Essentially a Dutch oven is a heavy-duty cooking pot with a lid. You can use a Dutch oven to cook delicious meals in a wide variety of cooking methods: Dutch ovens can sauté, simmer, braise, sear, fry, and even bake food. Not only are Dutch ovens heavy-duty; they are virtually all-purpose.

The ATK Reviews team has reviewed dozens of Dutch ovens over the years, using them for everything from browning meat to cooking stews to baking bread. Here are the products that have won our testings of the best small, medium, large, and lightweight Dutch ovens:

But for all their good qualities, Dutch ovens are also heavy and cumbersome, and can intimidate the inexperienced. To get the most out of your Dutch oven cooking—and understand how useful a pot it is—you’ll want to follow these pro tips. Here are six easy steps on how to cook with a Dutch oven at home.

1. Keep the Ingredient List Short but Flavorful

To simplify Dutch oven cooking, you need to strip down the ingredient lists to the hard-hitting items. Use umami elevators like tomato paste, minced anchovies, and soy sauce to bring out supersavory tastes to many recipes. Instead of water, use chicken broth as your cooking liquid for full-flavored rice, grains, and pasta every time. Try to use a single ingredient multiple ways wherever possible. And don’t shy away from convenience items like frozen peas or canned tomatoes: These everyday products deliver on fresh, bright flavor year-round.

2. Bring Your Flavors to Life

There’s no denying the virtues of a well-stocked spice rack. In the test kitchen, we bring everything from oregano and thyme to chili powder and garam masala into rotation in pursuit of the perfect flavor profile. However, for these potent seasonings to make a real impression, simply stirring them in you Dutch oven dish doesn’t suffice. Blooming spices, whether on a stovetop or in the microwave, releases their aromatic oils that can suffuse an entire dish. By simply heating spices in oil, butter, or the juices rendered from browned meat or chicken, you’ll immediately (and effortlessly) elevate their flavors.

3. Team Up with Your Microwave

From blooming aromatics to parcooking potatoes to cooking up a simple sauce, your microwave is pivotal in enabling you to avoid having to reach for (and later wash) a second pan. Using your microwave in conjunction with your Dutch oven is also a big time-saver, and will help you keep your recipe prep as efficient as possible.

4. Cook in Stages

As many of us learned early on from Easy-Bake Oven letdowns, no great dishes were ever made by just dumping everything together and letting it cook. Dutch oven meals are no exception. Often, turning out a perfectly cooked protein plus sides means tailoring your technique or seasoning to suit each component. When we want to pair a tender fish fillet with crisp potatoes, or hearty root vegetables with delicate greens, staggering the cooking times is essential. A bonus: While one food cooks you can turn your attention to making a flavorful sauce.

5. Create Two Cooking Environments in One Vessel

Some of our most significant aha! moments in the test kitchen came when pondering how our vessels could cook two ways at once—how we could, for example, simmer a rich stew in a Dutch oven while steaming a side of green vegetables. Approaching our recipes this way introduced some unexpected items into the mix, as we created a vessel within a vessel—or above it. A wire rack, a steamer basket, the Dutch oven’s lid, and skewers all allowed us to execute more than one cooking technique at a time, and we were wowed by the results.

6. Finish with a Flourish

While getting a homemade meal on the table every night is an achievement in itself, we never want to skimp on presentation, even in a Dutch oven. More often than not, our favorite way to finish off a dish is with a fresh flourish, be that a sprinkling of chopped cilantro or a bright drizzle of vinaigrette. Particularly when a meal veers toward hearty, slow-cooked flavors (think robust root vegetables, a hefty cut of beef, or creamy scalloped potatoes), we seek out a way to lighten things up. This usually involves whisking together a quick, flavorful sauce, sprinkling on some fresh herbs, or passing lemon wedges at the table. These small touches work wonders for both the flavor and the visual appeal of our Dutch oven meals.

Ready to put your new knowledge to use? Here's a list of some of our favorite Dutch oven recipes:

• Dutch Oven Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls
• Dutch Oven Bourbon-Pecan Bread Pudding
• Chicken in a Pot with Red Potatoes, Carrots, and Shallots
• One-Pot Italian Sausage with White Beans and Kale
• One-Pot Baked Ziti with Sausage and Spinach

For more on cooking with Dutch ovens, read the following posts: 

• Why You Need a Dutch Oven 
• 5 Innovative Tips for Dutch Oven Users 
• Dutch Oven Shopping Guide
• 7 Soups and Stews You Can Make in Your Dutch Oven Tonight