A friend gave us a Dutch Oven. Cast iron porcelain coated. I think it’s a pretty nice one. She was moving and didn’t want to take it with her for what ever reason. It wasn’t a gift.
I’m sure there are a bazillion recipes online. But that’s not the question.
The question is ‘why’? Can a Dutch oven do anything better than a slow cooker?
I just don’t see the point of it.
It’s great for baking bread. The heavy lid keeps the steam from the dough contained which in turn makes the crust more crispy. Yum.
A slow cooker/crockpot has high and low settings, where a Dutch Oven can be used at any temperature. Also you can use the Dutch Oven stovetop, brown in it, then move it into the oven.
They have great heat retention and are ideal for braising and roasting, or slow cooking. They were sort of the instant pots before instant pots.
Huh. I sure never thought of bread in it.
And the idea that you can brown a roast and then pop it in the oven is good too.
Great for Chuck Roast. Brown on stove top with high heat, move to oven to “roast”, add veggies at appropriate time.Serve. Nothing better.
We have a glass top stove. Don’t use any particularly special pans (well good ones, I forget the brand), but I’ll have to look at the bottom of the dutch oven.
You must have missed the no-knead craze of about a decade and a half ago. (I know “craze” is relative to where you are and what circles you run in, but I swear the New York Time Jim Lahey/Mark Bittman no-knead bread recipe, and then Cooks’ Illustrated’s refinement, and various books and websites that spun out of it have sold more Dutch ovens in that time period in probably half a century before.) Here’s the recipe for reference, and there’s a number of refinements out there if you Google, but this basic recipe does well (it does link to Kenji Lopez-Alt/Serious Eats’s tweaked version as well.)
I don’t want to pick on this analogy, but I will. They were more the crockpot before there were crockpots. Instant Pots are more pressure cookers than anything else, so almost the exact opposite of a slow cooker. Instant Pots mainly replaced stovetop pressure cookers (which is why I got an Instant Pot – I wanted a more hands-off pressure cooker than my stovetop one.) But they are also multicookers, so they’re okay at stuff like serving as rice cookers and slow cookers, but don’t have the thermal mass of a proper slow cooker or Dutch oven.
I own three Dutch ovens: two Staubs and one Target branded one that I bought for like $20 just before no-knead bread jacked the price of Dutch ovens up to about $50 for the low-end cast iron enameled ones. I absolutely love these things – they’re about fifteen or sixteen years old and I will own them until I die. I don’t really use any other pots for my cooking. I have a cast iron pan I use for some things; two non stick pans (one for eggs one for other things), and a one-quart sauce pan that I use mostly for rice, and that’s it. I have other pots and pans strewn about the house, but those are what is used 95% of the time, and I cook about 5-6 days a week.
I like them for their thermal mass, for the ability to crank up to high heat for searing and properly sautéing veggies without scorching, to build a stew or a stew in the same pot in this way, and then to finish either on the stovetop or in the oven, as I wish. I’ve used them out camping over a wood fire, as well. They’re just versatile and sturdy and retain heat well, and I’ve rarely found myself needing any other cooking vessel for the type of food I most often cook (especially come fall/winter time.) I make my soups in them, as well.
Actually, instant pots can be used as both pressure cookers and slow cookers. Perhaps most folks think of the pressure cooking feature first.
DId you miss where I said that?
But they are also multicookers, so they’re okay at stuff like serving as rice cookers and slow cookers, but don’t have the thermal mass of a proper slow cooker or Dutch oven.
And that was also the reason I phrased it as “Instant Pots are more pressure cookers than anything else” because they are multicookers and do have other functionality, like slow cooking (and sautéing, and making rice, and holding temp for making yogurt.)
So you’re saying that my analogy is dumb because instant pots have multiple functions, which include pressure cooking, whereas Dutch ovens presumably do not have that kind of diverse function? I see. Guess the consolation here is that at least you didn’t want to pick on my analogy.
Um…okay. No offense meant.
“You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.”
–Albert Einstein
Serious Eats has a good breakdown of Slow Cookers vs. Dutch Ovens vs. Pressure Cookers:
Wow. This is all good info. I promise to get back to it.
I would like the record to state that while I use my Dutch Oven to bake bread in I do not bake no-knead bread in it.
So, it’s unkneaded.
You can saute onions and veggies and you can brown/sear your meat. You can then deglaze the tasty bits that form on the bottom of the pan. These are fundamental steps to building a quality stew.
So to answer your question, “Can a Dutch oven do anything better than a slow cooker?” The answer is: cook food properly.
The slow cooker is best suited to keeping something warm for a buffet style meal.
There are lots a great meals that can be cooked in a slow cooker. There are ways to misuse a slow cooker for sure, but there are also many ways to use one properly. They’re all tools.
Give me a recipe that you do start to finish in a slow cooker. I’ll tell you how to improve it using a dutch oven. I’m not even a pro. I’ve just been paying attention.
With a slow cooker: I can’t brown anything, I can’t sear anything, I can’t saute anything, I can’t de-glaze, I can’t reduce anything, I can’t make a roux.
The OP asked “Can a Dutch oven do anything better than a slow cooker?” The answer is yes.
It’s never been easier than right now to learn how the professionals cook. It’s all there on youtube. None of them use crock pots. Except maybe for keeping things warm.