By design, the crock pot and Dutch oven are similar in shape and function, both achieving similar results. But there are pros and cons to each. Let’s take a look at the battle of the deep-dish cookers and find out which one comes out on top:

Crock Pot Pros And Cons

One of the best features of the crock pot is how it does its job, cooking a full meal, in so little space. Unlike the oven and cook-top, the crock pot can be relegated to a corner and go about its business virtually unseen.

Cooking a meal or side dish with your crock pot also frees up your oven and cook-top for other dishes. How many times have you tried to plan a big meal and have to shuffle dishes in and out of the oven and around the burners?

The ‘set it and forget it’ crock pot method frees you up when cooking dishes that you may otherwise have to watch, stir, and keep from burning. The low cooking temperatures keep dishes simmering just right so you don’t have to worry about watching a pot boil. This low, even temperature takes the guess work out of many dishes you may have previously spent time fretting over.

Cooking a meal in a crock pot is also more economical when it comes to energy consumption. Heating up a crock pot, even considering the length of time, takes less energy than heating up a large oven or letting a burner stay on, radiating its heat out into the kitchen. The heating element in the crock pot is contained and is designed to heat only the insert that holds the food. You’re not spending money to heat a large space nor are you letting the heat escape into the room.

One of the downsides to crock pot cooking is there are just some ingredients that don’t work well in a slow cooker. For instance, dairy products. Making a cream or milk based dish becomes more complicated, involving extra steps and extreme caution so as not to curdle the milk.

If you’re not careful choosing and cutting up the food that goes into the crock pot, you may end up with food that’s either undercooked or overcooked. For instance, many cooks are used to coarse cutting vegetables for stew, but vegetables cook slower in the crock pot and may need to be cut finer, or cooked longer. Meat typically cooks faster than vegetables in the crock pot, making the size of the ingredients important.

Crock pot meals are best when using fresh meats and vegetables. So, if you live in an area in which you must rely more on canned foods, the texture in a crock pot will be disappointing. Because canned foods are already processed, they may become quite soft and mushy in the crock pot. Picture cooking canned peas for 8 hours, even on such a low heat. Yes, you can add the canned veggies in during the last minutes of cooking time, but if the idea is to walk away and have dinner ready when you come home, it sort of defeats the purpose.

Dutch Oven Pros And Cons

These sturdy pots were the typical tools of the trade during the good old days. Picture an open pit with cowboys circled around waiting to dig into their stew. The even heating of a heavy duty Dutch oven is almost second to none. You may remember your grandparents of parents stirring stews on the stove or basting a pot roast in the oven in one of these big pots with the heavy lid.

A wide variety of meals can be prepared in a Dutch oven. They are duel purpose; you can begin a meal by browning the meat right in the Dutch oven on the stove burner, then add the vegetables, cover it, and pop it in the oven to continue cooking. Or you can brown your beef over the burner, then add the ingredients for chili and continue cooking it right on top of the stove.

Sounds ideal, but there are a few drawbacks. That chili or beef stew on top of the stove will some watching. No matter how low your burner goes, you’ll need to stir it up to keep it from sticking or burning to the bottom of the Dutch oven. This is a pot that needs watching.

Using your Dutch oven, whether in the oven or on top of the stove takes up space. If you want to add a nice loaf of crusty homemade bread to your pot roast meal, you’ll have to do some juggling to time your bread in the oven. Adjusting the temperature becomes an issue, too.

Dutch ovens convey heat extremely well, making the temperature you use in the oven and on the stove top very important. A few degrees makes a difference. An oven that runs hot can cause your meal to burn or dry out before you know it.

Slow cooking a meal in a Dutch oven requires a heated oven or a burner on the stove top. Either way, it takes a lot of energy to heat the inside of a large oven just to cook what’s in a five quart pot. And a burner radiates heat out into the room; it does not trap it under the pot.

Removing your Dutch oven full of food from the oven or burner proves to be quite a feat for many people due to the fact that they are usually very heavy and retain the heat very well. They are hot for a long, long time which makes them the kind of thing to keep children away from. Dishing up a meal becomes a bit hazardous because the container itself remains hot for a long time after you remove it from the heating source. So, what makes a Dutch oven cook well, its weight, also makes it harder to handle.

And The Winner Is…

While Dutch ovens are more versatile in the dishes they can deliver, crock pots are the overall winners of this battle for several reasons. Crock pots take the prize when it comes to freeing up cooking space for other chores. Their compact size, virtually a mini-oven, also cooks with less energy, which saves you money.

