Bosanski Lonac or Bosnian Pot is a traditional and national dish of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a stew, which is considered a culinary specialty due to its rich taste and simplicity in preparation. As with most Bosnian recipes, there is no one exact recipe, every region of the country, sometimes even every household has its version. But the main ingredients are chunks of meat, most often beef, and vegetables, which are slowly simmered for a couple of hours in a big pot.

As Bosnia and Herzegovina was a mining country, the origin of the Bosanski Lonac was traced to the coal miners even way back as the Middle Ages. It was the meal that could feed a lot of people and which miners could prepare on their own, leaving it to cook, while they did their job, having it ready just in time for their launch break, giving them enough energy to continue with their work for a few more hours. Through time, Bosanski Lonac expanded from miners’ fire pits into everyone’s kitchen.

Traditionally, this dish was prepared in large ceramic or clay pots – it is even in the name of the dish – in a pit or a fireplace. There are stories of people without a pit or a fireplace bringing their pots filled with ingredients to the local baker in the evening and picking them up in the morning after it has been simmering the whole night in the baker’s oven.

Today, as it is less and less common to cook over a fireplace or in a pit in the ground, this dish is being prepared in a regular pot over a regular kitchen stove. As the large chunks of meat are being used, it usually takes 4-5 hours to cook the Bosanski Lonac.

We made a simplified version of this dish, which also took a lot less time to cook, as we were not using meat. But we kept the basic principles of the dish – vegan meat substitute and vegetables cooked in their own juices for a few hours without stirring. Spices and seasonings are kept to a minimum to let the ingredients flavor the dish with their juices and aromas.