I tried Dunelm’s big, bold, cast-iron cookware, and I was stunned by the price

Dunelm proves that a cast-iron casserole cooking pot doesn’t have to cost a fortune. The brand is offering its own label 3-litre shallow cast iron casserole dish for under £40 and a 5.2 litre, larger pot for just over £40. When the big brands like Le Creuset cost over £100, it’s reasonable to question whether these budget versions are up to scratch.

I don’t like paying over the odds for a brand name, but equally, budget cookware that doesn’t stand the test of time is a false economy. It’s not always easy to get it right, and while I can’t tell you whether this cookware will last you for 40 years, I can tell you if it’s up to the job of everyday cooking and can compete with the best cast iron cookware.

In this review, I tried out both the large cast iron pot as well as the shallow version from Dunelm. On the whole, I think they offer good value for money. But read on if you want to know exactly how they performed when I cooked a variety of different meals on my gas hob and in the oven.

In a nutshell

The Dunelm 5.2 litre cast iron casserole dish and the Dunelm 3 litre shallow cast iron casserole dish are available to buy separately, but I’m reviewing them together here. They are both very affordably priced in comparison to the bigger brands. However, you do need to like orange, as that’s the only colourway on offer.

Both come with two integrated handles, making them easy to carry from oven to table. Having said that, the smaller capacity, wide and shallow dish has much bigger and better handles than the larger version.

Cast-iron casserole dishes are by their nature bulky and heavy, and these two are no exception. The benefit, though, is that enamel-coated cast iron cookware is loved for its ability to hold heat as well as being strong and sturdy.

They’re oven safe up to 260 °C and suitable for all hob types. For this review, I tried them on a gas hob, and they worked well for sauteeing vegetables and simmering sauces and curries. In the oven, I used them to slow-cook curry, bake a cauliflower cheese, and even bake a loaf of bread.

Overall, while each has a slightly different function in terms of the style of recipe you might use it for, both are versatile and work well for dishes that start on the hob and finish in the oven. This is the cookware you need for efficient one-pot recipes.

While they aren’t dishwasher safe, they are easy enough to clean. My main complaint is with how they were packaged for delivery. So if you can collect in-store, I’d advise doing that to avoid receiving them damaged.

Product specs

• Materials: enamel-coated cast iron
• Metal utensil safe? no
• Dishwasher safe? no
• Pan capacity: 5.2 litre and 3 litre
• Pan diameter: 26cm and 30.5cm
• RRP: £42 and £38

About the reviewer

Helen McCue

After completing a Home Economics degree, Helen went on to work for the Good Housekeeping Institute and has been reviewing home appliances ever since. She lives in a small village in Buckinghamshire in the UK, where she reviews all sorts of home and garden appliances using her wealth of experience.

Helen used both these dishes at home for ten days. She used them on a gas hob and in her electric oven and tried to use them for a variety of meals so she could form a well rounded opinion of their performance across different recipes and styles of cooking.

Unboxing and first impressions

Both these pots were delivered to me in one big box. When it arrived on my doorstep, the bottom of the box was bulging so much it looked like it could give way at any moment. So I didn’t risk moving it far, and instead opened it cautiously by the front door.

Once I’d opened the top of the box and removed the packing paper, I was presented with both pots and both lids leaning against each other in the base of the box, with just flimsy plastic bags to protect them from rubbing against each other during transit.

It turned out that one of the metal lid handles had indeed dented, and I’m surprised there wasn’t more damage because the packaging was simply not fit for purpose. To avoid disappointment, I would advise anyone buying this cookware to order it for collection in-store if you can.

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All that aside, my first impressions of the two pots is that they appear to be sturdy. As with all cast iron cookware, they are weighty and somewhat bulky, but that’s no surprise. It’s par for the course with cast iron cookware.

The bold orange coloured enamel is reminiscent of vintage Le Creuset cookware and is a love-it or hate-it colour. The wide shallow pot has large handles that make it really easy to manoeuvre with oven gloves on, whereas the handles on the bigger pot are much smaller and not quite so ergonomic.

Both pots are oven safe up to 260C and both are suitable for all hob types. Neither is dishwasher safe though, which in my experience is fairly standard for cast iron cookware.

