I’ve been thinking lately about the way tastes change over time. Whether due to lifestyle changes, your growing family’s needs, or simply a shift in mood, what we like from year to year (or month to month) continues to evolve. That’s true of so many things: food, books, clothes, you name it.
Several years ago I shared a list of my go-to cookbooks. I love a good cookbook: there’s something special about tech-free meal-planning from the comfort of my couch. I love to curl up with a good cookbook and read it like a novel—although if I come away with recipes I actually want to make for weeknight dinners, so much the better.
When I recently revisited my list of old favorite cookbooks, it brought me back to that very specific time in my life. My kids were younger and had different food sensitivities. (SO MANY food sensitivities, it felt like then.) The cookbooks in our regular rotation reflected that state of being.
I still rely on many of those cookbooks, but I’ve welcomed additional ones into our kitchen since then. The kids are older now—one is IN COLLEGE, for goodness’ sake—and my teenage kids have favorite cookbooks of their own. We have different favorite meals these days; we no longer need to avoid gluten or dairy like we once did. It’s no wonder I rely on a new rotation of cookbooks right now. (And let’s not forget how many fabulous new cookbooks have been published these past few years!)
Here’s what hasn’t changed: I still have seasons of creative kitchen experimentation and seasons of cooking for survival. I’m especially grateful to have go-to recipes for those stressful seasons, as well as new-to-me recipes to try when we’re in the mood for something we haven’t had a billion times already.
It doesn’t hurt that my favorite cookbooks are both beautiful and practical. I hope you’ll see some of your own favorites here and maybe a new one or two to add to your kitchen. And, of course, you know I’d love to hear all about YOUR favorites in comments—and so would your fellow readers!
8 beautiful, practical cookbooks you’ll turn to again and again
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I was thrilled when Sam Sifton released this collection of the best recipes from the NYT Cooking website and app, which he founded. This cookbook is all about the principles behind cooking. There’s an ingredient list but no measurements. The instructions are easy to understand, leaving you free to adapt and adjust the components of each recipe to your taste. I made the grilled broccoli weekly during the summer months, and we also recommend kitchen-sink rice and beans, multiple grilled cheese variations, and instant ramen, back-of-the-fridge style. More info →
My introduction to Deb Perelman of the fantabulous food blog smittenkitchen.com wasn't via the usual route: I found out she was speaking at my local library, a friend told me I should go, I took her advice and found Deb and warm and funny and smart, and only then did I look up her website and her first cookbook, The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. This follow-up contains more than a hundred real recipes for real people, gorgeously illustrated. Family favorites include her versatile party cake recipes, magical blueberry muffins, and spinach, mushroom, and goat cheese slab frittata. More info →
If you enjoy sitting down with hefty cookbooks and reading them like novels, it’s especially easy to do here. The first half of the book consists entirely of enjoyable stories and explanations about the cooking process, as Samin examines how each of the key elements—salt, fat, acid, and heat—affect a dish. I especially enjoyed the way she drew from her experience at Chez Panisse, sharing stories of kitchen disasters that happened because one of these elements had gone horribly awry. Once you understand the essentials, Samin leads you into the recipes held in the book's second half. This book made me want to get cooking, and the gorgeous illustrations and flavor wheels make it particularly fun. Favorites include garlicky green beans, slow roasted citrus salmon, and panzanella variations for all seasons. More info →
I’m a big fan of Ina's approach to cooking and resultant recipes. My Barefoot Contessa cookbooks are well-loved and notably worse for wear. I still can’t believe she had a book on comfort food ready and waiting for a pandemic-induced return to home cooking. We love the giant crinkled chocolate chip cookies and chicken pot pie soup. I can vouch for it being a great book for home cooks, from beginners to pros. Hearty dinner dishes like cheesy chicken enchiladas and perfect beef stew are fabulous, but we've pulled this off the shelf most often for the giant crinkled chocolate chip cookies and applesauce cake with bourbon raisins, two dessert recipes we've made again and again. More info →
When we discussed cookbooks worth of completely cooking your way through, Indian-ish ranked multiple mentions. Inspired by her mother's creative recipes that combined the traditional Indian recipes of her childhood with American favorites (like spaghetti), Priya Krishna shares fun, everyday recipes that can only be described as "Indian-ish." I love reading my cookbooks like novels, and Krishna shares funny and endearing family memories in between recipes. Favorites include roasted Aloo Gobi, Malaysian ramen, and garlic and ginger chicken. Will is dying to try the white bean stuffed poblanos soon. More info →
Like many cooking enthusiasts, we met Vivian Howard through her Netflix series A Chef’s Life, “a show about people, place, tradition and family told through the lens of food.” Howard's newest cookbook, filled with simple recipes that highlight the way she actually cooks at home every night, as opposed to at her fancy award-winning restaurant, caught my eye at the local bookstore. She’s insistent these simple recipes will change the way you cook. She made a believer out of me: I especially love her methods for spicy tomatoes and preserved lemons—and her style is just plain FUN. I most often cook the core recipes for her "flavor heroes," they're perfect every time and do, in fact, make everything else we make taste better. More info →
Fans of Rosenstrach’s cookbook Dinner: A Love Story will love her latest offering. Her family decided to limit their meat consumption to the weekends and turn to plant-based meals during the week—reducing meat intake is an easy way to combat climate change. This cookbook contains 100 recipes, as well as what Jenny and her family learned along the way. This cheerful cookbook contains great ideas for approaching dinner as well as recipes to prepare. Our hands-down favorite recipe is the leek and mushroom tart, which we make for weeknights and served as part of our Thanksgiving spread. More info →
If you’re familiar with Chungah Rhee’s blog of the same name, you know this is aptly titled. After discovering her site years ago, it quickly became one of my go-to destinations for dinner recipes because her recipes are always tasty, and they always work. This cookbook includes the recipes she’s most well-known for, as well as new ones created for this print edition. This is my go-to whenever I’m looking for something quick, easy, and full of flavor. Favorites include one-pot garlic parmesan pasta, bang-bang chicken, and slow-cooker french dip sandwiches. More info →
What are your favorite cookbooks? Tell us in comments!
