What you can actually cook with one pot

Last checked September 9, 2026

Start with one pot or one pan and a stovetop. These meals use one cooking vessel, plus everyday prep tools such as a knife, board, spoon or bowl. Check the size and lid each recipe calls for.

Every recipe here was written by somebody else, and every link goes straight to them. If one of these turns into a regular in your house, the person who developed it is worth following.

A skillet or frying pan

• Creamy Spinach Gnocchi

  Julia's Album by Julia

  • 20 minutes
  • One large high-sided skillet
  • Serves 4
  • Vegetarian

  Shelf-stable gnocchi cooked straight in the sauce, with no pot of boiling water anywhere. The fastest real dinner here.

  For the vegetarian option, use vegetable broth instead of the chicken broth in the recipe.

• Menemen (Turkish Scrambled Eggs with Tomatoes)

  Foolproof Living by Aysegul Sanford

  • 30 minutes
  • One 10-inch nonstick skillet
  • Serves 2
  • Vegetarian

  Looser and softer than shakshuka: the eggs get folded through the tomatoes rather than sitting on top of them, and it is quicker.

• One Skillet Salmon with Lemon Orzo

  Serving Dumplings by Anna Chwistek

  • 30 minutes
  • One large nonstick skillet
  • Serves 4

  The salmon sears first and finishes on top of the orzo, so the juices end up in the pasta instead of down the drain.

  The salmon makes this the priciest dish on the page.

• Shakshuka

  Tori Avey

  • 40 minutes
  • One large skillet with a lid
  • Serves 6
  • Vegetarian

  Eggs poached straight in a spiced tomato sauce. Cheap, meat-free, and it works at any hour of the day.

• One Pot Chicken and Rice

  Budget Bytes by Beth Moncel

  • 50 minutes
  • One deep skillet with a lid
  • Serves 4

  The chicken browns, then the onion and rice cook in the same fat and the broth goes in over the top. Not much money for something that tastes deliberate.

• Filipino Chicken Adobo

  Whisper of Yum by Jeri Mobley-Arias

  • 55 minutes
  • One large skillet or pot with a lid
  • Serves 4

  Soy sauce, vinegar, garlic and bay leaves reduced down around chicken. Barely any prep, and almost all of it unattended.

A pot or a Dutch oven

• One-Pan Ditalini and Peas

  Smitten Kitchen by Deb Perelman

  • 20 minutes
  • One braiser, Dutch oven or large saucepan
  • Serves 4
  • Vegetarian

  Frozen peas, small pasta and cream in one pan. The thing you make when you have nothing in and twenty minutes to spend.

  Vegetarian if you leave out the salami, which the recipe already treats as optional.

• Creamy Tomato Orzo

  Peas and Crayons by Jenn Laughlin

  • 25 minutes
  • One 3-quart pot
  • Serves 4
  • Vegetarian

  The orzo cooks in the tomato sauce and thickens it on the way, so it turns creamy without much cream in it.

• Weeknight Black Bean Chili

  Budget Bytes by Beth Moncel

  • 30 minutes
  • One large pot with a lid
  • Serves 6

  Half a pound of beef stretched over six servings with canned beans, and genuinely finished inside half an hour.

• Easy One-Pot Thai Chicken Noodle Soup

  Flavour and Savour by Elaine

  • 30 minutes
  • One Dutch oven
  • Serves 6

  Green curry paste and coconut milk do the work, and the noodles soften in the broth itself so there is nothing to drain.

  Needs fish sauce, Thai green curry paste and canned coconut milk. All three keep for months.

• One Pot Cajun Beef Pasta

  RecipeTin Eats by Nagi Maunsell

  • 40 minutes
  • One large heavy pot with a lid
  • Serves 7 to 8

  The grated vegetables vanish into the sauce, so a pound of beef feeds seven or eight people and nobody comments on it.

  You will want a box grater for the vegetables.

• Minestrone Soup

  Love and Lemons by Jeanine Donofrio

  • 45 minutes
  • One large pot or Dutch oven
  • Serves 4 to 6
  • Vegetarian

  The pasta cooks in the soup, which is the whole point: no colander, no second pot, and a better broth for it.

• Creamy Coconut Chickpea Curry

  Jessica in the Kitchen by Jessica Hylton

  • 45 minutes
  • One deep pot
  • Serves 4
  • Vegan

  Two cans and a handful of spices, turned into something that tastes like it simmered all afternoon.

  Wants garam masala and full-fat canned coconut milk.

• One-Pot Vegan Chili Mac

  Rainbow Plant Life by Nisha Vora

  • 50 minutes
  • One Dutch oven or large soup pot
  • Serves 6
  • Vegan

  Chili and macaroni cooked in the same pot, where the starch off the pasta does the job dairy usually does.

  Uses tempeh. The recipe offers beans instead.

• Hearty Lentil Soup

  The Simple Veganista by Julie

  • 55 minutes
  • One large pot or Dutch oven
  • Serves 6
  • Vegan

  Dried lentils, a few vegetables and stock. About as cheap as dinner gets, and better on the second day.

• One Pot Mujadara

  Bowl of Delicious by Elizabeth Lindemann

  • 1 hour 30 minutes
  • One large heavy pot with a lid
  • Serves 6
  • Vegan

  Lentils, rice and onions, and not a great deal else. One of the cheapest genuinely good meals on this page, as long as you let the onions take their time.

  The long time is the caramelizing, and it is the part worth not rushing.