in early to tenderize.)

If there are kids (or wimps) eyeballing my gumbo pot, I just use one or two jalapenos, nothing stronger, and I leave the cayenne powder as a garnish.

Otherwise, I generally use three or four finely chopped jalapenos (without the seeds, they'll mellow and the gumbo will have a little bite, but won't be hot enough to really bother anyone).

If everyone in camp is a tough guy, I'll also toss in a couple of serranos or habaneros, whole. Leave the stems and seeds so you can fish it out later when you serve so no one gets a big surprise (real men regard them as a treat and will fight over them). Poke it once with a fork to make a couple small holes before you toss it in.

Add a couple of pinches of salt (go easy here), a couple of cayenne powder (or not with kids), but leave out the black pepper. (A little black pepper boiled can add a lot of heat but also lose its flavor if boiled too long (excellent trick if you want that "sneaks up on you" effect). I generally prefer to add it at the table.) Add a heaping teaspoon of filé powder.

If you have bay leaves, two or three are good, and a spoonful of worstershire sauce or Thai fish sauce (or both) won't hurt either.

If you are using canned fish, crack open the cans and drain into the pot.

Bring it all to a boil and reduce to a simmer. By this time, dinner is approaching, so the simmer is only going to last an hour or so. Longer is fine and in the field I like to have it come out thicker and more like a stew anyway.

Start prepping two pounds or so of fish. I don't want bones in my gumbo, so I use fish that can be filleted. Catfish is most proper, but bass or croppie rocks as well. (And pretty much any fresh saltwater fish). Or, use cans. Doesn't matter what - tuna, salmon, mackerel. Hell, I love fish so it's all good to me. Cut the fillets into 1" chunks.

Peel and devein a pound or two of shrimp. Or, use the little ones in cans or frozen.

The fish cooks and breaks down fast, and the shrimp gets chewy fast, but I like shellfish well done, so about 15 minutes before dinner, I toss in the shrimp, and 5 minutes later, the fish. If it's canned fish, break it up a bit before you dump it in.

Serve in bowls with crunchy buttery bread. If it's thick enough and you have two pans, you can serve over rice. Or if it's soupy, put a pot of rice on the table and add it there. In a pinch, you can add rice while cooking, but that's more a jambalaya and it's tricky to get the timing right or the rice might come out crunchy in the center.

Salt, black pepper, cayenne powder and filé powder on the table to add for individual taste.



And don't even get me started on goulash.
 
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Ovrlnd Rd

Adventurer
Dr Pepper Chicken

I do mine in a Dutch Oven - 25 charcoal briquettes 1/3 on bottom, rest on top - change them out about every 40 minutes.

2 Chickens cut into pieces
1 Onion
2-4 Carrots
3tbl Chili Powder
2tbl Salt
1tbl Garlic
2cans Dr Pepper (24oz)


1. Place cut up chicken in Dutch oven.
2. Add remaining ingredients
3. Put pot on stove or setup campfire for cooking at 350.
4. Cook chicken for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until chicken is cooked thru and vegetables are tender.

Some add 1/2 cup of ketchup to this but I like it better without. It is by far the favorite. Add some corn casserole (jiffy corn muffin mix, stick of butter, can creamed corn, can whole corn, 1/2 cup sour crème - bake 55 minutes at 350° - also in a Dutch oven) and you've got a great meal.
 

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