What are some of your favorite cookbooks that you find yourself returning to time and time again?
Hey ~food! I'm relatively new here, but I would love to share my love of cookbooks with you all and discover some new ones to add to my collection.
While Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat and The Food Lab are certainly some of my favorites. I have discovered others that I have repeatedly gone back to that aren't as decorated with rewards.
One of my favorite authors as of late, Olia Hercules, has a couple of cookbooks that I absolutely adore! She specializes in Ukrainian dishes and her recipes have helped dispel the myth of potatoes and cabbage being the only slavic ingredients. Mamushka is her first cook book with several great recipes, including a chicken marinade that is impossible for me to get away from. Summer Kitchens is another lovely cook book by her that reads like a love letter for documenting Ukrainian cuisine and has so many great vegetable recipes.
I'm curious to hear about other people's recommendations! Please give me a another reason for needing a devoted bookshelf for my collection.
In 1985 (yes, really) someone gave me a copy of The Joy of Cooking. I used it so much that it has completely fallen apart. It not only has recipes for everything you can think of, it gives you the "why" behind critical steps. It was instrumental in helping me get better at baking. I haven't used newer editions, so I can't comment on them, but my almost-40-year-old copy of The Joy of Cooking is my one absolute essential in my kitchen.
The Joy of Cooking is an incredible book. I also have a ~40 year old copy, and it remains one of the best cookbooks I have ever perused.
Along the same lines is Betty Crocker cookbooks … which are regularly updated (more vegan dishes lately for example). It has all the basics for foundational cooking recipes but also interesting recipes and lots of beginner presentation. Very accessible cookbook.
I still use my mom's (early 1960s). Easiest/best chocolate cupcakes with no cook chocolate frosting ever.
I am curious if such old cook books contain recipes with ingredients that are hard to get nowadays for some reason.
My biggest issue with some recipes is effectively substituting for Campbell's tomato soup. It was everywhere...
I own a copy of the Bell's Best cookbook that has a culmination of several older southern recipes. Oleo was a unique one that I had to look into which turned out to be another name for margarine. But there is a Cheeze Whiz Broccoli Casserole that just screams everything horrifying about food creations from that time. There's also a section in the back index called "Men's, Microwave" which I assume are meant to be easier recipes lol?
I also have a copy of The Czechoslovak Cookbook by Joza Brizova and it contains some older more traditional recipes from that region. Some of the pastry recipes call for a type of yeast I never heard of previously, compressed fresh yeast. It appears to require refrigeration opposite of the shelf stable stuff most of us are used to and it doesn't do quite well in the humid south. It's very likely something I would have to travel to another region to find.
The Joy of Cooking not only has an immense selection of recipes and explanations, I like it because it's incredibly concise. Not too much jabber or commentary that gets in the way of trying to just cook food. It's culinary explanations with straight directions and ingredients.
Most recipes online are very descriptive, which is not a bad thing per se but parsing through whole sentences takes too long when you're actively cooking sometimes. So I typically jot down the list of ingredients and very simply draw brackets and put an order of operations: eg. sweat{a,b}, add {d,e,f}, brown, add {f,g}, boil, s&p, reduce, add{h}. Or as simple as mix {a-f}, bake at 375F 30min.
JOC writes in a similar way, quick to reference and follow which I very much value.
The problem is that for a new cook, someone just learning cooking techniques and vocabulary, it may be very hard to follow. It doesn't exactly hand-hold you through the cooking process.
But once you're at the point that you can look at a recipe and just need the points, JOC is great for that.
I don't know why, but I have been sleeping on this one. Maybe I've been running with the bad assumption that it's "dated" and that's not fair to do for a revered cookbook. I might just need to pickup a copy soon!
I don’t remember all the details, but this was one of those books where I went down an hours-long rabbit hole of research before buying. The consensus was that the 70’s-80’s editions were the best editions to get in terms of longevity and content quality. I got myself an old copy from eBay and I love it!
