Dutch Oven Cooking: A Complete Guide for Off-Grid and Emergency Cooking

A Dutch oven has been on the frontier of American cooking for over two centuries. Lewis and Clark took one on their expedition, cattle drive cooks fed dozens of cowboys with one, and pioneers crossing the plains baked bread in them over campfire coals. What worked then, still works now. When the power goes out and your stove is useless, a Dutch oven with a bag of charcoal is one of the most capable cooking tools you can own. Here’s everything you need to know to use one.

This article originally written by Linda Dixon and has been updated.

The Dutch Oven: The One Cooking Tool That Does Everything

Your solar oven needs sun. Your camp stove will run out of fuel. Your grill doesn’t bake bread particularly well. The Dutch oven has none of those limitations. It can fry, bake, boil, and simmer. It works over charcoal, wood coals, a campfire, a rocket stove, or a propane burner. It doesn’t require electricity, batteries, or anything that needs to be charged. And a quality cast iron Dutch oven, properly cared for, will outlast everyone in your household. I tell my kids, “I’m leaving this for you in my will!”

Breakfasts, lunches, dinners, desserts, and baked goods are all within your grasp with a Dutch oven.

Wood and buffalo chips were okay back in the day, but modern-day charcoal briquettes are the best. And, briquettes are easy to store and not dangerous in any way. Plus, if they get wet, you just dry them out before using them.

What Kind of Dutch Oven Cooker Should You Buy?

You need a “camp” type Dutch oven. This isn’t the kind you see in cooking magazines, but the kind you take camping and use for outdoor cooking. It’s made out of cast iron (there are also aluminum ones), has a flat bottom, and three short legs.

The Dutch oven cooker should have legs because these allow you to move briquettes in and out from under the oven, regulating the oven temperature. The lid has a raised rim around the edge so coals will stay on top while cooking, which is also important for proper cooking temperatures.

When shopping, pay attention to lid fit. A properly made Dutch oven has a lid that forms a near-airtight seal when resting on the rim. This creates a slight pressure effect that speeds cooking and retains moisture. Imported Dutch ovens will often have poorly fitted lids that let steam escape, and that will significantly change cooking times and results. Lodge, made in the USA, is the most widely recommended brand for consistent quality. Camp Chef is another solid option.

Using a Dutch oven without legs is totally doable, by the way. You just have to deal with creating a stable base; legs take care of a lot of that for you.

What size do I need?

Now some important questions: What size do I need? How many ovens should I have? This is something you need to think about.

A 12” oven is a good starting point. I also like a 14” and a 10”. With three ovens, you can cook your meals very quickly, although this could change depending on how many people you’re cooking for. This article will help you assemble and Dutch oven survival kit.

You may also want to look at how deep they are as well. Deep ovens are useful for things like soup.

Stack cooking is a great technique that maximizes your charcoal by stacking graduated sizes of ovens on top of each other. For example, you could stack a 14”, 12”, 10”, and a 5”. The charcoal on top of one oven becomes the briquettes underneath the base of the one stacked on top.

How do I care for it?

1. Wash your new Dutch oven (or the one you might have picked up at a yard sale) in hot soapy water and scrub off the protective wax or oil the manufacturer put on unless instructed otherwise. To do this, use a stiff brush or green scrubbing pad. Dutch ovens are iron and will rust if not kept dry, even for a short time. This will be the only time you should need to use soap on your oven.  Be sure to dry your oven quickly.
2. Next, you need to “season” the oven. While still warm from washing, wipe the dry oven and lid with a lightly oiled paper towel or cotton cloth. Use regular vegetable oil, lard, or even bacon grease. Don’t pour oil into the oven.  Instead, pour the oil onto a cloth, then wipe. After oiling the Dutch oven, place it in your kitchen oven on the bottom rack at 350 degrees with the lid ajar. Bake for one hour. You may get strange-smelling fumes, so open a few windows. Repeat this process two more times. Now your Dutch oven is ready to use. You’ll notice it has turned a golden color, but it will have a black shine after continued use.  This is what we want. If it does rust, just repeat the above process.
3. After cooking in it, scrape out any remaining food with a spatula. When it has cooled slightly, put an inch or so of water in it and return it to the coals to boil and steam out the stuck food. After several minutes, remove it from the coals, and when it’s not too hot to handle, lightly scrub it with a brush or cleaning pad. Dry and lightly coat with oil, wiping off any excess.
4. I always store my ovens with a small wad of aluminum foil under the rim of the lid. It’s also recommended to place a piece of paper towel or cotton cloth in the Dutch oven to absorb any moisture. If you don’t crack the lid with foil or something similar, I have found it very hard to get the cover off after it has been stored for a long time. Be sure to keep it in a dry place.

