Here’s the best mac and cheese recipe I’ve ever found. It’s like Kraft, only better in every single way. And it’s a one-pot recipe: boil and drain the noodles, add them back to the pot, add butter, add a mix of eggs and salt and seasonings and evaporated milk, add the cheese.
I included it as a one-pot dish because when I Googled one-pot dishes, mac and cheese came up again.
Oh it’s definitely a one-pot dish - I just wouldn’t call it a one-pot meal so I think mac and cheese doesn’t disqualify “one-pot meal” from being used for grain/meat/veg all mixed together.
I don’t know that you can really define it like that.
For example, we had beef and barley stew last night, and it technically fits your description, having barley, beef, and a bunch of vegetables. But it’s clearly a stew.
And lots of “meat with sauce over rice” type dishes would also qualify, depending on the vegetable content. Certainly a lot of Thai curries would anyway.
One pot meal is about the closest I think you’re going to get for a blanket term.
I would like a term (if there is one) so that my family and I can better communicate with each other when discussing dinner choices.
Example Me: Hey, should we have a stir fry tonight? How about sandwiches? How about that thing when when we mix up a grain, some chopped up veg, and some chopped up cooked meat with some nuts on a plate? Kid #3: As long as we don’t have to eat those unsalted black beans, those don’t taste good, can I put honey on it? Me: If you want, I’ll look in pantry to see what kind of grain we got.
I agree. Or if you’re from the Midwest, it’s a hotdish!
I think you could get away with calling any of these variations (which are narrower and more useful parameters than “grain, meat, and veg”) a pilaf.
That is, indeed, a great recipe. I also use this even simpler one, just equal parts by weight uncooked macaroni, evaporated milk, and cheese:
And this is truly one pot, no need to drain and strain the mac. You cook it first in just enough water to cover, and then add the other ingredients when it’s al dente. I admit, I add just a little bit of yellow mustard to it to give it some extra tang, but not enough to taste mustardy.
A lifesaver when I just need to cook up something fast for the kids. And dirt simple to remember the recipe.
That’s interesting because that’s one of the situations where I would (almost) never use a category term - I might, if I was talking about cold-cut sandwiches for lunch but I would never ask about having a stir fry or a casserole or a roast or a stew for dinner. My question would always be something more specific like “stir fry some chicken” or “goulash” or “roast beef” - just because someone would be happy with arroz con pollo doesn’t mean they would be equally happy with jambalaya.
So, I would agree with the notion of “one-pot meal” or “one-dish meal” or “one-pot dish” or similar, but also note that that is a very broad category that can include things like nabemono or the like.
Or just simply stews, soups, pot roast, curries, etc. I have a couple cookbooks of one-pot meals, and they have a pretty eclectic collection of recipes. Stuff like the OP would fit, but so would what you mentioned (which I had to look up) and lots of other things. I doubt there is a specific term that encompasses all grain + protein + vegetable dishes to the exclusion of others.
Well, yeah. You boil the macaroni in the pot, then you add butter, milk, and the powdered cheese packet. One pot.
Oh, you’re talking about making Mac n Cheese from scratch. Is that even possible? 
Oh, c’mon do you really say “we mix up a grain, …”, or do you say “we mix up some rice, …”? One of our standard breakfasts is Potato Stuff - dice potatoes, start sauteing. Add chopped onions, peppers, cauliflower, leftover ham, whatever you happen to have in the fridge; saute until softened. Beat some eggs; add to mix; finish cooking. Potato stuff. If you do your thing with rice, call it “rice stuff”. Was just talking to Mrs. O’Boogie this morning, saying “Hows a teriyaki-chicken-and-rice casserole sound for dinner?” I’m gonna thaw out some boneless-skinless chicken breasts; put rice in a roasting pan, add diced onions, green peppers (see a pattern here?), get lazy and add frozen vegetables; put the chicken on top, add a jar of store-bought teriyaki. Bake for an hour or so. I can create a whole meal without much prep time while I’m working from home. Sounds a whole hellova lot like what the OP was asking for. Now that I’m thinking of it,…
Depends.
Why do we have to have one term?
Something just hit me - we’ve got a few related cookbooks that call them “dumps” - as in the standard Dump Cake. One of the cookbooks is just for deserts, one for stovetop meals; one for oven or crock-pot meals. I guess if we wanted to have one term, maybe “Dump” would work.
Almost all the stews and curries I know of have the grain as an additional dish, not part of the main dish, so rice or bread or pasta or rotis are cooked seperately - so I would say they aren’t part of the “one pot” family. There’s some exceptions, I’m sure - stews with dumplings, type of thing.
Soup is its own thing, I think, whether with or without a grain.
That word (“dump”) has other, unpleasant associations and meanings.
I’m partly going by what types of recipes are in My cookbooks. I’d count stews — I usually just eat them with crusty bread. Same with curry and some flatbread, but if that outside carb disqualifies it, I get it.
ETA: oh, but many stews also have potatoes and require no additional carb. Plus eating.with some bread doesn’t require dirtying up any other cooking vessels, so I’d still count it.
I think the outside carb is the disqualifier, but I’m not the OP.
A lot of stews have potatoes, yes, but that’s a) not a grain and b) stews like that are often still served with an outside starch.
Oh, I was having this discussion as a bit of an aside. I’m terms of the OP, it is, as you said, an example of a one-pot meal, but not narrow enough of a description to apply specifically to the OP’s dishes.
Y’all may be fancier than us. Mac and cheese (the Alton Brown recipe I linked earlier) is the star of our dinner about once every other week. We’ll have a salad or edamame or broccoli or something with it, but whatever we have with it is the side.
The first hit I get when I Google “one-pot meals” is this Food Network 92 Best One-Pot Meals gallery, and the first entry is mac and cheese.
Y’all really discuss dinner choices? Last night I marinated turkey kebabs in a teriyaki sauce then stir-fried them with onions, garlic, bell peppers, and pineapple. At the end I added rice. If my gf didn’t care for what I made, she could always make something else and I’d have leftovers for lunches. But neither of us would ever “discuss” what we were planning for dinner. I’ve never turned down what she made and likewise vice-versa, unless I make Spam Musabi.
When my kids were younger it was whatever I made or help yourself to cereal or a sandwich.
Some dishes are inherently one pot affairs. Some dishes are inherently more complex but can be simplified to one-pot recipes. In my mind, mac 'n cheese is the latter.
So if you said, “I made a one-pot dish for the potluck” I wouldn’t expect to see MnC. But if you said, “I made a one-pot MnC,” I wouldn’t think it weird at all.