Seconding “The Food Lab” it’s legitimately indispensable to any cook, home or otherwise.
For me personally, Vicki Bennison’s ”Pasta Grannies” is one I return to again and again when I want something homey but light, rich but clean… it’s really kind of brilliant in it’s own quiet way, plus the stories and photos are fantastic.
If you’re a pasta fiend as I am, it’s like discovering a whole new level in your dinner game
If you like The Food Lab I would really recommend Modernist Cuisine at Home. It is also quite scientific but more recipe focused.
I really like the table format for recipes they use.
It made me really appreciate my pressure cooker with recipes like this.
On food and cooking by McGee is also a really good shout. It's the book that inspired people like Kenji, as well as Heston, Alton Brown, et c.
I picked up a copy of Pasta Grannies this weekend, only to discover that I had grabbed Book Two. What, there's two books?! But I'm still so pleasantly happy to have grabbed it because it gives me a reason to grab Book One in a few weeks after exploring the follow-up book. I've recently discovered how to make Sugo Della Mamma and its hard to go back to store bought sauce. But I love how Pasta Grannies explores other ways fo flavor Pasta sauces, that Italian food is more than just tomatos. The photography and personal stories are just darling and really add to the reason why I prefer cookbooks more so than random online recipes.
I completely agree: One of the biggest takeaways is that it’s not just tomato, basil, tomato, basil, garlic, tomato, basil in Italian food…the northern dishes are spectacular for winter cooking when you want something substantial.
I know it's not really a cookbook proper but, "On Food and Cooking" by Harold Mcgee is a text I hold near and dear as a definitive reference text.
It's great for really getting to understand the chemistry and physics behind culinary ingredients. And I believe that if you understand those aspects, you can then experiment with manipulating them & use them as tools in cooking. It teaches you a sort of real life magic.
660 Curries, by Raghavan Iyer. I got it in 2017 and have used it at least once a month since then. It's a truly incredible selection of Indian curries, though the cook should be aware that the author based the spice levels on what would have been reasonable in India, and spicing should be considered "to taste."
This is a fantastic book, and I wish someone would come out with the equivalent for Italian sauces and Chinese regional cuisines.
This one might be my "White Whale" because it appears not to be in print anymore? While I don't mind an ebook, I personally prefer the option of having a physical text vs keeping up with an account or digital device I may no longer have in the future. But excellent recommendation because it makes sourcing it all the more fun!
I've been using Joshua Weissman's cookbook. It has a good mix of recipes, from making your own butter or bread, to things like stews, steaks, fried chicken, salads, deserts, etc. I've only cooked maybe 10% of the recipes so far, but they've all been delicious and pretty easy to prepare for an amateur cook like me. His youtube channel also has differing recipes from the cookbook, so I reference that sometimes as well (his cheap mac & cheese recipe is divine).
I'm glad to hear that you've had success with his recipes! I only ever tried one - his version of Ikea Swedish meatballs - and they were by far the most unappetizing thing I have ever eaten. I almost threw the whole batch out. I was surprised that the meatballs also didn't call for any salt... and they were amazingly dry.
But, I also did not make any gravy or whatever goes along with it typically - I only wanted the meatballs. Big mistake, haha. I will stick to the Ikea frozen ones for that!
Modernist Cuisine At Home
I don't usually read cook books, but I love this one still because it actually explains the science behind cooking, so that I am learning how to cook all foods in general, not just follows steps blindly. And unlike the multi volume tomes, this one has recipes you can actually do at home. I would like the full set and the bread set too but dont have the space or money. I also really appreciate that the book comes with a slim ring bound text only copy for your kitchen use so the pretty picture hardcover copy and stay clean.
