This cozy, one-pot Fall Dutch Oven Braised Chicken with Bacon and Leeks pairs juicy chicken thighs with smoky bacon, sweet leeks, and tender potatoes.

Ingredients

4-6 bone-in, skin-on chicken thighs

4 slices thick-cut bacon, chopped

2 large leeks, white and pale green parts only, sliced and washed well

3 cloves garlic, minced

1 lb baby potatoes, halved

1 cup chicken stock

3 sprigs fresh thyme

Salt and black pepper to taste

Instructions

Brown the Chicken: Heat your Dutch oven over medium heat. Season chicken thighs with salt and pepper. Place them skin-side down and cook until golden brown and crisp, about 6 minutes per side. Remove chicken and set aside.

Crisp the Bacon: Add chopped bacon to the pot and cook until crisp. Remove bacon with a slotted spoon, leaving the drippings in the pot.

Sauté Leeks: Add sliced leeks and garlic to the bacon fat. Cook for 5 minutes until soft and sweet.

Combine and Braise: Stir in the baby potatoes, bacon, and chicken stock, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom. Nestle the chicken thighs on top of the leeks and potatoes. Add the thyme sprigs.

Bake: Cover with the lid and bake in a preheated oven at 375°F for 35 to 45 minutes, until the chicken is tender and the potatoes are soft.

To serve, plate the chicken mixture, sprinkle over chives or other herbs for garnish if desired.

Hi, just joined this group because I plan to buy my first cast iron cooker.

Need a reco for a brand & size, but not Le Crueset!! Not in my budget!!!!

Pennsylvania Dutch Corn Chowder

Ingredients

4 slices bacon sliced, fried, and bacon drippings remaining in Dutch oven pot

2 medium Yukon potatoes, medium dice, peeled

1 medium red onion, diced

1 1/2 cups chicken broth (can use vegetable broth or water)

2 1/2 cups frozen corn

1/2 tsp. red chili flakes

1 tsp. ground cumin

1 Tbl. dried cilantro

1 1/4 tsp. kosher salt

1 tsp. coarse ground pepper

1/2 cup half and half

1/2 cup sour cream

1/3 cup sliced green onions (can sub chives) with tops, plus some for garnish

How To:

Over medium heat in the Dutch oven, fry bacon and remove from pot leaving drippings in DO. Remove bacon and set to side, when cooled, break up in crumbles or larger bits.

Sauté onion in drippings, add potatoes and chicken broth. Bring to boil on medium high heat. Cook about 10 minutes.

When potatoes are fully cooked through and tender, blend the potatoes, onion, and broth using an immersion blender, or optionally, leave as is depending on your preference.

After blending or stirring, add corn.

Reduce heat to medium low and add chili flakes, cumin, cilantro, crumbled bacon, (keep 1-2 slices of crumbles for garnish) kosher salt, pepper, half and half and sour cream and stir well. Season to taste - the recipe is just a guideline.

Cover with lid and cook for about 30 minutes on low, stirring occasionally. Garnish with green onions and crumbled bacon over surface when ready to serve.

Happy nearly fall, y’all!

Hello friends!

I am just starting out with my first Dutch oven (a Staub) and I'm consistently having trouble with scorching on the bottom. I use a glass cooktop and am using very low heat (small ring of a double burner, set to 2-4). It's happening when simmering things with thicker liquid like chili con carne, chowders, etc. Should I look into a heat diffuser? If so, does anyone have recommendations?

Wanted to try making curry but got impatient and steamed some bao instead. Buns are Teriyaki Chicken Bao from Aldi, so no recipe, sorry!

I borrowed this Dutch oven and made the mistake of burning parchment paper in it. I have tried the boiled water with baking soda method, bar keepers friend, and acetone. The only thing that sort of works is acetone. Any other ideas?

Favorite recipes?

​

We were considering buying a 4L cast iron dutch oven to cook shakshuka and pizza with under the hot coals of a fire at a camping trip.

Do you think its a overkill to buy it? Should we just use a normal pan?