Keepers and The Dinner Plan by Caroline Campion and Kathy Brennon. I have done almost every recipe each book. Brennon and Campion were recipe developers, so every recipe works, is family friendly, and pantry friendly. Hope they write another!
Rosenstrach’s Dinner A Love Story is my original go to.
Skinnytaste is also a great web site, and I have done cooked from her One and Done multiple times.
This is a GREAT list. I have most of these cookbooks. Everyday Vegetarians is our current Go-To- easy and tasty recipes. I am a die-hard Smitten Kitchen fan and so excited that Deb has a new cookbook coming out Fall 2022!
Betty Goes Vegan is my go to cookbook. Every single recipe is so good. Easy to make vegan recipes on classic Betty Crocker theme. I have cooked my way through this cookbook and return to it at least twice a week.
I find myself not using cookbooks in favor of recipes by my favorite food bloggers. I am in the opposite situation as you Anne. Two of my kids were diagnosed with celiac in the last year and a half and one of them is also dairy-free for past 6 months. Some of my old favorite recipes still work fine but avoiding bread (no one likes the GF bread), soy sauce and sometimes dairy (she’s at college) has meant we’ve had to find new favorites. I really like when I can find a way to bring back a favorite that they can no longer eat like Orange Chicken!
I’m cheering you on as you continue to adapt to celiac along with dairy restrictions. Here’s to caring for the people we love with good food, and finding new favorite recipes.
My husband was diagnosed with celiac disease almost 20 years ago. At that time there certainly wasn’t as much gf food as there is now so I resorted to looking for recipes that were gluten free. Two of the best cookbooks I found are by Donna Washburn and Heather Butt (The Best Gluten-free Family Cookbook and The 125 Best Gluten-free Recipes). Everything I’ve tried out of them have worked perfectly.
Sorry but why can’t you cook orange Chk it doesn’t sound it has any gluten. Sorry Iam really clueless about this recipe. Can you tell me a bit abt this recipe???
My daughter has gluten sensitivity but not celiac. We have been experimenting with ancient grains—turkey red wheat and Einkorn wheat. She can eat both. Einkorn has never been hybridized. Jovial Foods sells both a whole wheat and all-purpose flour. We use the AP and have made great biscuits so far. No yeast Ed bread though. Whole Foods sells this flour. Breadtopia sell the berries
You recommended This Will Make it Taste Good recently in another blog mentioning the preserved lemons. Lemons are in season on every tree in my neighborhood at the moment and we can’t even give them all away. This made trying to preserve them a real blessing so I had to get this cookbook. I’m so excited to try this out but the recipe calls for lemons, limes and oranges; I just want to do lemons. It also makes the recipe more fun, IMO, that I don’t have to buy ingredients from the store; we have them fresh off the tree.
There are of course other great sounding recipes in this cookbook and I’m intrigued by several of them. Now I just need sometime to try these all out. Happy cooking!
The most gorgeous cookbook I’ve ever seen won’t appeal to most of you because it’s a fully alkaline, basically vegan approach to healing called Eat Better Live Better Feel Better by Julie Cove. I encourage you to grab it if your library has it just to look at all the beautiful, colorful drawings and photos!
My favorite cookbooks are the ones that have been passed down to me from the women in my life. My Mom’s typed on a typewriter recipe book, my Aunt Karen’s recipe book in her beautiful cursive handwriting, and my Mother in-law’s self published book of ALL of her recipes. There are mentions of Jello, oleo, Cool Whip, whipping cream (heavy cream) and Campbell’s condensed soup, among others and are the foods of my childhood.
My favorite modern day cookbooks are ALL of the Ina Garten books. One of these days I am going to take the challenge to cook all of the recipes from one of her books like Anne did! Her cookbooks are so beautiful just like her!
Mark Bittman is my go-to for simple, delicious meals–his “How to Cook Everything” (it was my one request for my husband to grab from my kitchen when we were living “in exile” after Hurricane Katrina) and “Food Matters” cookbooks are particular favorites. My favorite food blog is Cafe Sucre Farine–company good, simple enough for weeknights, work every time meals.
I love, love, love Run Fast, Eat Slow. I’m not sure I’ve ever used a cookbook as much as I’ve used this one. (Just had a superhero muffin for breakfast, in fact.) I recently ordered Run Fast, Cook Fast, Eat Slow. Can’t wait to dig in!
Ah! Reading Cookbooks. Nothing better.
When my daughters come home, one of our very best visits will be taking out all the cookbooks, making tea and just sitting around the living room discussing recipes, what we have been cooking lately and what we want to try.
My 2 daughter-in-laws are not familiar with this, but as time goes on I see that this “tradition” will carry on with my grands.
I love cookbooks, and several you listed are on my shelf and well-used. My latest two favorites are Cook This Book by Molly Baz and Food52 Genius Recipes!
Half Baked Harvest Super Simple is my go to weekday cookbook. I am also a huge fan of ALL the Milk Street cookbooks by Christopher Kimball, my most recent fave bring Milk Street Vegetables.
And Chrissy Tiegen’s recipes are really great- especially her shake and bake chicken with hot honey and the jok moo. I love a good cookbook!!!
My suggestions are dairy-free also, but you could always tweak recipes.
Well Fed: Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat and Cooking for Isaiah (silvanaskitchen.com)
I heartily second all three Well Fed cookbooks. We don’t have as many dietary restrictions anymore, but continue to make many of those recipes because we love them.
I’ve been using From Freezer to Cooker and From Freezer to Table a lot over the past couple of years. I prep the meals fresh and rarely freeze them. Our favorite recipe is the chicken parmesan casserole. SO GOOD and easy! Other newish books are The Pretty Dish (contains a recipe that I like to call “life-changing salmon”) and the Two Peas and Their Pod Cookbook. Both of these have lots of pretty photos, but the recipes are usually a little more time intensive than what I can handle most days so I don’t use these as much.
Recently, I’ve really been enjoying Well Plated, by Erin Clarke and America’s Test Kitchen’s The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook. For baking, I recently discovered Erin Jeanne McDowell’s The Fearless Baker. (She’s also a lot of fun on Instagram!)