I would like to recommend the entire Modernist book series. I'd say you could probably do at least 50% of the recipes from the big book with maybe one or two hundred dollars worth of extra equipment. Even the recipes you can't do at home are informative and teach about the underlying science of whatever you're making. Additionally, huge sections of the book don't have recipes at all and are just about science and techniques.
that's great to hear a bunch of them can be done at home -- I would like the full 5 volume set ($625.00), as well as pizza ($425), bread ($625), food/drink ($99) too.... when I win the lottery :)
I found the writing for At Home to be extremely approachable, very clear, and gives just enough background science to be informative about the cooking task at hand, without getting lost in the weeds. Rather than just a pretty coffee table book, it's honestly been the most informative "how to cook" for beginners that I've ever read, online or off. It's really boosted my confidence in the kitchen overall and I can only imagine how much more I can learn from each of these sets.
I didn't win the lottery or anything, I just cut back on non-essential expenses like feeding my kids. To see if the books are worth it, I managed to get an inter-library loan of the first volume of the first book. I'd say I probably learned the most from book 2 Techniques and Equipment and book 3 Animals and Plants. Book 1 History and Essentials has a few useful chapters at the end of the book about physics, but for the rest of it it's history and food safety, which is interesting but non-essential.
It might be a bit strange of a choice, but I actually really liked the D&D Cookbook. I've made many of the recipes in there several times for my group, and also for my family, and they're always a hit.
The Chicken and Something soup with dumplings is probably my favorite.
A friend actually gifted me a copy not to long ago! I love the photography and creativity that was put into it, but actually haven't made anything from it. Now I'm interested in that soup.
I have the Binging With Babish cookbook by Andrew Rea, and it's a pretty well constructed book. Some of the things in it are really good, but I also love it just as a book, and not necessarily as a reference, much as I enjoy BWB even though I don't cook a lot of what he makes. Overall, it is a very satisfying book to read, and some of the ideas in it, and more broadly within the show, have been interesting to learn.
Babish's approach to cooking is legitimately what got me interested in cooking as a "thing-I-can-do-myself", I'd been watching his vids and the combination of his sense of humor and "I'm learning too" approach tickled me in just the right way. Love that guy.
I'll probably pick up his book and The Joy of Cooking next, my first cookbook was The Food Lab.
Alton Brown’s cookbooks are kind of tongue in cheek and fun, nothing too crazy (probably recipes you already know) but I thought they were fun to read.
For the past year or so I’ve made a LOT of recipes from Downshiftology’s meal prep cookbook. She’s a food blogger that makes great stuff. It all happens to be gluten free because she’s celiac, but doesn’t compromise on taste. I’ve made a bunch of the dinner recipes and salads which are all hearty and can keep in the fridge a few days.
When I went on a British bake-off binge a few years ago I bought Mary Berry’s book and baked almost everything in it over the course of a year…good mix of heavy desserts and little tea time treats.
What I loved about I’m Just Here For The Food and I’m Just Here For More Food by Alton Brown is that even though the recipes are a little basic it taught me so much about the science of cooking (The books’ subtitles are “Food + Heat = Cooking” and “Food x Mixing + Heat = Baking”, respectively). These books made me a better cook because I wasn’t just following recipes I was learning how they worked and that allowed me to become less dependent on recipes and better able to create my own dishes from scratch. I never did quite get the hang of baking, but I never would have even attempted it before reading his book.
The Curry Guy Bible
If Indian cooking is what you are after this is the holy grail. It not only covers traditional start from scratch recipes, it has a section explaining how you make curries restaurant style where you prepare a base curry sauce that then becomes the base of all the curries you see in the restaurants. Every single thing is from scratch and you will need a large assortment of Indian spices, all the theory behind the cooking methods and spices are explained in detail. Everything I have made from this book has been amazing and better tasting then what you can get at a typical Indian restaurant (and I live in an area known for it's Indian restaurants).
America's Test Kitchen The Complete Cooking for Two Cookbook has been useful for learning to cook for just my partner and I now that the youngins have left the house.
