The Best Low-Calorie Autumnal One-Pot Dinners
As soon as the pumpkin spice season hits, we know we’ll have a hankering for flavoursome stews, veg-filled oven bakes and hearty potato-topped pies. The good news is that tucking into a comforting hot meal doesn’t have to mean dealing with a huge pile of washing-up afterwards. All of these flavourful, autumnal dishes are ready with minimal pots and pans!
With a slow cooker, a pressure cooker or an all-in-one instant pot, rustling up a homely dinner is even more convenient and energy efficient. Don’t worry if you don’t have a slow cooker or pressure cooker in your kitchen – most of the autumnal warmers we’ve handpicked are multi-method, so you can bake them in the oven if that suits you best.
We talk about one-pan wonders without mentioning our cookbook that’s jam-packed with 100 of them, Pinch of Nom: All in One. Add a copy to your PON collection by tapping the image below:
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Autumnal one-pot pressure cooker recipes
There’s no easier way to rustle up a nutritious seasonal dish than in a pressure cooker. We’ll take any excuse to fetch ours from the cupboard.
If it’s a fragrant Fakeaway you’re after, this Instant Pot Thai-Style Pork Curry will warm you right up. Our sauce is made with a blend of Indian and Thai spices, so there’s no shortage of warmth in this fragrant fusion dish. The fresh red chillies provide a satisfying, spicy lift – just what you need after being out in the autumn chill.
(Psst! There’s nothing to stop you tenderising your pork in the oven or slow cooker, if that’s better for you.)
Madras has always been one of our go-to curry orders. If you’re the same way, you won’t regret trying our Instant Pot Beef Madras. This fiery one-pot wonder combines stewing steak with a nifty blend of budget-friendly herbs and spices.
Wait around 30 minutes until the sauce is thick and your beef is fall-off-the-fork tender (4-5 hours by slow cooking or roughly 2 hours in the oven). Sauté your curry with the lid removed if you prefer an even thicker curry sauce.
Nothing says autumn quite like a warming bowl of Instant Pot Beef Stew. When we’re feeling extra-indulgent, we like to add a red wine stock pot or a small, full-bodied glass of red wine.
It really ramps up the luxury, and offers even more scrummy incentive to mop up the leftovers with a crusty bread roll. Just be sure to adjust the calories accordingly, if you’re counting.
A Pinch of Nom twist on the Liverpudlian classic, our slimming-friendly Lamb Scouse is still every bit as cosy and flavoursome. An inexpensive combination of potatoes, veggies, lean diced lamb and store cupboard staples, this wintery one-pot winner is so simple to put together even at the last minute. Tonight’s dinner is sorted!
Don’t have a pressure cooker at home yet? Our guide will help you find the best pressure cooker to suit your budget.
A pressure cooker and slow cooker in one, you get real bang for your buck with the Instant Pot Duo. It’s the ideal starting point if you’ve never used a pressure cooker before.
Autumnal one-pot slow cooker recipes
There’s nothing better than coming home to a ready-to-serve hot pot of comfort! With Slow Cooker Stroganoff waiting for when you walk through the door, you’ll get all of that and more by the bowlful.
Slow cooking turns cheaper cuts of meat into melt-in-the-mouth luxury, so it’s as good for your budget as it is for your taste buds. We’ve used lean stewing steak combined with garlicky cream cheese and mustard, for effortless indulgence.
The full recipe is inside our fourth cookbook, Pinch of Nom: Comfort Food. You can grab a copy here.
As with stroganoff, our Chicken Cacciatore is just as good served over pasta, wedges, rice or creamy mash. They’re both versatile batch-cook wonders.
Throw the chicken thighs, drumsticks, veggies, tinned tomatoes, herbs and spices in one pot and leave them bubbling away. It doesn’t get much easier than going about your day while those flavours simmer away!
With a slow-cooker showstopper like our Sausage Casserole on the go, you know you’re coming home to big flavours and next to no dishes to clean afterwards. All that’s left to do is add a ladle-sized serving of yummy casserole to each bowl!
To keep the calories nice and low, we’ve made sure this one-pot dish is rich with silky butter beans and plenty of nutritious veggies.
We’d recommend choosing a slow cooker based on how many mouths you have to feed. From couple-sized cookers (1.5-3 litre) to larger family-sized pots (4+ litres), make sure you have room to add enough tasty ingredients to the pot.
Using a slow cooker makes preparing our Steak and Stilton Pie extra-convenient. While you can cook your pie filling on the hob, we prefer to let the slow cooker do all the hard work and leave our ingredients bubbling away for hours.
After 7 hours on low, top the mouth-wateringly tender steak pieces, soft veg and Stilton cheese with lower calorie filo pastry and crisp in the oven until golden. It’s easy as pie!
Autumnal one-pot oven recipes
You don’t need a slow cooker or a pressure cooker to prepare fuss-free autumnal favourites. Our Oven Baked Pasanda Curry is ready after 40 minutes in an ovenproof dish, and it comes packed with all the nutty creaminess you’d find in the restaurant version.
To keep this fakeaway feast slimming friendly, we’ve cut down the calories with light cream cheese and sweetener.
Don’t forget to pop it back in the oven for 5 minutes with a sprinkling of almonds on top. The moreish crunch with every bite is to die for…
What’s not to love about juicy sausages in Yorkshire pudding batter? It wouldn’t be autumn without Toad in the Hole on the menu.
With only 4 key ingredients, you can have this trusty oven-bake ready to warm up the whole family in half an hour.
The reduced-fat sausages and light batter makes this dish just as fluffed up, golden and crisp as the traditional version, without taking you off track. Bring on the Gravy!
A fuss-free, flavourful rice dish, our One Pot Chicken and Tomato Rice is exactly what it says on the tin. We’ve coated skinless, boneless chicken thighs in a Cajun-style spiced marinade and roasted them with veggies, beans, spices and fluffy long-grain rice.
Plate it up all on its own, or serve it with even more veg to get you closer to your 5-a-day.
Each portion is a freezer-friendly dream, so it’s an easy, cost-effective addition to your weekly meal plan.
All the ingredients bake together nicely in one casserole pot, so you can spend less time washing-up and more time enjoying your evening.
Which autumnal one-pot dinner are you making tonight?
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