I love Two Peas &Their Pod cookbook named after the blog by Maria Lichtenstein. Every recipe I’ve made from the blog and the cookbook have been delicious! And I always return to Love Real Food by Kathryn Taylor from the blog Cookie + Kate for amazing vegetarian recipes.
I have hundreds of cookbooks and use them frequently! All of Ina are well used, Anything Ottolenghi and classics by Julia! If you read The new Julia book Dearie, you’ll realize how well researched her books were. There is no one like her.
Diana Henry: From the Oven to the Table.
I have been suffering with the after effects of Covid for two months and this is the book my husband chose when he had to take over in the kitchen. It is creative and inventive and yet the recipes suit his logical spreadsheet of a brain. The results are amazing, so flavourful plus relatively little clean up.
Diana Henry is very well known in the UK and not nearly as well known as she should be in the US. I have all of her cookbooks and they are all excellent and much used!
As a home baker, I’m obsessed with Sarah Kieffer’s 100 Cookies. Not a bad recipe in there! I’m also itching to get my hands on her other two baking cookbooks and expand beyond the world of cookies.
I agree! I typically borrow cookbooks from the library, and I loved that one so much I purchased it. Another great new one is Cookies: the new classics by Jesse Szewczyk.
I love to borrow cookbooks first to decide if I want to add it to my collection or not. (Though I confess to purchasing several of the ones in this list on publication date; I didn’t want to wait!)
Thank you for these recommendations- can’t wait to try them. Once Upon a Chef is my go to resource for dinner ideas- Jen Segal was a professional chef and now cooks for her family. She has a beautiful website and two cookbooks full of elevated meals that my whole family will eat. We have thoroughly enjoyed every single recipe we have tried. Can’t recommend her recipes highly enough!
I 100% agree with this comment. Jenn’s recipes have NEVER lead me astray. They’re clearly written and use easy-to-find ingredients. They feel sophisticated without being complicated. Love her blog and her cookbooks!
I loooooove cookbooks. I have over 150 of them and many more are on my “want” list. A longtime favorite is Claire’s Corner Copia (been making a pasta sauce from that book for over 20 years!). I’ve also been loving Weekday Vegetarians and Indian-ish! Other favorites include Repertoire, all of Julia Turshen’s cookbooks, Melissa Clark’s instant pot cookbooks, and Sister Pie for baking.
I love Vegetarian Weekdays, too. I also rely on Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Everyday and Super Natural Simple, Twelve Recipes by Cal Peternell, and Bryant Terry’s books – although those tend to be weekend cooks for me.
I love this list. I added a few to my TBR list! Alton Brown and Ree Drummond are my two go-to people for recipes. I love my Pioneer Woman cookbook. The recipes are simple and delicious and I love the stories that she sprinkles throughout the book.
Cook This Book by Molly Baz is a new favorite of mine. There isn’t a huge list of ingredients and her recipe for blistered broccolini with charred dates, lemons and sesame is delicious!
I love cookbooks and have way too many. I’ve tried recipes from them all but nothing beats my old, red covered Betty Crocker from the seventies. I bought one on eBay for each of my daughters when they left home. I often receive calls asking for a recipe and I usually tell them to look in Betty’s cookbook.
My favorite cookbooks are: Come & Eat by Bri McKoy, Eat Better, Feel Better by Giada Di Laurentiis, Veg by Jamie Oliver, Lidia’s Italy by Lidia Bastianch, and Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson.
I have to add Dinner: A Love Story and Dinner: A Playbook to Jenny’s Weekday Vegetarians. She’s been my go-to guide for years, and I love her easy approach to sitting down to a good meal with your family.
I have said more than once that Deb Perelman and Smitten Kitchen taught my now thirty- somethings how to cook. My son and daughter were so busy as high- schoolers when they lived at home, and showed no interest in cooking. They struggled through college apartments, but once they had jobs and a bit more time, they wanted to make delicious meals. Smitten Kitchen , with Deb’s clear instructions, great photos, and helpful commentary taught them everything they needed to know. Now they entertain us with wonderful meals, are constantly recommending recipes to us. “Deb” is like a beloved family member. I also own this cookbook, everything we’ve tried is great.
My favorite cookbooks are usually about baking. I love “How to Be a Domestic Goddess” by Nigella Lawson (my husband pulls this one out for the brownie recipe and the banana bread recipe all the time!), “Baking: From my home to yours” by Dorie Greenspan, Joy the Baker’s cookbooks, and “Baking Illustrated” from the editors of Cooks Illustrated (love the oatmeal scone recipe!). All of these are great for reading like novels. That’s what I do when I can’t fall asleep at night!
Well, I certainly had to up my kitchen skills with 2 years of stay at home. I love Well Plated by Erin Clarke. Recipes include lots of veggies and spices for wonderful flavor.
So my husband does most of the cooking but I still need easy fast recipes for when he can’t or wants a break. I love the “Dinner a Love Story” Cookbook but the book I used to cook the most is Curtis Stone’s “What’s for Dinner.” It has a unique structure with recipes divided by days of the week based on a theme (One Pot; 5 Ingredient; Speedy). The Pesto Chicken and Korean Steak Tacos are still in rotation many years later.
I love cookbooks! I have several that I cook from regularly. My all-time favorite over the last couple of years is Vegetable Kingdom by Bryant Terry. It’s a vegan cookbook but the recipes are robust enough to prove filling for any meat lover in your family. One I have cooked several times is the Charred Brassicas. I also recently made his po’boy recipe and it was great. Every time I cook from the book, I’m impressed that the meal is always far greater than the sum of its parts.
A surprise cookbook favorite is the Margaritaville Cookbook. I’m a huge Jimmy Buffett fan and bought this book as more of a decorative piece, not realizing at the time how incredible the recipes would be. Julia Turshen is one of the authors and she’s an incredible chef.
Isn’t Vegetable Kingdom gorgeous? I’ve browsed it thoroughly but haven’t made any recipes from it. Thanks for the nudge.
My husband Will is a huge Jimmy Buffett fan but I didn’t know there was a Jimmy Buffett cookbook—with Julia Turshen, even! I’m filing this suggestion away for the next gift-giving occasion. Thank you!