I've personally been making things out of Dishoom's cookbook. I come from a very Indian town in America and on my many visits to London this year I've been super blown away about how good their food was whenever I went. Their daal makhni and butter chicken recipes aren't terribly difficult either! In addition to recipes, they have lots of anecdotes and "flavor" (heh) about the history of Irani Cafes in Bombay.
I'm ethnically Taiwanese, and I can also recommend All Under Heaven, I find that it's pretty well researched and goes very deeply into techniques and even ingredients in Chinese cooking in so many different chinese regions. It's almost a textbook basically.
This is going to be a little bit silly, but when I was a kid, my Grandma bought me a cook book called "The Magic Spoon", it came with a big plastic mixing spoon that was filled with water and had glitter in it. (still have it, surprisingly decent spoon). Also came with a few measuring spoons (which i also still have)
Anyway, the recipes in it are simple but decent. They have a really nice dutch baby recipe, a decent coffee cake recipe, a fun though bit bland pizza recipe. There's a recipe for ranch dressing though that is weirdly amazing despite being so basic.
Anyway, it's something i turn to every once in a while. They're fun and easy recipes, which is nice if i'm feeling tired and still want that home cooked taste without something too elaborate.
Not silly at all! If anything it's extra special with the personal memories you have with it. Sometimes the best recipes are the simplest!
So, not exactly cookbooks, but I've got most of the Culinaria series. There are recipes, but the most important aspects are learning about the food culture, regional variations, what dishes are eaten daily versus on special occasions (and what the special occasions mean), what grows in the country, what dishes/courses are served together, what the plating looks like... It's a travelogue in food.
Also, pretty much every book from the King Arthur Baking Company has canonically good recipes that will let even novice bakers succeed.
I think it's called pleasures of the good earth. It's a little church cookbook. It's got plenty of recipes in it that I use. The main one that I can think of right now is the cream pie recipe. Following it, I haven't made a bad one yet.
Salt Fat Acid Heat is basically the chemistry textbook of cooking. It's a fantastic resource if you want to know why a recipe works.
It covers topics like how salt breaks down meat, how much water is needed for different rice varieties, and how flavor compounds reach the nose.
While SFAH and Food Lab are great books for the technique and science behind cooking my go-to Cookbook for recipes right now is Kenji's The Wok. It's got plenty of the food science sprinkled through still, but has a wide variety of recipes with generally similar ingredient pools and he's very forthcoming with ways you can vary the recipes to suit your diet or pantry.
I absolutely love The Wok and it was one of the first cookbooks I pre-ordered and waited for excitedly! I'm fortunate to have a pretty robust Asian market nearby despite living in a more rural state, and that cookbook gave me so much inspiration to explore it. I've always considered Asian dishes some of my favorites, but understanding the why's in their flavor profiles has been my favorite take away from Kenji's writing. Mee Goreng is one of my favorite noodle dishes and I often blend his recipes/approaches for Nasi Goreng and Sweet Soy Sauce noodles to get a version I want.
Cookbooks are lame! When I cook I just make food the way I want it to be!
When there's something I want to try that isn't in my wheelhouse, or if I'm baking bread/pasteries which need specific ratios of ingredients to come out properly, I'll look up recipes. But usually not in cookbooks.
That being said there are some that I could recommend
Pretty much any cookbook with the America's Test Kitchen logo on it. There are numerous and they have all been extensively tested to make sure you get what they found to be the best version of that dish.
The Alton Brown "Good Eats" books, which are really big tomes about the making of the show and cooking in general interspersed with recipes.
And I'll also recommend anyone who is doing a whole foods plant based diet to check out the Forks Over Knives Recipes app. Yes, it costs money and you can get every one of those recipes free on their website, but the app has a bunch of useful features. It's got shopping lists so you can just tap a button on the recipe you want to cook and it'll add all the stuff you need to the list. It has pictures of every recipe. You can tap on the step you're on and it'll bring up all the measurements so you don't have to crossreference the ingredients list every time it says something like "add the water". And if you put your phone in landscape it'll give you a special view where you only see one step at a time so you don't get lost in your recipe. There's also a section full of success stories to help motivate you into sticking with it!
