The Best Vegetarian Cookbooks
Last updated: August 20, 2024
There are so many good vegetarian cookbooks to choose from these days, it's easy to shift to a plant-based diet without sacrificing interest and excitement about your food. If you're going vegan, there are some very good specialized vegan cookbooks, though vegetarian cookbooks published now often provide substitutes for those avoiding eggs and dairy. Also worth noting are books that while not 100% vegetarian—they may have some meat recipes or ingredients in there—have many 'veg-forward' recipes that are unmissable. (eg. some recent Yotam Ottolenghi books). Diane Seed's Top One Hundred Pasta Sauces is also very vegetable friendly.
East: 120 Easy and Delicious Asian-inspired Vegetarian and Vegan Recipes
by Meera Sodha
This is a collection of Asian vegetarian recipes ('from Bangalore to Beijijng') by Meera Sodha, a chef and author who writes a column in the Guardian (indeed many of the entries are from her column). The book includes some delicious recipes and is "deliberately structured by the types of meals you will find across South, East and South East Asia i.e. noodles, rice and curries."
“This book gives you loads of pointers about flavour combinations, and ways of putting vegetables together. It’s not groundbreaking; it’s not anything you haven’t heard before. But it is very extensive. Deborah Madison uses everything and goes over all methods and all the ingredients. The writing is very light and simple – not at all challenging. Often, you get food writers that make things a little bit complicated, or too long-winded, but she is very simple and very clear. I love her gratin recipes – all the recipes in her section on gratin are very good. “ Read more...
Yotam Ottolenghi recommends some of his Favourite Cookbooks
Yotam Ottolenghi, Cooks & Food Writer
Plenty
by Yotam Ottolenghi
Plenty (2010) is Yotam Ottolenghi’s vegetarian cookbook, based on recipes he published in the Guardian newspaper. It was followed by another vegetarian cookbook: Plenty More (2014). These are complex recipes, with many ingredients, perfect if you have lots of time and energy to make a wonderful meal. (If you’re not a purist, or don’t have the time, it may also be worth looking at some of Ottolenghi’s recent books, especially the Ottolenghi Test Kitchen series. These are easier to follow and while not exclusively vegetarian have a guide at the back for vegetarian and vegan meals)
A Modern Way to Eat: Over 200 Satisfying, Everyday Vegetarian Recipes
by Anna Jones
Anna Jones is a London-based cook and food writer who has published a number of vegetarian cookbooks. A Modern Way To Eat was her first. In addition to the recipes, it has useful lists like "ten simple carrot ideas" or "ten ways with avocado on toast" or ideas for different smoothies. There's a bit of a Californian feel to the recipes, which may or may not be a selling point, depending on your taste.
“She is someone who will help you take your cooking to another level if you’re a really good home cook, but you want to do something out of the box, making tomato pearls and doing a little molecular gastronomy technique, she’s the one who can introduce you to those techniques. And she gives you ways to make everything vegan.” Read more...
Alicia Kennedy, Cooks & Food Writer
“Madison has been running this wonderful Zen Buddhist restaurant since the 1970s, and the book is named after it. And the amazing thing is that it’s the first book that was entirely vegetarian and didn’t make you feel like you were missing out on anything by only choosing vegetables. It sounds like heaven on earth…Some of the recipes are very complex – and very liberating. I was only 23 when I got the book and hadn’t really heard of butternut squash, all the different kinds of squash. It was like a whole new world of vegetables.” Read more...
The best books on Favourite Cookbooks
Jojo Tulloh, Cooks & Food Writer
“All the Chez Panisse books are great: it’s hard to choose one. But Chez Panisse Vegetables is great because Alice Waters is the woman who globalised the whole fresh groceries thing. She started the farmer’s market movement with her emphasis on organically produced food that tastes wonderful, and her recipes are very simple but inspiring, because you think if you do cook seasonally your food is going to taste good. She was very much inspired by Richard Olney.” Read more...
The best books on Favourite Cookbooks
Jojo Tulloh, Cooks & Food Writer
“Her approach is super important in terms of this evolution of vegan cuisine that we’ve seen over the last two or three decades because—again this is my obsession with vegan food—she actually drills down into the technique, rather than being obsessed with the ideology. It’s in the technique that you see the possibilities. And in her book, she shows you how to make really rich caramel, really rich truffles with all of these flavors that are kind of standard maybe in an omnivorous kitchen.” Read more...
Alicia Kennedy, Cooks & Food Writer
“In this raw food cookbook that is written by two very, very like, hoity toity chefs, you find a lot of technique and a lot of interesting ways to approach things that you might otherwise not have thought of. So it’ll tell you how to dehydrate, how to use cashews to make cheese and that sort of thing. All of the technique with vegan cheeses that exist now really has its roots in raw food, which is interesting.” Read more...
Alicia Kennedy, Cooks & Food Writer
“Miyoko’s Art of the Vegan Pantry is just something that I think changed people’s minds about what it looks like to be vegan, and what it means to do vegan cooking from scratch. I think that people just assume that to be vegan means restriction and it means a lot of processed foods, and Miyoko goes against that grain, especially in this book.” Read more...
Alicia Kennedy, Cooks & Food Writer
“She really drills down into the importance of knowing how to cook from scratch, having knife skills, having some basic understanding of technique, and that’s why she’s really changed the game with Vegan with a Vengeance, with Veganomicon and brought people more to an understanding of veganism as a culinary approach, rather than just an ideology.” Read more...
Alicia Kennedy, Cooks & Food Writer
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1
Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook
by Isa Chandra Moskovitz -
2
The Homemade Vegan Pantry: The Art of Making Your Own Staples
by Miyoko Schinner -
3
Dirt Candy: A Cookbook: Flavor-Forward Food from the Upstart New York City Vegetarian Restaurant
by Amanda Cohen -
4
Raw
by Charlie Trotter & Roxanne Klein -
5
Sweet + Salty: The Art of Vegan Chocolates, Truffles, Caramels, and More from Lagusta's Luscious
by Lagusta Yearwood
The Best Vegan Cookbooks, recommended by Alicia Kennedy
The Best Vegan Cookbooks, recommended by Alicia Kennedy
Vegan cooking has been transformed over the past 20 years. No longer is it trying to replicate non-vegan tastes and dishes or provide an alternative to meat. As the food writer Alicia Kennedy explains, the best vegan cooking is just excellent cooking, on its own terms. She recommends five vegan cookbooks to help you get to grips with vegan cooking techniques and to understand the range of vegan culinary possibilities.
