14 Ways You Never Thought To Use Your Coffee Pot

By now, most of us know that you can use your coffee pot for more than just making coffee. It's a good way to get hot water for your tea or cup ramen, for example. However, did you know you could essentially make an entire meal using only your coffee maker? Whether it's a Keurig or your run-of-the-mill drip coffee pot, there is a lot your coffee maker can do outside of brewing up your daily cup of joe. 

We've searched high and low to bring together 14 ways you probably never thought to use your coffee pot. Most of the items on our list are cooking-related, however, we do have an interesting life hack. Coffee pots are great appliances to use when you're traveling or if you live in a dorm or apartment with limited access to bigger cooking appliances like stovetops or microwaves. There are even blogs and recipes out there that exist specifically for cooking with your coffee pot.

So, read on to find out new and interesting ways you can use your coffee maker. While it may not be Michelin-star-level cooking, a coffee pot can get the job done.

We're starting with the easiest hack on this list — using your coffee pot to make "just add water" foods. Yes, this includes ramen, but there are actually a plethora of foods in this category. It could be oatmeal, cup or box pastas, soup cups, and so on. All you have to do is run your coffee pot like normal, minus the coffee grounds in the filter basket, and use the hot water to cook your food.

Outside of processed food items that you can pick up at the store, there are also some nifty "just add water" meals that you can make yourself. These meals are great when you're on the go and looking for a simple yet tasty meal to take with you to the office. Use the break room's coffee maker to heat up some water, and you're all set. You can throw together a vegetarian curried couscous or a variety of soups, like miso, shrimp paella, and more. Over all, you can get super creative with your "just add water" meals.

Give yourself a mini treat by using your coffee maker to bake mini cupcakes. Sure, it's not the best option if you have a short amount of time or a lot of cupcakes to make, but it's great if you're craving something sweet in the moment and don't have access to an oven or convection oven. All you have to do is place your batter in a heat-resistant container and then put it on the pot's hot plate. That's it.

Be sure that you let the plate heat up before using it; otherwise, you'll be watching your batter a lot longer than you'll want to. You can use any kind of cupcake batter that you like — the coffee pot works whether it's from a box or from scratch.

Baking time is going to vary, depending on the coffee maker and how hot it gets. It will also depend on the type of cupcake batter you're making, whether it's butter- or oil-based, or contains fresh fruit. Be sure to keep an eye on your cupcake as it bakes, and use a toothpick through the middle to determine if it's fully baked before removing it and starting on the next one. Once you have them all baked to perfection, you can focus on creating edible wrappers for them.

Forget Taco Tuesday; you can have quesadillas from the comfort of your dorm room or kitchen. Not only can the hot plate on your coffee maker work like an oven, but it can also act as a stovetop for grilling up the cheesiest of quesadillas. A word of caution — unless you want to scrape melted cheese off it before you have to brew a new pot of coffee, place a piece of aluminum foil down to help with clean up.

The key to a good quesadilla is to fold it rather than sandwich it. Just put the filling on one side, fold over, and place it on the hot plate. As with the mini cupcakes, you'll want to preheat it to save some cooking time. You can also use the actual pot like a press to make sure that your quesadilla is flat. How long you need to keep the quesadilla on the hot plate will vary. Just keep an eye on it and flip from one side to another to keep it from burning.

Put together a dorm room brunch for you and your roommate by making fluffy mini pancakes on your coffee maker's hot plate. It makes multitasking easy: you can brew a pot of coffee while you make the batter. Then, you have your hot plate warmed and ready to go once your batter is mixed. Plus, you'll have some java to sip on while you watch the pancakes cook.

Whether you use a box mix or make it by hand, the secret to fluffy pancakes is all about the consistency of the batter. Make sure you mix it just right. If it's too thick, your pancakes are going to be under-cooked. If it's too thin, they'll never fluff up. Also, even though you're using a coffee maker to cook, all the same pancake-ruining mistakes apply, so keep that in mind.

Once your batter is ready, put a dollop on the hot plate. When the batter starts to bubble, you can flip it over and cook the other side. In the end, you'll have made the perfect little dorm room brunch. You can even put down a piece of foil for easier cleanup.

You can cook an entire one-pot pasta dish using only your drip coffee maker. Imagine you're on a business trip and want to save some money by not eating out every night. Or maybe you're in a crowded dorm and can't get to the stove. Maybe you're just feeling a bit tired and can't be bothered to heat up the stove or dirty up a pot.

Of course, you need to cook in stages for this dish. Run water through your coffee pot like normal and let your noodles sit in it to soften and cook. It usually takes about 10 to 15 minutes, depending on your coffee pot. Once that's done, you can pour out the water and then pour in the pasta sauce of your choice and set it back on the hot plate.

And that's it. You'll have a full pasta meal, and the only dish you had to dirty was your coffee carafe. You could even eat it straight out of that as well. It's great for any kind of spaghetti and red sauce, but you could use this technique for pretty much any pasta and store-bought sauce combo.

A fancy coffee pot can be used for more than making fancy coffee: Treat yourself to a special meal by poaching fish in your coffee maker. Poaching works well with salmon or most kinds of white fish like tilapia, cod, or halibut. You can start with frozen fish instead of fresh, which is cheaper; just make sure you aren't making common mistakes that will have it come out mushy.

Using your coffee pot to poach fish isn't that different from using a pot on the stove. You still need to make sure that it's fully thawed and patted dry before putting the fish into the carafe. It'll cook nicely in the hot water that comes through the coffee pot and usually takes about 20 minutes or so. It's good to keep a close eye on it, since the timing is going to be different depending on your coffee maker and how hot the water gets. Once it's done, you have a nice poached salmon that you can enjoy for dinner and feel more bougie than a college student normally does.