Perhaps you find cookbooks unhelpful, but as someone who grew up as a latchkey kid with a single mother who made sure there were always frozen meals in the freezer, I find cookbooks as an invaluable kickstart to my imagination regarding what I'd like to make/eat. I'm glad that you can just make what you want the way you want it, but denigrating people who like them, especially in a thread where people are encouraged to talk enthusiastically about their favorite cookbooks, just isn't really in good taste.
The tone was meant to be facetious, it wasn't meant to be a judgement or to offend anyone. Why else would I have made recommendations? In reality I have three physical cookbooks at home and three more in digital formats. I just rarely reference them.
I apologize to you and anyone else who might have been hurt by my words.
I know you're just kidding, but cookbooks can be neat! They're not always just a collection of recipes, but can open people up to the lives and shared experiences of other peoples and their cultures.
Maybe I'm weird, but I like to look at multiple different recipes for thing X, from whatever sources are available, and munge the findings together into something I think will taste best. I might pick techniques from one, proportions from another, and compose a roster of seasonings from all of them.
Cookbooks are guideposts to taste. They're usually written by someone who's publishing their personal favorite version, and they'll usually go to some lengths to explain why. So it's useful have the reference to refine my own judgement. A number of people here have referenced the America's Test Kitchen cookbooks, which are excellent on technique and proportions. But I find their results bland and aimed at an audience with more limited tolerance for spices than I like. So again, they're just one reference among many. Using a single source for a recipe, to me, is like reading a single news source - you won't get a broad context and perspective that lets you synthesize a full understanding.
I actually sometimes cook in a similar manner, but I love having an array of cookbooks to use as reference and inspiration. To be honest I used to really suck at cooking, but then I got some relief good starting cookbooks like The Food Lab. Those sorta built up my ability to cook on the fly. Plus, I love reading cookbooks that give some in depth background to a regional dish. Mi Cocina and Summer Kitchens are two that really offer that type of commentary.
I'm really interested in the app you recommend though because I've been trying to eat more plant based meals in my diet, thanks!
Fair warning if you aren't doing the WFPB diet and try the FOK recipes; that diet limits the amount of added salt, oil, and refined sugar added to food, so you might find some of them to be a little bland. You'll probably just want to add a sprinkle of salt to get it more to your taste.
Very much agreed on both of those recommendations, particularly technique/learning the "why's" of cooking. Related, I'd say my big attraction to cookbooks is they are published, edited, and (hopefully) recipe-tested. Searching for recipes online can be a minefield, because besides needing to filter through the fluff backstory, sometimes they just straight up don't work or come out as they should
This might be a deep cut but Recipes for a Lady or a Man: The Achewood Cookbook was a fundamental part of my early cooking adventures. You might say it was my gateway drug into cooking. Very, very basic recipes, written in the voices of the characters. I bought it to support the comic and ended up actually learning how to cook. A taste: Perfect Oven Fries Every Time by Ray Smuckles
As someone who is not a vegetarian, I really love and have been returning to The Weekday Vegetarians. The roasted chickpeas and the chickpea Cesar salad they go in are both delicious. I'm also super into Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream and Salt & Straw Ice Cream Cookbook for ice cream!
I keep telling myself I need to get an ice cream maker and this has convinced me! Tasting History has a recipe for parmasan ice cream that I've been wanting to try, but having a devoted book for other flavors would make having such a specific device worth it. I've been dabbling with baking more as well and attempting a homemade ice cream sandwich from top to bottom sounds like a fun adventure.