Somehow no one has recommended A Couple Cooks vegetarian cookbook, Pretty Simple Cooking! It’s got great vegetarian recipes that are often GF/DF and they’re organized by time, so there are a handful of super quick weeknight favorites as well as some epic hosting dinners. Their blog is full of great, well-flavored options and I frequently cook and re-cook their food!
How do I (in my egocentric mind, LOL) know this is a great list? Because of the eight – four are ones that I already own (and LOVE also) and one is a title that I am on the verge of buying. Which leads me to believe that – even though I haven’t heard of the other three, I absolutely MUST buy them immediately! Always love your lists!
Food IQ, new this month, is full of how-to’s, whys, and recipes. the subtitle says it all: “100 Questions, Answers, and Recipes to Raise Your Cooking Smarts.” It doesn’t hurt that the cover is gorgeous.
Skinnytaste never misses the mark. I have yet to follow a recipe on the website or the cookbook that wasn’t delicious. If you’ve never followed her recipes before, you’re definitely missing out!
I like both of Deb’s books but find myself cooking from her website vs. her books most often.
I absolutely adore both of Alison Roman’s books (Dining In and Nothing Fancy) and cook from them constantly. Antoni Porowski’s books are on frequent rotation as well.
One of my 2022 goals is to make every recipe from “Weekday Vegetarians”. According to my family, we haven’t made a bad meal from Jenny’s cookbook, yet! (I discovered her cookbook through you, so a big thank you!)
I’m also loving “Love Real Food” by Cookie + Kate blogger, Kathryne Taylor.
Incredible list! Joining to second: Love Real Food by Katherine Taylor (Cookie and Kate). Also the Moosewood Restaurant cookbooks, Half the Sugar All the Love (Jennifer Tyler Lee), and I actually love Tiffani Thiessen’s cookbook — Pull Up a Chair!
Such a great list and if you love Damn Delicious’ original cookbook check our her second called Damn Delicious Meal Prep. I prefer that one even! It is full of bright seasonal recipes and snacks where you truly want to eat everything! And I am not even a dieter or meal prepper but it makes even snacks for family outings easy and different from our usual fruit and granola bars for example.
Provincetown Seafood Cookbook
By Howard Mitcham
New intro by A. Bourdain
Attention all seafood foodies.
This is “the bible” for many fish and shellfish recipes. Think Portuguese kale and linguica soup, clams casino,”stuffies” raw oysters shucked for slurping and/or cooked in so many delicious ways.
This recipe book draws on traditional Portuguese fare handed down for generations by fishermen from the tip of Cape Cod, MA.
Pretty specific but my family highly recommends it.
Julia Turshen-Simply Julia, Now and Again, Small Victories, Feed the Resistance and all the amazing ones she has edited for Gwyneth Paltrow, BiBi’s Kitchen, Buvette. Her recipes are so straight forward. She it the first cookbook author that writes in the same way i think about recipes-sort of like a concept map around the entree. Can’t say enough about her.
For those looking for some GF options, Danielle Walkers “Eat What You Love” is one of our go to’s and “The Paleo Patisserie” for baking and desserts (it’s not available in print but I’m pretty sure you can get the ebook). Both of Ayesha Curry’s books and “Cravings: Hungry for More” are in heavy rotation in this house.
My hubs is pretty fond of the Franklin Barbecue and Franklin Steak books, they’re an excellent resource for cooking different kinds of meats and how to prep them.
The collection of cookbook by Susan Branch not only have wonderful family favorite recipes, but each one is so beautiful. They feature beautiful drawings and many stories, poems, etc. mixed in the pages among the recipes. “Heart of the Home’ is my favorite!
I am Indian and absolutely endorse Indian-ish. My kids are born in the US like Priya and this is a wonderful American cookbook.
I recently came across Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day by Leanne Brown. It is available as a free pdf online. It would be handy for a college student or really, anyone trying to cut down on the cost of groceries.
I have been a daily home cook for 25 years and most of that time I have been cooking for 5 males and 1 female. I can second Vivian Howard and Sam Sifton books for inspiration and no fuss style. I would add Milk Street. Just picked up a Half Baked book at my library and I found some great ideas. My most regular resource tho is the NYT food app when I need an actual recipe for a specific dish.
Many of my favorites are listed in the previous comments, but I’ll add two I didn’t see listed – The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (a classic!), and the Mitford Cookbook and Kitchen Reader, by Jan Karon. I love the excerpts and drawings from the Mitford book series, and while I haven’t made many (most) of the recipes in the Mitford cookbook, I’ve never had bad results with any of the ones I have tried. Happy cooking!
The Joy of Cooking- I use ALL THE TIME! Menus, table settings, I love this book so much the binding is in tatters. Cake Mix Doctor and my new find The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen by Sean Sherman.
I just checked out Dorie Greenspan’s Everyday Dorie, the way I cook out from the library. I have tagged so many recipes I want to make. It’s on my list to buy now. I check out cookbooks from the library so often!
I’m loving the new cookbook, Italian American. This celebrates my love of Italian red sauce and all the dishes it inspires. Also includes an out of this world coffee rendition of tiramisu.
My husband gifted me w/Weekday Vegetarians for Christmas. Of course, I had included it on my list of suggestions for him. It was perfect for January as we vowed to be Weekday Vegetarians. We still are most weekdays. Jenny is a favorite of mine. I still use her Dinner: A Love Story on a regular basis.
This Will Make it Taste Good was new to me this year. I discovered it somewhere, maybe an NPR or a PBS newsletter. I’m all about the sauces and Vivian has several in this book that I can’t wait to try.
Here’s to lots of good eating!
I have had an Amish Mennonite cookbook (Phyllis Perlman Good and Rachel Thomas Perlman) that I have used to teach my children to cook. At 12 years old, my son Thomas would open the cookbook up and create wonderful quick breads, cookies, chicken dishes, etc. They are fail-proof simple recipes for cooking simple foods!
did you blog about those older cookbooks when you had to have gluten and dairy free? That’s what I need in my house and am in desperate need of new ideas.
