The Star Early Edition

3 tips for mastering one-pot dishes

- LUTHO PASIYA lutho.pasiya@inl.co.za

ONE-pot cooking is a great way to ensure you get a tasty, nutritious meal without spending too much time in the kitchen. Perfect if you live alone and perhaps lack motivation to cook for one, or if you struggle physically with cooking.

One-pot meals are a great way to create complete, delicious meals with minimal preparatio­n and ingredient­s.

One-pot meals deliver deep flavours that are difficult to achieve with other methods. Since everything is cooked together the flavours build on each other and blend to balance the flavour notes.

Just because the flavours are blended into a single dish does not mean that it is simple. This is also a great way to incorporat­e ingredient­s that you do not typically care for.

A great one-pot recipe maintains flavour notes from different major ingredient­s lending something to every mouthful and creating a journey of different taste bud experience­s.

With the right recipe and the right one-pot meal tips, you can cook delicious dishes that taste as though they require hours of work but are actually pretty easy.

Use these tips to expand your one-pot repertoire, and save time and energy while keeping your belly full.

Find out which recipes you can turn into one-pot wonders

The first secret to mastering onepot meals is knowing which dishes are naturally inclined to the one-pot treatment. Good examples include soup, pasta, and casseroles.

Instead of making soup an appetiser, you can load it up with filling ingredient­s so that it is substantia­l enough to be a meal on its own.

For pasta, look for recipes in which you can easily cook the noodles in their own sauce, and then simply garnish them to round it off.

Casseroles may be the easiest, it is just a matter of putting the ingredient­s together and baking them.

Choose the right pot

One of the most important one-pot meal tips is to pick the right cooking pot, pan, or sheet pan for the dish.

The last thing you want to do is choose a utensil that is too small for all of your ingredient­s. As you prepare your ingredient­s you can measure the total ingredient­s, and going a little bigger is always a safe choice.

Also, while choosing recipes, make sure you own or are prepared to buy the right cooking dish for the recipe. If you are cooking a recipe that requires a wok you can get away with a pan but it will not be the same.

Assemble things before you start

Another important thing is organisati­on. Getting out your ingredient­s from the very start of the meal preparatio­n means that you can relax and enjoy the process of making a one-pot meal.

Doing this means you will not discover that you have run out of something at a crucial time in the cooking process and have to run to the store.

 ?? ?? ONE-pot meals deliver deep flavours that are difficult to achieve with other methods. | Pexels/Igor Murakhin
ONE-pot meals deliver deep flavours that are difficult to achieve with other methods. | Pexels/Igor Murakhin

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