Because you can walk away from the meal, the crock pot becomes the ultimate time-saver in the kitchen. Once preparation is done, you have the freedom to do other chores, or even leave the house. Crock pots do the cooking part of a meal for you ? just set it and forget it.

You also can’t debate the safety issue of a crock pot versus a Dutch oven. The new crock pots have cool exteriors and built in timers to ensure they shut off when the meal is done. Plus, you aren’t constantly opening the oven to check on the meal, nor are you lifting the hot, heavy lid to stir the contents. Once the meal is in the crock pot, you normally don’t have to worry about picking the lid up again until it’s dinnertime.

We may never give up our Dutch ovens, but I think it could take a backseat to the crock pot in your kitchen. Keep your crock pot handy on your counter top and see how many times you choose it now over your Dutch oven.

Crock pot cooking can be a real time saver when it comes to preparing a hearty meal for your family. Set the temperature and it basically cooks for you. You can go out and run your errands instead of watching over a simmering pot. Although your crock pot is the ultimate in convenience, oftentimes you’ll see recipes that use too many prepacked ingredients, purported to make the meal faster and easier. However, you don’t have to sacrifice eating healthy for quick meal preparation. Here are a few ideas for ingredients to add, and some to eliminate, in order to keep your crock pot cooking as healthy as possible:

Add This

Kick up the flavor with herbs and spices instead of prepackaged flavorings. Either snip a few fresh herbs or sprinkle in some dried herbs to boost the flavor of your crock pot creation. Dried herbs are a good choice because they stand up well to the long cooking. If you use fresh herbs it’s normally best to wait for the last half hour or so to add them to the crock pot. Mix and match a variety of herbs and seasonings like black pepper, garlic, and onion, to give your crock pot meal layers of flavor without using preservative and additive packed ready mixes.

Use fresh meats and vegetables rather than canned or other prepackaged food. With a little prep work, you can have a crock pot meal that is nutritious and delicious without relying on processed ingredients. You can control the amount of salt and completely remove the preservatives from your family meals by using fresh meats, vegetables, and even fruit. If you’re used to canned and frozen food, this may taste a little different than you are used to. But, it won’t be long before you learn the pleasures of digging into a meal that’s closer to what your grandparents used to enjoy.

Lean meats, when cooked in the oven, can dry out. You have to be watchful, perhaps basting with drippings or butter to keep the meat moist. This is not only tedious, but covering meat in butter to keep it juicy defeats the purpose of eating lean meat for your health. The crock pot’s unique cooking method keeps the moisture in the meat, recycling the juices over and over with the lid’s condensation. Surround some skinless chicken breasts with fresh cut veggies and a sprinkle of herbs, put on the lid, and you’ll have the juiciest lean chicken possible.

Eliminate That

The ‘Cream Of’ soups are often a staple of crock pot recipes. You’ll find many crock pot dishes call for cream of mushroom, chicken, or celery soup to make a dish thick and creamy. Canned soups are often loaded with additives you can’t pronounce and don’t want to feed your family. These chemical additives are avoidable when you learn a few simple methods to whip up an alternative for the creamy base. A quick whisk of flour, butter or oil, and milk or broth in a saucepan will produce the same ingredient without the additives.

Most serious cooks know that salted butter is another thing you can do without. Unsalted butter is the best way to go, giving you the creamy flavor while still allowing you to control what goes into your crock pot. Using unsalted butter keeps your food from sticking better than salted butter and also keeps your sodium content at your discretion, not the food manufacturer’s.

Processed canned foods; vegetables, fruit, and meat, can be over-processed and may contain extra ingredients that just don’t do well in the crock pot. This leads to disaster, both in terms of nutrition and texture. In order to get the healthiest meal possible in your crock pot, ban food items that have been processed and canned in oil, sugary syrups or, even worse, artificial additives to keep the colors bright. There is no room for these kinds of foods in your healthy crock pot cooking.

Start Cooking Healthy Today

Controlling what goes into a meal is key to healthy crock pot cooking. You have the ability to keep the flavors high and the artificial preservatives low just by choosing the right ingredients. Once you get used to cooking with healthy ingredients, you’ll find there is not much of a difference in time or trouble between a stew made with fresh wholesome ingredients, and stew made by opening cans and other packages and dumping it all in the crock pot.

Use fresh ingredients and leave out the processed foods to make the most of your crock pot meals. Slow cooking was designed for fresh food; picture your grandparents patiently stirring a pot full of fresh ingredients to feed the family a healthy meal. Follow their lead to bring back the joys of your grandparent’s time around the dinner table.