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Anne, thank you SO much for this post! Immediately after I read it, I requested The Weekday Vegetarians from our library. I have been cooking 90% of our dinners from it over the last two weeks and (sheepishly) renewed it for another two so I can keep cooking it until I’ve saved enough to purchase it (we are hardcore budgeting right now). To anyone on the fence, I can’t recommend this cookbook enough. Every single meal has been a hit, even with a skeptical 8 year old.
“The Best of British Baking: Classic Sweet Treats and Savory Bakes” by Marie Raymer, also her blog “The English Kitchen” at https://www.theenglishkitchen.co/
Marie’s recipes are simple, reliable and delicious. Can’t go wrong!
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108 comments
Keepers and The Dinner Plan by Caroline Campion and Kathy Brennon. I have done almost every recipe each book. Brennon and Campion were recipe developers, so every recipe works, is family friendly, and pantry friendly. Hope they write another!
Rosenstrach’s Dinner A Love Story is my original go to.
Skinnytaste is also a great web site, and I have done cooked from her One and Done multiple times.
I love The Dinner Plan and have recommended it so many times. The recipes are easy to follow and produce such flavorful results!
This one is new to me—thanks for the rec!
This is a GREAT list. I have most of these cookbooks. Everyday Vegetarians is our current Go-To- easy and tasty recipes. I am a die-hard Smitten Kitchen fan and so excited that Deb has a new cookbook coming out Fall 2022!
I squealed with delight when I heard the Smitten Kitchen news. 🙂
The most used cookbook in our house is the classic Joy of Cooking!
Betty Goes Vegan is my go to cookbook. Every single recipe is so good. Easy to make vegan recipes on classic Betty Crocker theme. I have cooked my way through this cookbook and return to it at least twice a week.
I agree. If you want to learn how to COOK, Joy of Cooking is the book. I have five versions dating back to the 50’s.
Mine is stained and spattered, in the best way and for the best reasons.
I love my Skinnytaste cookbooks and website. Delicious and healthy!
Ditto! I use my Skinnytaste cookbooks all the time 🙂
I find myself not using cookbooks in favor of recipes by my favorite food bloggers. I am in the opposite situation as you Anne. Two of my kids were diagnosed with celiac in the last year and a half and one of them is also dairy-free for past 6 months. Some of my old favorite recipes still work fine but avoiding bread (no one likes the GF bread), soy sauce and sometimes dairy (she’s at college) has meant we’ve had to find new favorites. I really like when I can find a way to bring back a favorite that they can no longer eat like Orange Chicken!
Cooking for Isaiah has excellent GF/DF recipes! Her website silvanaskitchen.com is wonderful, too.
I’m cheering you on as you continue to adapt to celiac along with dairy restrictions. Here’s to caring for the people we love with good food, and finding new favorite recipes.
My husband was diagnosed with celiac disease almost 20 years ago. At that time there certainly wasn’t as much gf food as there is now so I resorted to looking for recipes that were gluten free. Two of the best cookbooks I found are by Donna Washburn and Heather Butt (The Best Gluten-free Family Cookbook and The 125 Best Gluten-free Recipes). Everything I’ve tried out of them have worked perfectly.
Look into Aran Goyoaga’s new GF baking cookbook. I made baguette’s this holiday season for my celiac husband and they were excellent and easy!!
Sorry but why can’t you cook orange Chk it doesn’t sound it has any gluten. Sorry Iam really clueless about this recipe. Can you tell me a bit abt this recipe???
My daughter has gluten sensitivity but not celiac. We have been experimenting with ancient grains—turkey red wheat and Einkorn wheat. She can eat both. Einkorn has never been hybridized. Jovial Foods sells both a whole wheat and all-purpose flour. We use the AP and have made great biscuits so far. No yeast Ed bread though. Whole Foods sells this flour. Breadtopia sell the berries
You recommended This Will Make it Taste Good recently in another blog mentioning the preserved lemons. Lemons are in season on every tree in my neighborhood at the moment and we can’t even give them all away. This made trying to preserve them a real blessing so I had to get this cookbook. I’m so excited to try this out but the recipe calls for lemons, limes and oranges; I just want to do lemons. It also makes the recipe more fun, IMO, that I don’t have to buy ingredients from the store; we have them fresh off the tree.
There are of course other great sounding recipes in this cookbook and I’m intrigued by several of them. Now I just need sometime to try these all out. Happy cooking!
The most gorgeous cookbook I’ve ever seen won’t appeal to most of you because it’s a fully alkaline, basically vegan approach to healing called Eat Better Live Better Feel Better by Julie Cove. I encourage you to grab it if your library has it just to look at all the beautiful, colorful drawings and photos!
I LOVE a gorgeously photographed and/or illustrated cookbook, no matter the cuisine or cooking style. 🙂
My favorite cookbooks are the ones that have been passed down to me from the women in my life. My Mom’s typed on a typewriter recipe book, my Aunt Karen’s recipe book in her beautiful cursive handwriting, and my Mother in-law’s self published book of ALL of her recipes. There are mentions of Jello, oleo, Cool Whip, whipping cream (heavy cream) and Campbell’s condensed soup, among others and are the foods of my childhood.
My favorite modern day cookbooks are ALL of the Ina Garten books. One of these days I am going to take the challenge to cook all of the recipes from one of her books like Anne did! Her cookbooks are so beautiful just like her!
I LOVE this. Your collection sounds amazing.
Half Baked Harvest Super Simple & the Half Baked Harvest Cookbook. Can’t get enough !
YES!! I’m waiting for her newest that comes out at the end of this month.
Love Half Baked Harvest…I just made two of her recipes for dinner this week.
Mark Bittman is my go-to for simple, delicious meals–his “How to Cook Everything” (it was my one request for my husband to grab from my kitchen when we were living “in exile” after Hurricane Katrina) and “Food Matters” cookbooks are particular favorites. My favorite food blog is Cafe Sucre Farine–company good, simple enough for weeknights, work every time meals.
We’ve given numerous copies of How to Cook Everything as housewarming gifts!
I love, love, love Run Fast, Eat Slow. I’m not sure I’ve ever used a cookbook as much as I’ve used this one. (Just had a superhero muffin for breakfast, in fact.) I recently ordered Run Fast, Cook Fast, Eat Slow. Can’t wait to dig in!