Warning: Do Not Put Cold Water In A Hot Dutch Oven. It Could Crack!

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Tools Needed for Cooking in Dutch Ovens

You will need several tools to begin cooking in your Dutch oven.

• Lid lifter or a pair of long-handled channel-lock pliers in a pinch
• Heat-resistant gloves, essential for handling a hot lid or moving coals
• 16” or longer tongs for placing and moving individual briquettes
• Charcoal chimney starter gets coals ready in 15-20 minutes without lighter fluid
• Newspaper and/or lighter fluid
• Matches or lighter
• Long handled spoon and spatula
• Charcoal – (Also, learn how to store charcoal.)
• Vegetable oil and applying cloths or paper towels for seasoning and maintenance
• Trivet or wire rack holds the lid off the ground while you stir, keeping it clean
• Firepans or shallow metal pans (round metal dog food dishes work perfectly) are a critical and often overlooked item. Place one under the Dutch oven to protect coals from damp ground or snow; use a second to hold hot coals while you manage temperature; keep a third as a rain shield over the oven while cooking. NOTE: On damp ground or snow, always use a firepan under the oven. Moisture will draw heat from the coals and throw off your temperature, and on snow you’ll lose heat even faster than you’d expect.
• A flat, stable cooking surface like a 12″ square concrete stepping stone works well and costs almost nothing. Get two of them, one for the oven and one for the chimney starter
• A square milk crate for carrying everything. Put the metal pans flat on the bottom and the oven sits on top without tipping. Everything fits inside for storage and transport

Also, when cooking in your Dutch oven, it must be on a flat surface clear of dried weeds, grass, etc.  This is where a Dutch oven table is nice but not necessary. A 12” square concrete stepping stone is an inexpensive item to cook on. I recommend two, so you have one for the charcoal chimney.

How To Cook In A Dutch Oven

Once the briquettes are hot, what comes next?

You’ll need to place the hot coals (they are ready to use when they have white ash on part of them) evenly spaced around in a circle the size of the Dutch oven. Then, place the top coals evenly spaced on the lid. Use the tongs to do this.

Each recipe tells you how many briquettes to use. The basic rule is this. If it is a 10” oven, use 20 coals; use 24 coals for a 12″ oven, etc.  Just double the diameter of your oven, and that’s the number of coals you’ll need to cook with. This equals about 350 degrees.

For a cooler oven (like needed for granola), use less; for a hotter oven (like with rolls), use more.

When baking, you need twice as many coals on the top as on the bottom. This is because heat rises; therefore, more heat is needed on the top.

Stack cooking is a technique worth knowing once you’re comfortable with the basics. Place a larger oven on the bottom, a medium one on top, and a smaller one on top of that. The coals on the lid of the bottom oven become the heat source for the oven stacked above it. This way you can cook multiple dishes simultaneously while using the same amount of charcoal you’d use for one oven. It’s an efficient system for feeding a larger group.

With your Dutch oven, you can fry, bake, boil, or use the lid as a griddle.  Anything you cook in your kitchen oven or on the stovetop, you can cook with a Dutch oven!

Recipes

My husband Archie decided we needed to write a book about cooking food storage in Dutch ovens. We had cooked many different foods in Dutch ovens: biscuits and gravy, upside-down cakes, cobblers, chicken with rice, beef stew, rolls, and even Chicken Cordon Bleu.

But we didn’t have any recipes using just dried and canned food since that is what we had stored. In an emergency, the power could be out, and we wouldn’t be able to purchase food from the grocery store. There would probably be no fresh meats, no fresh vegetables or fruit, no fresh milk products, and no frozen microwave meals.

We were pretty good at Dutch oven cooking, but I had never used just food storage items to cook with, nor even thought of cooking food storage in Dutch ovens.

That’s when I got to work. I wanted to have recipes we were used to, so I got out some of my favorite recipes and modified them to use only food storage items.

Here are some very basic recipes to get you started. Some alternate ingredients are also listed to make them healthier or tastier. I hope you like them!

