hefty pot with a tight-fitting lid (to the left)
maytag 
Le Creuset heavy oval casserole
Le Creuset heavy oval casserole
History of One-Pot Cooking
Despite its apparent recent popularity, one-pot cooking has a long history in many cultures internationally. In Medieval Europe, a large cast-iron pot was always on the back of the hearth. Cooks constantly added vegetables, grains and cheap meat to the pot, allowing them to stretch food for several meals. Japanese clay Donabe made hot pot, soups, stews and rice, all served directly from the pot. The efficient Donabe was also loved for bringing people together. Indian cuisine had many one-pot dishes that families had been loving for generations. With regional variations, dal was cooked in every household in India, often slowly and overnight. Jewish one-pot dishes kept warm overnight from Friday evening to Saturday evening, because active cooking on Sabbath was barred. Called cholent, this stew of meat, beans, barley and potatoes originated in Russia or Poland.
Benefits Of One-Pot Meals
1]Speed. Cooking in one-pot helps meet the need of getting a meal on the table quickly because it doesn’t require hours. While simplifying recipes and planning ahead can also greatly help to cut back on cooking time, especially for 1-2 people. And as the meal is ended without heaps of dirty pots. cleaning is reduced to one-pot, two glass bowls to eat out of, 2 forks, 1 cutting board and a knife.
2]Avoid unnecessary costs by choosing to cook at home rather than eating takeaways. And more. One-pot meals often stretch the servings, meaning leftovers can be put back into the fridge in the same pot.
3]Only 5 ingredients. It is very simple to take the main fish-meat-pasta, then go to the fridge to find whatever additional vegetables and vegetable sauce are lying around.
4]Essential food groups are included. Preparing everything in one dish makes it easier to ensure that the meal provides the same nutritional value as dinner cooked in multiple pots. And tastier.
5]Good health. While buying pre-cooked food from a shop may be more convenient, people who eat home cooked dinners are healthier. Home cooks consume fewer calories and less fat, sugar and sodium. And fewer of the food's vital nutrients and vitamins in food are lost during the pressure cooking process. How can a one-pot meal be more nutritious than its conventionally-cooked counterpart? When cooking in water, nutrients from the vegetables, meat and bones are released and leach into the water. But when we add absorbent ingredients (eg noodles), the liquid and nutrients are absorbed. This not only changes the flavour, but the foods that have less minerals and vitamins can become nutritious.
6]With picky eaters, the one-pot method can hide disliked vegetables or make them more palatable by incorporating them in meats, pasta and sauce. Since some children make a fuss if they see disliked vegetables, exposure to non-preferred foods might be associated with decreased picky eating and healthier eating in the future. The one-pot meals also fortifies the less nutritious, but often more preferred—ingredients. If children will only eat the noodles, one-pot cooking will ensure the noodles hold more nutrition than plain boiled noodles.
7]Save gas/electricity. Instead of cooking onions and meat in a frypan, the vegetables in a large pot, and the chips on an oven platter, cook them all in one heavy pot. It lowers energy bills and makes the family more environmentally friendly. And avoid the oven heating a kitchen in summer by cooking on one, stove-top burner.
8]Meet dietary preferences. The meal usually contains a protein food (eg meat, fish, beans); vegetables; a starch (e.g noodles, rice, potatoes) and vegetable sauce. The pot allows for such diversity that the meal can be easily adapted as vegetarian, meat or fish, depending on the family’s preferences. And one-pot recipes can easily be given the flavours of Italian, Mexican, Russian or Chinese foods etc.
Chicken and aubergine
Creamy tomato pasta
Salmon and asparagus
Sausage and vegetable skillet
Spinach and tomato rigatoni
Benefits Of One-Pot Meals
1]Speed. Cooking in one-pot helps meet the need of getting a meal on the table quickly because it doesn’t require hours. While simplifying recipes and planning ahead can also greatly help to cut back on cooking time, especially for 1-2 people. And as the meal is ended without heaps of dirty pots. cleaning is reduced to one-pot, two glass bowls to eat out of, 2 forks, 1 cutting board and a knife.
2]Avoid unnecessary costs by choosing to cook at home rather than eating takeaways. And more. One-pot meals often stretch the servings, meaning leftovers can be put back into the fridge in the same pot.
3]Only 5 ingredients. It is very simple to take the main fish-meat-pasta, then go to the fridge to find whatever additional vegetables and vegetable sauce are lying around.
4]Essential food groups are included. Preparing everything in one dish makes it easier to ensure that the meal provides the same nutritional value as dinner cooked in multiple pots. And tastier.
