If you’ve read the recent article on seasonal autumn produce, you may be inspired to get into the kitchen and get cooking. This is a great time of year for warm, hearty dishes like soups, stews and porridge. With cold season and winter holidays coming up, it’s also a chance to invest in wholesome and healthful meals that are not only tasty, but also nourishing. Choosing simple recipes that can be made in one pot is even better, as it saves on clean-up time! Here are some of my favorites, as well as favorites from the Green-Mom archives, to try out this autumn.
Porridge is a really underappreciated meal, especially savory versions. This mung bean and oat porridge is flavorful and hearty, and can be cooked all at once in a pressure cooker relatively quickly. I like to make a variation of this in a regular pot, using regular oats, and eat it as a side dish to rice and warm sauteed vegetables. One other great thing about this recipe and many porridges is that they are inexpensive to make!
If you have a crockpot, chili is an extremely easy meal to make all in one. Try this one with sweet potatoes, cacao powder, and different beans for a mole-inspired stew. There are countless variations of veggie chili — if this one doesn’t suit your fancy, you’re sure to find another. But, hearty chilis aren’t the only option for the crockpot; you can cook soups with grains like quinoa or millet like this bean, quinoa and kale stew, or creamy veggie based soups like this creamy split pea soup.
Don’t forget about one pot meals like pastas, beans and curries. Read how to cook with zero waste in mind, and try Green-Mom’s Mexican quinoa casserole and curried lentil carrot soup. Slow cooked stove top red beans and rice can be made traditionally with spiced sausage or made as a vegetarian dish with a quick substitution of carrots, celery and onion, or by using vegetarian sausage substitute. This creamy pumpkin pasta dish can easily be made gluten free by substituting gluten free pasta, or made vegan by using coconut cream or another non-dairy substitute. Keep up the seasonal pumpkin theme with this delicious pumpkin curry with lime juice and cilantro.
A final suggestion is to remember all the easy sweets and treats to make, using just one pot! Sticky rice is one of my favorite ways to cook rice; and although it can be made savory, I love it sweet, served with fresh mangos, maple syrup, stewed fruits, or candied nuts. All it takes is a special kind of extra glutinous rice and a can of coconut milk — but I’ve found that most any rice still works well when cooked with coconut milk! Common autumn fruits like pears and apples make incredible butters when made on the stove or in the crockpot. (All of the sugar can be cut easily or substituted with maple syrup, honey, agave, date sugar — or simply eliminated.) Apple or pear butter is also fun to spice with fresh citrus zest; warming spices like cinnamon, clove or ginger; or other seasonal fruits like cranberries. For something more substantial, crumbles are super easy to make in the crockpot. You can use fresh berries frozen from the summer in this yummy crockpot berry crisp from What’s Cooking, Love? And don’t forget seasonal drinks like mulled wine! It is a fun and easy-to-make warm beverage for the cooler autumn. Each country has differences in recipes — the Czech version is my favorite now. You can try it here.