Chocolate Cake

• 10” or larger Dutch oven, 8 or 9 inch round or square pan; serves 9
• 24 – 26 briquettes; 10 on the bottom, 14- 16 on top; pre-heat 5 minutes; bake 30 minutes

Good:

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

1 cup sugar

¼ cup unsweetened cocoa

1 tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

1 Tbsp. vinegar (white or apple cider)

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup water

1/3 cup oil

Directions:

Stir together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Mix the vinegar, vanilla and water together and then add to the dry ingredients. Add the oil and mix well until smooth and creamy, about one minute. Grease and flour the pan, and pour the batter in the pan. Place pan on foil ring and cook for around 30 minutes. (check after 20 minutes). The cake is done when it has pulled away from the sides of the pan.

Better:

Use white flour in place of whole wheat.

Best:

Use melted butter in place of oil. Dust the top of the cooked cake with powdered sugar.

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Banana Bread

• 12” or larger Dutch oven; 1 loaf
• 24 briquettes: 8 on the bottom, 16 on top; cook 1 hour

Good:

1 cup sugar

2 cups whole wheat flour

½ tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. salt

1 cup dried bananas, broken into tiny pieces, soaked until tender, and drained

½ cup oil

¼ cup reconstituted powdered milk

1 tsp. vanilla

Directions:

Lightly grease loaf pan. Mix dry ingredients (first 5). Cream together the remaining ingredients, then add wet ingredients to dry. Mix well. Pour batter into pan. Bake on a foil ring for 1 hour. Check for doneness. Cook until done (bread has pulled slightly away from sides). Do not add more briquets.

Better:

Replace whole wheat flour with white flour.

Best:

Replace oil with butter or butter-flavored shortening. Replace ½ of sugar with brown sugar. Add walnuts.

Note: You might say, “Banana Bread out of dried bananas?” Yes, this works really well. It’s better the next day, too, since the banana flavor has had time to permeate the whole loaf. Enjoy this one!

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Chicken Noodle Soup

One of my favorites on a cold day is Chicken Noodle soup. Here is my version:

• 10” or larger Dutch oven; serves 6
• 20-25 briquettes, all on the bottom; cook 30 – 40 minutes

Good:

5 cups water

2 cups egg noodles

½ tsp. garlic powder

1 Tbsp. dried onion

3 chicken bouillon cubes

1-3 Tbsp. dried parsley

1 tsp. salt

¼ tsp. pepper

Directions:

Bring 5 cups of water to boil over all the briquets in your Dutch oven. Add all ingredients, making sure the chicken is broken up into pieces. When soup boils again, remove half of the coals and simmer for 12-15 minutes or until noodles are tender.

Better:

Add 1 tsp. celery powder or 1 Tbsp. dried celery

1 Tbsp. dried carrots

Best:

1 can chicken, liquid too

Note: This soup has lots of noodles. If you like broth, cut back on the noodles or add more water and bouillon. Enjoy this with a slice of whole-wheat bread.

Peach Cobbler

One of the most popular Dutch oven recipes for good reason — simple ingredients, minimal prep, and results that will surprise anyone who’s never eaten cobbler cooked over charcoal.

• 10″ or larger Dutch oven
• 24 briquettes: 8 on the bottom, 16 on top; cook 45 minutes

Ingredients:

• 2 cans peaches
• 1 partial box white or vanilla cake mix
• Several slices of butter

Directions:
Dump both cans of peaches into the Dutch oven. Spread an even layer of cake mix over the peaches. Top with slices of butter. Put the lid on and cook 45 minutes with coals above and below. The cobbler is done when the top is golden and the filling is bubbling around the edges. Serve on its own or with vanilla ice cream if you have it.

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3-Ingredient Camp Cake

This one comes from a reader and is about as simple as Dutch oven baking gets. Only three ingredients, no measuring, no mixing bowls.

• 10″ or larger Dutch oven
• 20-24 briquettes: 8 on the bottom, 12-16 on top; cook 20-40 minutes, checking occasionally

Ingredients:

• 1 box cake mix (any flavor)
• 1 can pie filling (any flavor — cherry and chocolate cake is a favorite combination)
• Half a bottle of 7-Up or Sprite

Directions:
Mix the cake mix, pie filling, and soda together until combined. Pour into a lightly greased Dutch oven. Cook with coals above and below until a toothpick comes out clean, 20-40 minutes depending on your coal temperature. Check at 20 minutes.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

Dutch oven cooking has a learning curve, and your first few attempts will probably involve either underdone or slightly scorched results while you figure out coal placement and temperature. That’s normal. The only way past it is to cook. Pull the oven out on a regular weekend, make the cobbler, burn the bottom of the banana bread once, and figure out what you did wrong. By the time you actually need this skill, you’ll be glad you practiced it when the stakes were low.

What are your favorite foods to make in a dutch oven?

Originally published on January 12, 2011, and has been updated.

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