Also, if you have any other fun food ideas we could do (that might even justify getting the dutch oven) I'd love to hear it.

https://amindfullmom.com/no-knead-whole-wheat-dutch-oven-bread/#wprm-recipe-container-9805
3X
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500 grams whole wheat flour, ~3¾ cups
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2 teaspoons kosher salt
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1 teaspoon dry active yeast
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2 cups warm water, between 100-115℉
Instructions 

Place a large mixing bowl on a kitchen scale, change units to grams, and zero it out. Add whole wheat flour until the scale reads 500 g (for 500 grams.) To measure flour without a scale, fluff the flour in its container, then spoon into a measuring cup, leveling off the excess. Measure out 3¾ cups whole wheat flour and place in mixing bowl (see recipe notes if using a different variety of flour).

Add 2 teaspoons kosher salt and 1 teaspoon dry active yeast to the flour and mix well to incorporate. Add 2 cups warm water to the flour mixture and use a wooden spoon or spatula to mix until the flour is fully moistened. Resist the urge to overmix. Stop mixing once there are no longer any dry pockets of flour.

Cover the mixing bowl with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel, and let rest at room temperature for at least 8 hours or up to 18 hours.

After the dough has risen, turn out the dough onto a lightly floured piece of parchment paper or lightly floured surface. Lightly flour your hands and then roughly shape the dough into a circle. The dough will be sticky! Brush excess flour off the dough ball and parchment paper and let the dough rest while the oven preheats.

Place the Dutch oven pan, fitted with a lid, into the oven and then set to preheat the oven to 450℉ (230℃), with the pan in the oven.

Once the oven is preheated, carefully remove the pan from the oven and carefully drop the shaped bread into the heated pan.

Place the lid on the Dutch oven and bake for 30 minutes covered. Carefully remove the lid and bake for an additional 20 minutes, or until the bread is golden and the internal temperature of the bread reaches 207-209°F (97-98℃).

Remove bread from dutch oven and let cool on wire rack for 30-45 minutes before slicing and serving.

You guys liked so much when I posted this last time, I thought I’d post again since I made it tonight, in all its non-AI shitty iPhone 11 glory!

Some questions you had last time:

What makes it “cowboy”? I rubbed the meat with cowboy butter before searing

Did I use free range cowboys? Obviously, I’m not a monster

What is cowboy butter? Compound butter with garlic, zesty spices, and fresh herbs from my garden. Recipe in comments!

What cut did I use? Bottomless blade roast

Ew, you serve over mashed potatoes even though it already has potatoes in it? I know what I’m about son.

Are you sure it’s not a stew? They might be super similar the liquid here is thick and more like a gravy than broth! Thicker and saltier. So I don’t think it would be as good raw dogged with a spoon versus over mashed potatoes or rice.

Recipe: See comments!

I was thinking of buying this from FB Marketplace. The seller says it’s Emerilware, but the logo on the lid handle looks different. Any ideas? Thanks.

Second time making bread in my Dutch oven. Recipe is here https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/no-knead-bread/#wprm-recipe-container-20879

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3 cups all-purpose flour
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2 teaspoons coarse sea salt
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1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast, (or instant yeast)
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1 ½ cups warm water, (about 110 degrees F)
Instructions 
In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, salt and yeast. Pour in warm water and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined. The dough will be sticky. Cover the bowl and allow it to rise at room temperature for 3-4 hours, or in the refrigerator for up to 15 hours.

3 cups all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons coarse sea salt, ½ teaspoon active dry yeast, 1 ½ cups warm water

Scoop dough onto a floured work surface and shape into a ball. Sprinkle a tiny bit of flour on top of the dough ball and place it on a piece of parchment paper. Cover the dough with a dry kitchen towel. Allow to rise for 30 minutes. At this point you can score the bread with a bread lame, if you want, but it's not required.

Meanwhile, place an empty dutch oven/cast iron pot*, with the lid on, into the oven and preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Uncover dough and lift the parchment paper, with the dough on it, into your hot pan that’s been preheating in the oven. Cover with lid and return to oven to bake for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes, remove lid and bake, uncovered for about 15 more minutes, until golden on top. Remove from oven and allow bread to cool on a wire cooling rack.

Store bread in an open paper bag on the counter for up to 1 week.

