In Minecraft, Iron is used for making many other items like Buckets, Minecarts, etc. Iron Ingots are probably some of the most useful pieces in the game, used for a ton of different things.
You can’t just use Iron Ore to make it though, you have to smelt the Iron Ore into Iron Ingots.
To turn Iron Ore into Iron Ingots, you’ll need a Furnace, and some Iron Ore. Place the Iron Ore into the top slot of the furnace, and a heat source like wood or coal into the bottom slot as shown below. Coal is much more efficient, and there’s a ton of it out there in caves if you go exploring.
You’ll receive one Iron Ingot for every block of Iron Ore you smelt.
Something that will help make this process faster is to create a bunch of furnaces right next to each other, or stacked on top of each other. This way you can smelt a ton of iron ore all at the same time.