5]Good health. While buying pre-cooked food from a shop may be more convenient, people who eat home cooked dinners are healthier. Home cooks consume fewer calories and less fat, sugar and sodium. And fewer of the food's vital nutrients and vitamins in food are lost during the pressure cooking process. How can a one-pot meal be more nutritious than its conventionally-cooked counterpart? When cooking in water, nutrients from the vegetables, meat and bones are released and leach into the water. But when we add absorbent ingredients (eg noodles), the liquid and nutrients are absorbed. This not only changes the flavour, but the foods that have less minerals and vitamins can become nutritious.
6]With picky eaters, the one-pot method can hide disliked vegetables or make them more palatable by incorporating them in meats, pasta and sauce. Since some children make a fuss if they see disliked vegetables, exposure to non-preferred foods might be associated with decreased picky eating and healthier eating in the future. The one-pot meals also fortifies the less nutritious, but often more preferred—ingredients. If children will only eat the noodles, one-pot cooking will ensure the noodles hold more nutrition than plain boiled noodles.
7]Save gas/electricity. Instead of cooking onions and meat in a frypan, the vegetables in a large pot, and the chips on an oven platter, cook them all in one heavy pot. It lowers energy bills and makes the family more environmentally friendly. And avoid the oven heating a kitchen in summer by cooking on one, stove-top burner.
8]Meet dietary preferences. The meal usually contains a protein food (eg meat, fish, beans); vegetables; a starch (e.g noodles, rice, potatoes) and vegetable sauce. The pot allows for such diversity that the meal can be easily adapted as vegetarian, meat or fish, depending on the family’s preferences. And one-pot recipes can easily be given the flavours of Italian, Mexican, Russian or Chinese foods etc.
Summary
Slow cookers add a lot of depth and flavour to meals as they cook the meat and vegetables slowly, releasing their juices. It greatly increases the flavour profile of the dish eg main-course winter soups, stews, curries and casseroles are the best options to cook in a Dutch oven i.e cast iron pot with a tight-fitting lid. These pots can be transferred between the stove top and oven, withstanding high temperatures and maintaining an even heat. Like casseroles that were very popular in the 1950s, the best way to cook food simply and quickly is with a Dutch oven.
Read Yasmin Fahr, Keeping It Simple: Easy Weeknight One-Pot Recipes (Hardie Grant, 2020)
Slow cookers add a lot of depth and flavour to meals as they cook the meat and vegetables slowly, releasing their juices. It greatly increases the flavour profile of the dish eg main-course winter soups, stews, curries and casseroles are the best options to cook in a Dutch oven i.e cast iron pot with a tight-fitting lid. These pots can be transferred between the stove top and oven, withstanding high temperatures and maintaining an even heat. Like casseroles that were very popular in the 1950s, the best way to cook food simply and quickly is with a Dutch oven.
Read Yasmin Fahr, Keeping It Simple: Easy Weeknight One-Pot Recipes (Hardie Grant, 2020)
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26 comments:
You got a class that you use Le Creuset to cook slow food. The nutrition is all kept in the goodness of the soup and the stew is always fantastic for flavours. Hearty stuff indeed
One pot dinners sure are an easy way of making a good meal. It seems to be make sense to us and something we take for granted but young people not so much so perhaps. I don't know how other people cook because I have no immediate family so can only go on food pictures in the media and restaurants. I don't ever see much of one pot dinners in those pictures.
I love one pot meals. The only drawback I see to them is for people like my husband who likes to keep all his food separate. Sometimes he just has to suffer and eat one pot meals in our house, which at least he will do even if he prefers not to. This was a fascinating read, and it makes sense that people have been making one pot meals for a long time. Have a lovely weekend.
My family had a long history of one pot cholents, easy to make and very tasty. I stopped making it because it seemed very fattening.
I'm not overly fond of one pot meals. I like food kept fairly separate, although curries and stir frys are fine. Perhaps I got off to a bad start in life with my mother's stews. Yuk.
Anyway, interesting and they can look appealing.
roentare
Fantastic for flavours yes, and is sooo important that the nutrition is all kept in the goodness of the foods. I often wonder why children are shown how to boil vegetables etc, then throw the water away.
Rachel
I had cooking sessions with my grandmother, and cooking classes at school, long before my new husband and I started working in our own kitchen. But like you, I am not sure that young people these days learn about cooking, shopping and nutritional needs.
Worse still, the younger generation is going to have to deal with greatly increased water, electricity and gas costs, but they are earning very little more money at their jobs.
Erika
I hear you re the husband who likes to keep all his food separate. Brown the meat or fish in the heavy casserole first, then place the pieces on absorbent paper to drain off any oil. Cook up the vegetables, then pasta or rice, then add the browned meat or fish on the very top. As long as the pot is covered in the oven, the meat or fish pieces won't fall apart and won't sink into the food below. Husband will be happy :)
Deb
Cholent was the cleverest idea for one pot cooking for generations.