Superhero muffins are a fav at our house, too!
We love love love the superhero muffins and make them almost every week!
The Half Baked Harvest Cookbooks are fantastic. Molly Baz Cook this Book has the BEST miso pork ever!!!
Ah! Reading Cookbooks. Nothing better.
When my daughters come home, one of our very best visits will be taking out all the cookbooks, making tea and just sitting around the living room discussing recipes, what we have been cooking lately and what we want to try.
My 2 daughter-in-laws are not familiar with this, but as time goes on I see that this “tradition” will carry on with my grands.
I want to be part of your family! I’d love to do this, and no one in my family could give a hoot about cookbooks…
I love cookbooks, and several you listed are on my shelf and well-used. My latest two favorites are Cook This Book by Molly Baz and Food52 Genius Recipes!
Half Baked Harvest Super Simple is my go to weekday cookbook. I am also a huge fan of ALL the Milk Street cookbooks by Christopher Kimball, my most recent fave bring Milk Street Vegetables.
And Chrissy Tiegen’s recipes are really great- especially her shake and bake chicken with hot honey and the jok moo. I love a good cookbook!!!
Do you have a fav gluten free cookbook?
My suggestions are dairy-free also, but you could always tweak recipes.
Well Fed: Paleo Recipes for People Who Love to Eat and Cooking for Isaiah (silvanaskitchen.com)
I heartily second all three Well Fed cookbooks. We don’t have as many dietary restrictions anymore, but continue to make many of those recipes because we love them.
Brittany Angell has a blog, recipe club and a beautiful cookbook Every Last Crumb that has the best crispy waffles we have ever had!
I’ve been using From Freezer to Cooker and From Freezer to Table a lot over the past couple of years. I prep the meals fresh and rarely freeze them. Our favorite recipe is the chicken parmesan casserole. SO GOOD and easy! Other newish books are The Pretty Dish (contains a recipe that I like to call “life-changing salmon”) and the Two Peas and Their Pod Cookbook. Both of these have lots of pretty photos, but the recipes are usually a little more time intensive than what I can handle most days so I don’t use these as much.
Recently, I’ve really been enjoying Well Plated, by Erin Clarke and America’s Test Kitchen’s The Complete Mediterranean Cookbook. For baking, I recently discovered Erin Jeanne McDowell’s The Fearless Baker. (She’s also a lot of fun on Instagram!)
I love Two Peas &Their Pod cookbook named after the blog by Maria Lichtenstein. Every recipe I’ve made from the blog and the cookbook have been delicious! And I always return to Love Real Food by Kathryn Taylor from the blog Cookie + Kate for amazing vegetarian recipes.
I have hundreds of cookbooks and use them frequently! All of Ina are well used, Anything Ottolenghi and classics by Julia! If you read The new Julia book Dearie, you’ll realize how well researched her books were. There is no one like her.
Hundreds of cookbooks?! I’ll be right over to browse your collection—and I’m warning you, I might stay awhile. 🙂
Diana Henry: From the Oven to the Table.
I have been suffering with the after effects of Covid for two months and this is the book my husband chose when he had to take over in the kitchen. It is creative and inventive and yet the recipes suit his logical spreadsheet of a brain. The results are amazing, so flavourful plus relatively little clean up.
Diana Henry is very well known in the UK and not nearly as well known as she should be in the US. I have all of her cookbooks and they are all excellent and much used!
As a home baker, I’m obsessed with Sarah Kieffer’s 100 Cookies. Not a bad recipe in there! I’m also itching to get my hands on her other two baking cookbooks and expand beyond the world of cookies.
I agree! I typically borrow cookbooks from the library, and I loved that one so much I purchased it. Another great new one is Cookies: the new classics by Jesse Szewczyk.
I love to borrow cookbooks first to decide if I want to add it to my collection or not. (Though I confess to purchasing several of the ones in this list on publication date; I didn’t want to wait!)
Thank you for these recommendations- can’t wait to try them. Once Upon a Chef is my go to resource for dinner ideas- Jen Segal was a professional chef and now cooks for her family. She has a beautiful website and two cookbooks full of elevated meals that my whole family will eat. We have thoroughly enjoyed every single recipe we have tried. Can’t recommend her recipes highly enough!
I love love her blog, but haven’t splurged on her cookbooks yet. I’m watching for them on Thriftbooks though! Fingers crossed!
I 100% agree with this comment. Jenn’s recipes have NEVER lead me astray. They’re clearly written and use easy-to-find ingredients. They feel sophisticated without being complicated. Love her blog and her cookbooks!
I loooooove cookbooks. I have over 150 of them and many more are on my “want” list. A longtime favorite is Claire’s Corner Copia (been making a pasta sauce from that book for over 20 years!). I’ve also been loving Weekday Vegetarians and Indian-ish! Other favorites include Repertoire, all of Julia Turshen’s cookbooks, Melissa Clark’s instant pot cookbooks, and Sister Pie for baking.
I love Vegetarian Weekdays, too. I also rely on Heidi Swanson’s Super Natural Everyday and Super Natural Simple, Twelve Recipes by Cal Peternell, and Bryant Terry’s books – although those tend to be weekend cooks for me.
I love this list. I added a few to my TBR list! Alton Brown and Ree Drummond are my two go-to people for recipes. I love my Pioneer Woman cookbook. The recipes are simple and delicious and I love the stories that she sprinkles throughout the book.
Cook This Book by Molly Baz is a new favorite of mine. There isn’t a huge list of ingredients and her recipe for blistered broccolini with charred dates, lemons and sesame is delicious!
I love cookbooks and have way too many. I’ve tried recipes from them all but nothing beats my old, red covered Betty Crocker from the seventies. I bought one on eBay for each of my daughters when they left home. I often receive calls asking for a recipe and I usually tell them to look in Betty’s cookbook.
My favorite cookbooks are: Come & Eat by Bri McKoy, Eat Better, Feel Better by Giada Di Laurentiis, Veg by Jamie Oliver, Lidia’s Italy by Lidia Bastianch, and Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson.