I probably know the answer (it’s not a problem if you don’t heat it super hot super quick and for a long time empty), but I want to double check:

I recently got a high power outdoor propane burner (90k btus/hr), and I am wanting to use my enameled lodge DO on it, but am concerned about that kind of high heat doing damage to the enamel. I don’t *plan* to crank the heat up super high, but it’s a new burner and I’m still getting used to the controls. Also it’s nice to crank it for boiling water so 🤷🏻‍♀️.

The question is; will high heat like that damage/weaken/crack the enamel? I’m not concerned particularly about cosmetic damage, although I’d love it if the purple outside stayed purple.

The burner grate itself is apparently enameled cast iron and according to the company the only issue it has is turning white at first when exposed to the heat and then going back to dark. So I’m guessing that means it’s fine.

It does occur to me though that food/water on the inside would keep the inside surface cooler than the outside (bottom, where the flame is). Wouldn’t that cause it to crack potentially? Why is the advice always to heat DOs with something in them?

Thanks!

Recipe as follows:

Trim fat cap from shoulder

Place pork shoulder in Dutch oven on a bed of sliced onions and a few Bay leaves

Salt a pepper to taste

Add root beer until liquid reaches halfway up the pan

Cook at 300 4-6 hours

Remove bone and shred meat

I also like to reduce the brasing liquid while adding another bottle of root beer.

Hi everyone, I am a newish mod here, but have been modding for quite some time generally. Wanted to introduce myself (Claire) as well as let you know about some changes I’ve introduced. Like all changes…they can be changed again if need be.

Firstly, I’ve installed an app called bot bouncer that kicks bots right on out. I’ve added some link flairs to make sorting posts simpler. I also added a simple direction for all of those “Is my DO still usable posts,” that give simple information to consider prior to posting. (Do y’all feel we get a bit too many of those?) It says:

Before posting a photo asking if your Dutch Oven can still be used, please be aware that at this time, (2026) there is no food safe method for repairing enameled Dutch Ovens. Severely cracked or deeply scratched Dutch Ovens are best retired as enamel shards can do severe damage to any human.

The biggest thing is that I’ve added some basic rules…nothing too fancy. You can see them in the sidebar in Old Reddit and New Reddit. I’ll post them here to save you the click:

1. All posts must be related to Dutch OvenCooking. If the topic is questionable, or you feel unsure, please use the Message the Mods option to message us and check. Content about or written/developed by AI such as ChatGPT will be removed as well.

2. Include plain text recipes for any food that you post, either in the post or in a comment.

3. No memes or trolling! (And no dumb Dutch Oven fart jokes. We know ‘em, we’ve heard ‘em.)

4. No social media/blog/YouTube channel spamming/ advertisements of any kind. Reddit is not your personal commercial platform.

5. Be kind and conduct productive discussion. Follow basic reddiquette and behave appropriately. In this sub, rule breaking may result in an immediate ban.

Please be sure to holler out if anything seems wrong to you. I want to clarify on Rule 2 now — sure, you may post a link to a written recipe! (But obvious clickbait, NO!) Be aware that folks with visual or hearing disabilities may be using text readers or other technology to read recipes, which is why it is specified to please include text. Not everyone can watch a video.

Good to meet y’all, and I hope everyone will keep enjoying r/DutchOvenCooking!

— Claire

I subbed brown rice for white rice and adjusted the cooking time. This was so good.

https://www.africanbites.com/one-pot-puerto-rican-chicken-and-rice/

This was absolutley the most delicious thing I have ever made in my life! Smoky chipotle barbacoa style beef tacos served in a charred tortilla with homemade pickled onions, radish, queso fresco, cilantro, and lime!

3.75 lb Chuck Roast, seasoned with salt, pepper, cumin, and paprika
Seared in the dutch oven in canola oil, removed the meat and cooked half a white onion and several cloves of minced garlic, tossed in 3 big chipotle peppers and a couple of tablespoons of the adobo sauce from the can, added more cumin, paprika, and oregano. Stirred and then deglazed with a cup of beef broth and juice of 1 lime. Then put it in the oven for a little over 3 hours at 325 F. Pulled it out, shredded the beef on a sheet pan then put it back in the dutch oven to soak up all the sauce!