Yet the cholent you grew up with was presumably full of red meat, white potatoes, fatty kishke and added oil. If we use chicken, sweet potatoes and brown rice instead, and do not add any oil; the fat and cholesterol goes down by using chicken in place of red meat. Using sweet potatoes in place of white potatoes gives more vitamin A and using brown rice makes it gluten free. There is plenty of fat naturally occurring in the bones and chicken. And no need for kishke at all.
Andrew
I am with you re early experiences in our family lives influencing our middle age. Although soup is a delicious entree, I don't want to see sloppiness in the oven for the main course. As the photos show, all but one (Chicken and aubergine) avoid any idea of slop.
As well as saving money on water, electricity and gas, saving human labour and increasing the nutritional value of the food, we also need to make the dishes look attractive. It is VERY important that the meal looks and smells appealing.
In principle, I'm in favor of cooking, slow cooking (always), one-pot cooking.
For dietary reasons, one pot-cooking is not always practical for me. I've got several good quality pots bought at Ikea that serve me well and make me happy.
DUTA
These principles are just a guide and certainly flexible enough for individuals to pick and choose. In any case, I am a very average cook who ran out of new ideas a few months after marrying in 1970 :)
By the way, did your service costs go up, after life returned to post-covid normal? And food costs as well?
Hi Hels - I used to love cooking with my Le Creuset - various ... stews, stock-pots, etc etc ... but agree I do like meals where I can have all the ingredients separately, so I can enjoy them. It's mix and match ... great ideas here - cheers Hilary
Great post Hels! One-pot recipes are now very popular in the weekend supplements and there was an excellent TV series that Jamie Oliver made.
Not eating takeaways also has tremendous health benefits, although we sometimes get Japanese is quite healthy except onthe pocket!
CLICK HERE for Bazza’s mockingly merciless Blog ‘To Discover Ice’
Hello Hels, Since I am mostly cooking for one person, a meal can take several days to eat. If I start it all in one pot it will be mush by the end. So for example, I might make brown rice, vegetables and eggs separately the first day. The second day I will heat the leftover vegetables and eggs by in one pot, and the rice separately, since it takes longer to heat the cold rice. The third day since there is not so much rice, I heat it all together. The fourth day I never want to see rice, eggs or vegetables again, but since I exert myself only for company*, I usually start the cycle over.
--Jim
*Sometimes I do vary things by making a large pot of curry, spaghetti sauce, or gumbo.
Hilary,
all I knew about cooking was, largely, what I learned from my family. So this has been a fun exercise in seeing what else is being written about and what else is appearing on tv's nutritional programmes. Yotam Ottolenghi, for example, has been creating beautiful one-pot non-meat dishes that were dead easy eg Iranian Vegetable Stew with Dried Limes
https://thehappyfoodie.co.uk/articles/9-one-pot-ottolenghi-recipes-youll-love/
Parnassus
you raise two important points:
1. If there is only one person in the house, does he or she need to worry about the same nutritional, financial or preference-driven decision-making as a family of 4?
2. Is it sensible to make much more than you need for one evening, keeping the rest in the same pot in the fridge for another day or two.
I suspect that many single people can't be bothered cooking properly for themselves, unfortunately.
bazza
Jamie Oliver kept his ingredients and recipes simple enough for a very average cook like me to follow, didn't he? Thanks for the reference
https://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/category/books/one/
recipe villas
thank you for reading the post. But no advertising please.
Boa tarde e um otimo domingo.
Minha querida amiga, sempre aprendo com seu maravilhoso e dicas. As fotos me deram vontade de experimentar essas delícias.
https://viagenspelobrasilerio.blogspot.com
Luiz Gomes.
Luiz
Do you cook dinner every evening? Some evenings? What type of cooking do you prefer?
My grandmother used to bring her one pot wonder to the boil and then bury the pot in a big box of wheat which acted as insulation and so allowed the pot to continue cooking over many hours . A great energy saver .
mem
I had never heard of using wheat as a way of insulating a heavy pot of food and keeping it hot over night. But it made perfect sense.. clever granny.
My grandmother carried her heavy pot of food to the local bakery on Friday evening and, along with the other women, kept it hot in the shared oven space. I assume all the women didn't pay for the costs, low as they were.
Our generation has a lot to learn :)
I actually think that you can buy insulated cooking bags from the Enviro Shop as they are great way of saving energy and also for camping and travelling .
mem
the thermal cooking bag is another clever idea that achieves the same as a heavy pot in a low gas oven, only with no oven. Thank you for this!
Heat the contents of the pot for 5 mins on the stove; wrap the pot up tightly in an insulated thermal cooking bag; then leave it to "cook" over time. Brilliant.
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