Cooking in the Dunelm cast iron cookware

Shallow 3 litre cooking pot

A bean bake has become one of my new weeknight staples. It’s one of those dishes that you can throw anything into, it turns out different every time, but it's easy and relatively healthy so it’s a win in my book.

For this one I popped the dish on the hob and heated it to medium heat. Despite being thick and weighty, it doesn’t take too long to heat up. Then I used sauteed onion, before adding mushrooms and diced peppers.

There wasn’t any issue with sticking, just some browning on the base of the dish, but this de-glazes as soon as liquid is added. Once the vegetables were cooked, I added tinned tomatoes, chickpeas, and butter beans as well as pesto for a punch of flavour.

I topped it with a mixture of cheeses and oven-cooked it for 20 mins at 180C. I was grateful for the large handles when taking it in and out of the oven. The bake turned out just as I hoped, the cheese was melted and golden, and the dish kept it warm, which was handy when my husband got stuck in traffic and arrived home later than expected.

There was enough for six portions, which in my two-person household meant we were eating it for a few days. But if you have a big family, this dish will easily have the capacity to cater for lots of hungry mouths in one sitting.

On a quest for a new recipe to liven up my week, I stumbled upon Jamie Oliver's Sri Lankan style monkfish curry, and since the recipe called for a large casserole pan, I decided to give it a go. It was pretty simple, to begin with, I fried the onion, ginger, garlic and curry leaves.

Next, I added the spices, followed by chopped fresh tomatoes and coconut milk. I allowed it to simmer until the tomatoes had broken down and the flavours had begun to develop. I did this part in the morning and left the sauce sitting in the casserole dish for the day, with the lid on, ready to reheat later.

At dinner, I gently reheated the sauce, then soon after adding the fish, I turned the hob off. The casserole dish retained the heat so the fish cooked gently from the residual heat in the pan. Leaving the lid on was also crucial so that the warm steam stayed in, helping to cook the fish. It worked really well and the fish cooked beautifully, remaining soft and flaky.

There was plenty of turmeric in this recipe, and in the past I’ve seen it stain the enamel on the inside of a cast iron dish. But even though I left the curry sitting in the dish all day, on this occasion, there was no staining.

I don’t know about you, but when it comes to a good cauliflower cheese, I want plenty of the cheesy golden topping. So when I was asked to contribute a cauliflower cheese for an upcoming family roast dinner, I decided to make it in this wide shallow pot, to maximise the surface area of that cheesy goodness.

To keep the washing up to a minimum, I also made the cheese sauce in the pot. I heated the pot gently on the hob and made my sauce by making a roux, then adding milk and whisking it to avoid lumps while it cooked through.

Once I’d added cauliflower florets and coated them in the sauce, I topped it with grated cheese and cooked it in the oven for 20 minutes at 180C. The next day I was able to pop the lid on top to take it to my family gathering and it was ready to go straight back into the oven to be reheated. And most importantly, there was plenty of the cheesy golden topping to go round.

It looked great on the table as a serving dish, the caveat being that it’s not small, so on a crowded table, it did seem to take up a disproportionately large chunk of the available space.

5.2 litre cooking pot

In my opinion, lots of curries benefit from a long, slow cook to allow the spices and flavours to develop as the sauce slowly thickens and becomes rich and flavourful. Chicken madras is a favourite in our house, and I like to make a big batch and keep individual portions in the freezer.

I started my curry on the hob by heating oil and frying spices, before adding onions and chillies and cooking until softened. Then I added my diced chicken thighs, sealing and lightly browning the edges.

Like in the shallow pot, there were no issues with sticking when I fried the onion and chicken. There was some browning on the enamel, and it came away when the liquid was added.

Once I’d added the rest of my ingredients and liquid, I popped it in the oven at 140 °C to cook low and slow for three hours. I just checked on it and gave it a stir every hour or so. By the end, it had reduced and thickened to become a warming, tasty curry. The large dish was easily big enough to cook this six-portion batch size.

I normally use one of the best multi-cookers to make my Moroccan-style chickpea stew because the dried chickpeas cook much faster in a pressure cooker. However, since I was trying out this casserole pot, it made sense to cook it in the pot in the oven instead.