You've probably heard of making a grilled cheese sandwich with an iron, but have you ever heard of making one with your coffee pot? This is yet another interesting way you can use the hot plate on your coffee maker as a mini grill. It's perfect for dorm room cuisine or throwing together a quick but yummy snack. 

First, put your sandwich together how you like it, using the cheese of your choice. Any kind will do, though American and cheddar are popular options for their taste and melting ability. As mentioned, the hot plate works like a grill, and can get your bread toasty while melting the cheese. Of course, you'll get better results when you butter your bread. Like other items on this list, consider putting foil down so you won't need to shave the melted cheese or bread off the plate before getting your morning brew ready the next day.

Whether you're looking for an easier way to boil eggs or just don't have a stove, you can always use your coffee maker. It's a great option for soft- or hard-boiled eggs. You could even poach them, though it's a bit trickier than just boiling. Either way, stop your hard boiled eggs from bursting by putting them in cold water first. Using a coffee pot is a bit more convenient than a stove because you don't need to stand there and watch for the water to start boiling. Put your eggs into the carafe and then run water through the pot. You won't even need to hover while they're cooking. Just set a timer on your phone so you know to come back and check them.

Now, it does take a bit longer to boil eggs in your coffee maker. Normally, it takes about 6 to 7 minutes once the water is boiling on a stove top if you want soft-boiled eggs. Using a coffee maker, it's about 15 minutes for soft and up to 30 minutes for hard-boiled.

The filter basket on your coffee maker was practically made for steaming veggies. It's the perfect size for a one or two-person serving of broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, or any other kind of vegetable that you'd want to steam. All you have to do is toss them in the basket and then do one or two water cycles to get them to the right consistency. If you like your veggies on the crunchy side, one cycle should do it. Go a few more times if you want them soft.

You can multitask if you'd like, such as having your veggies steaming on the top while you're cooking rice or pasta on the bottom in the carafe. This makes for easier cooking and even easier cleanup. It should be noted that if you use frozen veggies, you might want to thaw them out before putting them in the coffee maker, or you'll have to run them through more than a few cycles to get them fully cooked. Also, it should be noted that this won't work if you have a Keurig.

This is a good life hack if you don't have a bottle warmer and don't want to wait at the stove for water to warm up that way. Instead, you can use your coffee maker, and this is a hack that you can use no matter the type of coffee maker you have. All you need to do is run the water through it, and that's pretty much it. You can pour the heated water into a mug or other container before setting the bottle in it, or just plop the bottle in the carafe if it's big enough.

However, you do need to make sure that the water isn't boiling, and that the bottle isn't fully submerged in the water. Seeing as a coffee maker gets the temperature warm to hot without boiling, it might be a better option to heat up a bottle than using the stove. It definitely needs far less monitoring. But to be safe, you always want to test the temperature of the milk before giving it to your little one.

When it comes to Valentine's Day, it's the thought that counts. Even if you're on a budget, you can have fondue without purchasing an expensive fondue pot: just put all the ingredients you need into the coffee carafe and then heat it up on the hot plate. You can then pour it out into a bowl (or leave it in the carafe) and dip your strawberries or cheesecake chunks into the chocolate. Use your money on getting tasty things to dip and perhaps some fondue forks — you can use them for a lot more than just fondue.

In the same vein, you can also use it to melt down chocolate rather than using a stovetop. Again, put your chocolate into the carafe (and anything else you want added to it) and flip on the hot plate. It's super easy, and with no need to turn on the stove or get a microwave.

Need an easier way to cook hot dogs? Throw them in your coffee maker. While this could possibly work with a Keurig (so long as you have a big enough container to submerge the dogs), it's a lot easier with a regular drip coffee pot. You'll probably have a harder time figuring out the best and worst hot dogs at the grocery store than this cooking hack. To cook them, put them in the carafe and let the heated water fill it until all the dogs are submerged. Let them cook, and that's it.

Again, the full cook time is going to vary. Most coffee pots can have your hot dogs ready in about 30 minutes, depending on how many you have in there. It takes a bit longer if they're frozen. This is another great hack for dorm room cooking, too. However, we're not going to judge if you're feeling a bit too lazy to cook on the stove at home. We've all been there.

Full disclosure — this next cooking hack is a bit of a mixed bag from what we've found across the internet. However, you can cook corn on the cob in your coffee pot. It's similar to any other food item on this list that needs to be submerged in hot or boiling water. Simply put it in the carafe, make sure it's fully covered with water, and let it cook. You probably can't fit more than one or two small cobs, and it will take longer since the water won't reach boiling level, but it is doable.

You can add butter to the water once it's in the carafe, just like you would on the stove. It's not recommended to put it in the water reservoir, though — you'll have a tough time cleaning it out. Usually, it takes about 30 minutes for the corn to soften, but, as mentioned, you'll have to play around with it to find the optimal time for your coffee pot. Once it's cooked, try putting some salt and pepper on it, and it's good to go. If you put butter in the water while it cooks, you won't need to put it on afterward.

Here's the thing: you can actually make some pretty nice full meals in your coffee maker. Being on a tight budget doesn't have to stop you from enjoying a home-cooked dish that's tasty and healthy. In fact, coffee maker cooking has become quite popular among deployed soldiers, hotel guests, and students.

You can steam some veggies up top while poaching a small fish fillet in the carafe. Or, you can do a fresh couscous with veggies or other add-ins. You can try a fun rice dish that has everything cooked all together, much like in a rice cooker. You can even cook a chicken breast and rice. Once you've got your meal cooked, season it to your liking and dig in.

Cooking this way definitely makes clean-up a whole lot easier, too. All you have to do is wash out the filter basket if you steamed veggies up there and then put the coffee carafe in the dishwasher (if it's dishwasher safe).