Dutch oven potatoes are potatoes cooked in a dutch oven with a variety of other ingredients, as their name suggests. This savory potato dish is usually served with bacon as a starter. After the bacon has been fried, the drippings, along with peppers and onions, are used to flavor the potatoes.
The potatoes are peeled and cut into bite-size chunks before being used in this dish. The remaining ingredients are cut into pieces that are roughly the same size. The onions are fried in the bacon grease until translucent before being added to the potatoes and peppers.
The diced potatoes are tossed with salt and other spices in a separate bowl. Cayenne pepper can be used to give this dish a kick. After the potatoes have been evenly coated with the spices, they can begin the cooking process.
The ingredients in dutch oven potatoes differ a lot from one recipe to the next, and even from one cook to the next. For a bit of sweetness, some people like to add cut up or shredded carrots. Others opt to include mushrooms, which will be sauteed alongside the onions in the first step. The main ingredients do not change, even if the minor ingredients do.
Dutch oven potatoes can be baked in the oven or cooked slowly on the grill rack of a barbecue. They can even be prepared on a stovetop over a low heat setting. Regardless of the cooking method, the key to the best tasting potatoes is to keep them covered while they cook. This seals in the flavor while also ensuring that the potatoes finish cooking.
Over an open fire is one method of cooking dutch oven potatoes. While a dutch oven can be used as the cooking pan for all of the ingredients, it is not required. A high-sided cast iron skillet with a lid can be used to cook all of the ingredients. In this hearty campfire cooking process, the top is crucial.
Regardless of how the dutch oven potatoes are cooked, shredded cheese is usually sprinkled over the top of all the cooked ingredients a few minutes before serving. The most common cheese used to top these potatoes is cheddar, but Swiss or mozzarella can be substituted. This dish, which can be served with eggs for breakfast or alongside ham or steak for dinner, has a perfect topping of melted cheese.