I have to add Dinner: A Love Story and Dinner: A Playbook to Jenny’s Weekday Vegetarians. She’s been my go-to guide for years, and I love her easy approach to sitting down to a good meal with your family.
I have said more than once that Deb Perelman and Smitten Kitchen taught my now thirty- somethings how to cook. My son and daughter were so busy as high- schoolers when they lived at home, and showed no interest in cooking. They struggled through college apartments, but once they had jobs and a bit more time, they wanted to make delicious meals. Smitten Kitchen , with Deb’s clear instructions, great photos, and helpful commentary taught them everything they needed to know. Now they entertain us with wonderful meals, are constantly recommending recipes to us. “Deb” is like a beloved family member. I also own this cookbook, everything we’ve tried is great.
What a lovely story, and a big HURRAY to your family cooks! Thanks for sharing.
My favorite cookbooks are usually about baking. I love “How to Be a Domestic Goddess” by Nigella Lawson (my husband pulls this one out for the brownie recipe and the banana bread recipe all the time!), “Baking: From my home to yours” by Dorie Greenspan, Joy the Baker’s cookbooks, and “Baking Illustrated” from the editors of Cooks Illustrated (love the oatmeal scone recipe!). All of these are great for reading like novels. That’s what I do when I can’t fall asleep at night!
But I want to add all of these books to my shelf!
Well, I certainly had to up my kitchen skills with 2 years of stay at home. I love Well Plated by Erin Clarke. Recipes include lots of veggies and spices for wonderful flavor.
So my husband does most of the cooking but I still need easy fast recipes for when he can’t or wants a break. I love the “Dinner a Love Story” Cookbook but the book I used to cook the most is Curtis Stone’s “What’s for Dinner.” It has a unique structure with recipes divided by days of the week based on a theme (One Pot; 5 Ingredient; Speedy). The Pesto Chicken and Korean Steak Tacos are still in rotation many years later.
I’m not familiar with What’s for Dinner—thanks for mentioning it here.
I love cookbooks! I have several that I cook from regularly. My all-time favorite over the last couple of years is Vegetable Kingdom by Bryant Terry. It’s a vegan cookbook but the recipes are robust enough to prove filling for any meat lover in your family. One I have cooked several times is the Charred Brassicas. I also recently made his po’boy recipe and it was great. Every time I cook from the book, I’m impressed that the meal is always far greater than the sum of its parts.
A surprise cookbook favorite is the Margaritaville Cookbook. I’m a huge Jimmy Buffett fan and bought this book as more of a decorative piece, not realizing at the time how incredible the recipes would be. Julia Turshen is one of the authors and she’s an incredible chef.
Isn’t Vegetable Kingdom gorgeous? I’ve browsed it thoroughly but haven’t made any recipes from it. Thanks for the nudge.
My husband Will is a huge Jimmy Buffett fan but I didn’t know there was a Jimmy Buffett cookbook—with Julia Turshen, even! I’m filing this suggestion away for the next gift-giving occasion. Thank you!
Somehow no one has recommended A Couple Cooks vegetarian cookbook, Pretty Simple Cooking! It’s got great vegetarian recipes that are often GF/DF and they’re organized by time, so there are a handful of super quick weeknight favorites as well as some epic hosting dinners. Their blog is full of great, well-flavored options and I frequently cook and re-cook their food!
How do I (in my egocentric mind, LOL) know this is a great list? Because of the eight – four are ones that I already own (and LOVE also) and one is a title that I am on the verge of buying. Which leads me to believe that – even though I haven’t heard of the other three, I absolutely MUST buy them immediately! Always love your lists!
Food IQ, new this month, is full of how-to’s, whys, and recipes. the subtitle says it all: “100 Questions, Answers, and Recipes to Raise Your Cooking Smarts.” It doesn’t hurt that the cover is gorgeous.
Skinnytaste never misses the mark. I have yet to follow a recipe on the website or the cookbook that wasn’t delicious. If you’ve never followed her recipes before, you’re definitely missing out!
Once Upon a Chef by Jennifer Segal. Her website of the same name all one word is just as great with photos of the recipes as it’s being made.
I like both of Deb’s books but find myself cooking from her website vs. her books most often.
I absolutely adore both of Alison Roman’s books (Dining In and Nothing Fancy) and cook from them constantly. Antoni Porowski’s books are on frequent rotation as well.
One of my 2022 goals is to make every recipe from “Weekday Vegetarians”. According to my family, we haven’t made a bad meal from Jenny’s cookbook, yet! (I discovered her cookbook through you, so a big thank you!)
I’m also loving “Love Real Food” by Cookie + Kate blogger, Kathryne Taylor.
Incredible list! Joining to second: Love Real Food by Katherine Taylor (Cookie and Kate). Also the Moosewood Restaurant cookbooks, Half the Sugar All the Love (Jennifer Tyler Lee), and I actually love Tiffani Thiessen’s cookbook — Pull Up a Chair!
My favorites are bloggers with multiple cookbooks Good Cheap Eats, 100 days of Real Food and Eat at Home tonight.
Such a great list and if you love Damn Delicious’ original cookbook check our her second called Damn Delicious Meal Prep. I prefer that one even! It is full of bright seasonal recipes and snacks where you truly want to eat everything! And I am not even a dieter or meal prepper but it makes even snacks for family outings easy and different from our usual fruit and granola bars for example.
I haven’t seen this one yet—thanks for the recommendation!
Provincetown Seafood Cookbook
By Howard Mitcham
New intro by A. Bourdain
Attention all seafood foodies.
This is “the bible” for many fish and shellfish recipes. Think Portuguese kale and linguica soup, clams casino,”stuffies” raw oysters shucked for slurping and/or cooked in so many delicious ways.
This recipe book draws on traditional Portuguese fare handed down for generations by fishermen from the tip of Cape Cod, MA.
Pretty specific but my family highly recommends it.
Two of my recent favorites are Cook Once, Eat All Week and Cook Once, Dinner Fix by Cassy Joy Garcia.