I've done that ice cream before! I did not expect to see that referenced lol. I think it was interesting and it definitely all got eaten, but I haven't felt a need to remake it. For one, I found it slightly icy, which could be partially my fault since it was one of the first ice creams I tried to make. Definitely worth the experience though
One of the more interesting books we own is Ottolenghi Flavour. It is middle eastern food with a twist, and I have never regretted making any recipe in there.
The one downside is, he likes to use kind of out there ingredients (rose harissa comes to mind) but you can usually find a substitute that fits in spirit.
This is perfect because I've been wanting a Middle Eastern cookbook after discovering Middle Eats on YouTube!!! I want from never having tahini in my pantry to now considering it a must have. Their Cauliflower Recipes, especially the tahini baked one will change you views on what Cauliflower can be.
I am sure you would enjoy it then. This is a favorite of mine from the book: potato and gochujang braised eggs
If you're interested in Japanese food, it's hard to beat (in English at least) Japanese Cooking: A Simple Art by Shizuo Tsuji.
Dr. Oetker Schulkochbuch (Dr. Oetker's school cookbook)
A collection of basic recipes and good home cooking, I need it because I can never remeber how long Rinderrouladen or Goulasch have to cook or which amounts of meat I need to buy.
I consider Kenji and Stella to be literal scientists in their particular disciplines, so Food Lab, Bravetart, and, most recently, The Wok are all at the ready in my kitchen. I’ve also found Meathead and How To Cook Everything to be indispensable.
I've really have been slacking on getting a copy of Bravetart, shame on me! Baking has been a new foray for me in the past year and I've been leaning on Claire Saffitz's What's for Dessert and Dessert Person. Stella literally wrote a review of Claire's work and I've always considered Claire a prodigy to Stella's work.
One of the most useful and encyclopedic of texts I've been gifted recently is Pasta: The Spirit and Craft of Italy's Greatest Food, with Recipes by Missy Robbins. It's a beautiful, informative book that is an utterly comprehensive guide to the correct preparation and serving of Italian pastas.
For anybody that already considers themselves comfortable with bread/pastries, I can't recommend "Advanced bread and pastries" by Michael Suas more. If I had to start a bakery with one book, it'd be that. It explains pretty much everything you'd need to know.
For me it's this book that was published after my music teacher passed away a few years ago. His big passion besides music was cooking, the book is filled with amazing recipies and there's stories from his friends and family remembering him cooking for them. I loved to have him as a teacher and I'm glad I still have this book to remember him.
For any bakers/chocolate fans,
The Chocolate Bible is a fantastic albeit somewhat difficult book. Though it can be technically challenging, it also has some of the best spongecake recipes I've come across, and can really up your cake game. There's also a ton of information about techniques and especially about chocolate making/shaping presented in a digestible way which give you invaluable decoration skills. I wouldn't recommend this for day-to-day baking, but I keep it around to challenge myself every now and then.
Also cannot post without mentioning Larousse Gastronomique for anyone who hasn't heard of it. This book assumes the person reading it knows what they're doing and doesn't like to waste time with going into the specific details of every recipe, but has plenty of history and context for pretty much any ingredient you can think of. If you're just starting to cook I'd hold off buying this until you see if you like it, but in my eyes it is an invaluable source of information for anyone who likes cooking. If I kept a single cookbook in my house, it would be this one.
I'm not usually prescriptive, but you all NEED to get the 6 Seasons Cookbook by Joshua Mcfadden. It is unbelievably good! I still haven't made a dish from it yet that wasn't a 10/10 impress your friends and wasn't also pretty freaking easy. I've given it out 8 of them as gifts to friends and family. It is literally the best cookbook I've ever owned, and I own a lot!
The second place for me is the Burma Superstar Cookbook. It is exactly as it says, the cookbook from Burma Superstars, and it has some incredible recipes. Even the drinks are amazing. I use this less than 6 seasons but it adds great variety into my meals!
Beard on Bread (1973) introduced me to what has become a lifelong obsession with quality carbs. Still have my original copy (can't read most of the recipes anymore because schmutz...)