Cast Iron Dinner Ideas

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Here are some cast iron dinner ideas for you – each meal is cooked in a cast-iron skillet or cast iron dutch oven from start to finish! What I love about these meals is that they are completely customizable – you can add any meat, veggies, spices or herbs that you like or have on hand.

Leave a comment if you have questions and let me know your favorite one!

Related: Cast Iron risotto basmati

This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. See my full disclosure here.

Cast iron dinner ideas video

Cast Iron dinner idea day 1

Sourdough Skillet

This is a recipe inspired by Farmhouse on Boone. I call this my kitchen sink meal because I literally throw in anything I have on hand except the kitchen sink!

This time I threw in:

• one red bell pepper
• one orange bell pepper
• one yellow onion
• one large zucchini
• one lb of ground beef
• some leftover crispy potatoes I made for lunch
• 4 cloves minced garlic
• smoked paprika, salt, cumin

Then I made the sourdough batter using my sourdough starter, baking powder, eggs, ghee, and some dried basil. Pour it overtop your mixture in your cast iron skillet, top with cheese and bake at 425 for about 20 min.

This is the cast iron skillet I use. Learn how to season your cast iron here.

More sourdough recipes

Roasted Garlic Sourdough Bread

Pumpkin Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

Lemon and Lavender Sourdough Discard Muffins

Sourdough Starter from Scratch

Cast Iron dinner idea day 2

Sourdough Pizza

On this night I made 2 sourdough pizzas. I just cook the meat in a cast iron skillet, remove it, add my sourdough starter to the cast iron, bake it until crispy, and add whatever toppings you have!

Tonight I made one pizza with bacon, fig jam and goat cheese and the other with Italian sausage, red onion, green bell pepper, garlic, cheddar cheese and fresh basil.

Truly a one cast iron skillet dinner idea – I make the meat and crust in the same skillet.

Cat iron sourdough pancake recipe

Cast Iron dinner idea day 3

Chicken sausage and quinoa one pot meal

For this cast iron dinner I used my enameled cast iron dutch oven for another one pot meal.

First I cooked quinoa in the dutch oven with some bone broth then removed it. Browned the chicken apple sausage in the dutch oven, added in some zucchini, yellow onion and garlic until just softened. Threw in some fresh sage, added the quinoa back in, stirred it up and topped with goat cheese and dried cherries!

I usually don’t use zucchini in this recipe. I prefer to use kale because the zucchini released a little too much moisture.

Cast Iron dinner idea day 4

Pretzel Cast iron chicken

On this night I made my hubby’s favorite meal – Pretzel Cast Iron Chicken! This is the most delicious and crunchy chicken ever. I make it just like the herby crispy chicken in my free cast iron chicken ebook but instead of breadcrumbs, I use crushed pretzels.

I served this with some (you guessed it) zucchini and sauerkraut on the side! I also use the Core and Rind smokey cashew sauce to dip the chicken in. SO TASTY.

Cast Iron dinner idea day 5

ghee basted chicken

I made my ghee basted chicken – the full recipe is in my free ebook. I served alongside some zucchini (our harvest this year is insane) and homemade sourdough bread.

Learn how to make einkorn sourdough tortillas

Cast iron chicken ebook straight to your inbox

How to cook chicken in a cast-iron skillet 3-delicious ways!

Grab my ebook

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why use a cast iron skillet

People often wonder why to cook with cast iron skillets when it seems so much simpler to just use non-stick. The reason to cook with cast iron versus nonstick is that whatever material you cook on will leach those nutrients or anti-nutrients into your food.

Iron is a nutrient that your body craves; non-stick pans have chemicals which are anti-nutrients to your body and can actually wreak havoc.

Cast iron pans are a great non-toxic alternative to the chemically contaminated non-stick pans. Once you have a nicely seasoned cast iron and learn how to use it – it’s actually super easy to use and food tastes SO MUCH BETTER on cast iron. Since I’ve been cooking on cast iron, I find that I rarely crave restaurant food because I know I can make it just as delicious, if not better, in my own home using my cast iron skillets.

how to cook in cast iron

1. Preheat your cast iron skillet (before putting your oil on it) on medium to medium high. Use a handle grip like this one to protect your hand from getting burnt by the hot handle.
2. Put more oil than you think you need on the skillet once it’s preheated. At least a couple tablespoons depending on what you’re cooking and how much oil it absorbs.
3. Let the oil heat up too before putting food on your skillet.
4. Place your food on a single layer in your cast iron rather than piling the food on top of each other. The single layer will allow for a crust to form, but if the pan is overcrowded, you wont get that crust and your food will stick.
5. Let whatever you’re cooking develop a nice crust prior to flipping/turning. For example, a pancake should only be flipped once – wait until it’s brown before flipping. Potatoes should have a nice crust formed before turning. Doing this will prevent the food from sticking.
6. Make sure your heating element covers the entire bottom of the pan otherwise food will stick to the edges that aren’t getting heated up.
7. Watch out for the oil/moisture splatters! When cooking high water content foods like potatoes or brussels sprouts, use a splatter guard like this to protect yourself from hot splatters.
8. Grab my free ebook: Cast Iron Chicken – 3 Ways

Best foods to cook in a cast iron skillet

You can cook anything in a cast-iron skillet! My favorite things to cook in cast iron are things that you want to be crispy such as:

• Crispy Potatoes
• Crunchy Chicken
• Sourdough Bread
• Pizza crust
• Sourdough Flatbread

why does everything stick to my cast iron

If things are sticking to you cast iron, there are ways you can troubleshoot.

1. Start with a well seasoned cast iron skillet.
2. Make sure you’re preheating your skillet.
3. Preheat your oil before putting food in.
4. Leave your food on longer – until the food is fully formed, or has browned on the bottom.
5. Don’t overcrowd the skillet.
6. Make sure the heating element is heating up the entire pan.
7. Clean and do a mini season after each use.

If you’re doing all of this – your cast iron skillet should be completely non-stick! Leave a comment if you have questions about troubleshooting your cast iron skillet cooking.

Shop my Six Month Meal Plans

Shop for my six month meal plans here. These will help give you a restful dinner-time routine by giving you all your recipes laid out in a weekly meal plan format for 6 months.

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• Berkey water filter (we use the Royal because we drink an insane amount of water!)

• Thrive Market – 25% off & free gift! (where I get a ton of my ingredients)
• Azure Standard: $25 off your order. Code kyrieluke1
• Dutch oven
• Stand mixer
• Boos Block Butcher Block
• 12 inch Cast Iron Skillet

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