Julia Turshen-Simply Julia, Now and Again, Small Victories, Feed the Resistance and all the amazing ones she has edited for Gwyneth Paltrow, BiBi’s Kitchen, Buvette. Her recipes are so straight forward. She it the first cookbook author that writes in the same way i think about recipes-sort of like a concept map around the entree. Can’t say enough about her.
if you just like reading cookbooks-like novels-
Julia is terrific at that as well.
Thanks for reminding me about these!
For those looking for some GF options, Danielle Walkers “Eat What You Love” is one of our go to’s and “The Paleo Patisserie” for baking and desserts (it’s not available in print but I’m pretty sure you can get the ebook). Both of Ayesha Curry’s books and “Cravings: Hungry for More” are in heavy rotation in this house.
My hubs is pretty fond of the Franklin Barbecue and Franklin Steak books, they’re an excellent resource for cooking different kinds of meats and how to prep them.
Love Real Food by Kathryne Taylor (Cookie + Kate) is AMAZING.
https://cookieandkate.com/love-real-food-cookbook/
I second this opinion–all the recipes I’ve tried from this book are delicious!
The collection of cookbook by Susan Branch not only have wonderful family favorite recipes, but each one is so beautiful. They feature beautiful drawings and many stories, poems, etc. mixed in the pages among the recipes. “Heart of the Home’ is my favorite!
I am Indian and absolutely endorse Indian-ish. My kids are born in the US like Priya and this is a wonderful American cookbook.
I recently came across Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4/Day by Leanne Brown. It is available as a free pdf online. It would be handy for a college student or really, anyone trying to cut down on the cost of groceries.
I have been a daily home cook for 25 years and most of that time I have been cooking for 5 males and 1 female. I can second Vivian Howard and Sam Sifton books for inspiration and no fuss style. I would add Milk Street. Just picked up a Half Baked book at my library and I found some great ideas. My most regular resource tho is the NYT food app when I need an actual recipe for a specific dish.
Many of my favorites are listed in the previous comments, but I’ll add two I didn’t see listed – The Fannie Farmer Cookbook (a classic!), and the Mitford Cookbook and Kitchen Reader, by Jan Karon. I love the excerpts and drawings from the Mitford book series, and while I haven’t made many (most) of the recipes in the Mitford cookbook, I’ve never had bad results with any of the ones I have tried. Happy cooking!
The Joy of Cooking- I use ALL THE TIME! Menus, table settings, I love this book so much the binding is in tatters. Cake Mix Doctor and my new find The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen by Sean Sherman.
This reminds me: could you do a post about culinary mysteries? Seems like a category that not enough of us recipe-lovers know about!
I just checked out Dorie Greenspan’s Everyday Dorie, the way I cook out from the library. I have tagged so many recipes I want to make. It’s on my list to buy now. I check out cookbooks from the library so often!
I’m loving the new cookbook, Italian American. This celebrates my love of Italian red sauce and all the dishes it inspires. Also includes an out of this world coffee rendition of tiramisu.
My husband gifted me w/Weekday Vegetarians for Christmas. Of course, I had included it on my list of suggestions for him. It was perfect for January as we vowed to be Weekday Vegetarians. We still are most weekdays. Jenny is a favorite of mine. I still use her Dinner: A Love Story on a regular basis.
This Will Make it Taste Good was new to me this year. I discovered it somewhere, maybe an NPR or a PBS newsletter. I’m all about the sauces and Vivian has several in this book that I can’t wait to try.
Here’s to lots of good eating!
I’m curious how people use ebook cookbooks.
I love cooking all different types of Asian food and my current favorite cookbook is A Common Table by Cynthia Chen McTernan.
I have had an Amish Mennonite cookbook (Phyllis Perlman Good and Rachel Thomas Perlman) that I have used to teach my children to cook. At 12 years old, my son Thomas would open the cookbook up and create wonderful quick breads, cookies, chicken dishes, etc. They are fail-proof simple recipes for cooking simple foods!
did you blog about those older cookbooks when you had to have gluten and dairy free? That’s what I need in my house and am in desperate need of new ideas.
Getting Damn Delicious now! That sounds so good!
I love Chrissy Teigen’s cookbooks and am a huge Ina Garten and Deb Perelman fan!
Here’s my post about my favorite cookbooks:https://www.bluebirdbooks.org/2022/03/books-in-kitchen.html
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Anne, thank you SO much for this post! Immediately after I read it, I requested The Weekday Vegetarians from our library. I have been cooking 90% of our dinners from it over the last two weeks and (sheepishly) renewed it for another two so I can keep cooking it until I’ve saved enough to purchase it (we are hardcore budgeting right now). To anyone on the fence, I can’t recommend this cookbook enough. Every single meal has been a hit, even with a skeptical 8 year old.
“The Best of British Baking: Classic Sweet Treats and Savory Bakes” by Marie Raymer, also her blog “The English Kitchen” at https://www.theenglishkitchen.co/
Marie’s recipes are simple, reliable and delicious. Can’t go wrong!
Chloe Flavor- Chloe Coscarelli
Amazing Vegan cookbook.
I have 3 cookbooks that are my favorites: Once Upon A Chef, the Mediterranean Dish, and The Defined Dish. Easy and delicious.
This 20-40-60 minute cookbook by Emeril is my tried and true. Everything I have made from this is amazing. I learned to do some very basic stuff, like making salad dressing, here. This book is falling apart and I have dreams of bringing it to a book signing and Emeril being so happy it is so well used. It’s impressive food fast, although I double the time on each recipe because Emeril clearly has sous chefs or is a much faster prepper than I am!
https://www.amazon.com/Emeril-20-40-60-Fresh-Food-Emerils/dp/0061742945/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3RW8RGUG9SC9J&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.vY4VPOgVtTNOG16mYJwrB2kre3IaTdVbNIvenwtNKws1HvcC0LauiQ39msyEVQSfs0dHB73h4P1Vz5yyqCM3tspYxIN7cd0Mrb8Z6FzlKtw.nRfyewxfOL6j5p_K8WBs5_DNDbMyhBEAYEubDXmsC4E&dib_tag=se&keywords=20-40-60-minute+emeril&qid=1711239807&sprefix=20-40-60-minute+emeril%2Caps%2C126&sr=8-1