I used the pot to fry onions before adding garlic, spices, and tomato puree. After a few minutes, I added the dried chickpeas, tinned tomatoes and stock. I put the lid on and placed it in my preheated oven at 160 °C, but I didn’t really know how long it was going to take to cook.

During cooking, I checked it roughly every hour and I had to add at least a mug of water every time I checked it. Obviously, the chickpeas were rehydrating, which is where some of the liquid was going, but it was also apparent from the steamy oven that the lid allows quite a lot of moisture to escape, too. This is something to keep in mind if you want a pot with a lid that locks in moisture.

My Initial guess was that the chickpeas would need a couple of hours, but in the end, I left the stew cooking for four hours before taking it out and stirring in a bag of spinach and a generous dollop of yoghurt. In this instance, pressure cooking would have been faster, used much less energy, and been more hands-off, but in the end, it tasted the same, and the cast-iron pot did its job.

I’ve reviewed a few cast-iron pots recently, and I always like to bake a loaf of sourdough in the larger pots. It’s one of the main things I personally would use a big cast-iron pot for. It’s also a good test of how the pot copes with very high temperature cooking.

I add the pot to a cold oven and let it heat up with the oven to 240 °C. Once it’s been preheating for 45 minutes to an hour, I add my loaf, replace the lid and put it back in the oven. Then after 20 minutes, I remove the lid and bake it for a further 20 minutes.

My first attempt was a wholemeal loaf; it’s only the second time I’ve made a wholemeal loaf of sourdough, and while it was perfectly delicious, it didn’t rise quite how I expected. So I tried again with my usual sourdough recipe.

This attempt was better; it still seemed to spread out sideways instead of rising up in the way I wanted it to. This could be to do with the pot; perhaps the loose lid didn’t lock in the steam as well as other pots I’ve tried. But equally, sourdough can be a mystery, and often you never quite know which of the many variables is the cause of the end result; it’s part of what makes sourdough baking an endless quest for perfection!

Cleaning

As I’ve already mentioned, these pots are not dishwasher safe. But luckily, they never required an excessive amount of elbow grease to get them clean. Even baked-on food lifted easily after a very short soak in warm soapy water. And thankfully, nothing stained the cream coloured enamel on the inside, not even the madras or the monkfish curry.

It’s worth pointing out that like all enamelled cast iron pots, they are heavy and bulky so manoeuvring them around the sink is a more cumbersome job than an ordinary stainless steel pan. And you do have to be gentle with them, the enamel can chip if you don’t treat it with care.

Storage

The bright orange colour will certainly provide a statement pop of colour if you plan to leave these pots on display in your kitchen. Otherwise, you’ll have to give up a good chunk of a kitchen cupboard to house them out of sight. And because they are weighty, I'd think twice about storing them on a rickety or overhead shelf.

How do they compare

I recently tried this set from Salter, a big pot and a shallow cast iron pot bundled together for under £80 RRP and even less in seasonal sales. So if you’re looking to buy both and you want exceptional value for money, I highly recommend checking out this set. They also performed really well, but the capacity of the pots is slightly smaller than the Dunelm ones.

Another favourite of mine, and indeed the one I have in my own kitchen, is this 3 Piece Cast Iron Stacking Set from M&S. I love the matte black appearance, which is very different to the shiny bright orange of the Dunelm cookware. But most important to me and to anyone with limited storage space is the stackable design. The set includes a big pot, a shallow pot, and even a griddle pan that all neatly stack together inside the largest pot. It works out slightly more expensive at £100, but with the griddle pan included as well as the space-saving design, to me it’s worth it every penny.

Should you buy the Dunelm Cast Iron Cookware?

As I’ve mentioned, my main grumble with this cookware lies in how it was packaged for delivery. So if you can collect it in store to avoid damage during transit, then both of these pieces are affordable with a roomy capacity that makes them ideal for larger households.

The price makes them a great option if you’re on a budget, likewise if this is your first foray into the world of cast iron cookware. You can try out a decent cast iron casserole dish without having to invest heavily into a big brand, the only caveat is you have to like orange.