I’ve recently adopted a vegetarian diet and have been enjoying vegan cooking. As much as online recipes are useful there’s still nothing quite like a physical cookbook. I have a small collection of recipe books but most are very much centered on the use of animal products and so they are of fairly limited use to me now. I’ve been looking at the Food Not Bombs books as well as some of the America’s Test Kitchen books but I’m curious as to what this community can recommend.
Edit: Thank you for all of the responses! I now have a lot to look into and I apologize for not really being able to respond to all of you individually.
The Korean Vegan is amazing if you like Korean food at all.
Fermenter: DIY Fermentation for Vegan Fare - changed my life.
Meera Sodha has some great looking cookbooks (although they are vegan and vegetarian). Her vegan recipe column in the Guardian is
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Bad Manners is a go-to. The authors are based in California so expect a lot of Hispanic themed dishes. I for one love their torta and posole recipes
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Easy Vegan is a classic
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Vegan Chinese food
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I grabbed it a while back but the overwatch cookbook as a few good vegan meals
Bad Manners is a go-to. The authors are based in California so expect a lot of Hispanic themed dishes. I for one love their torta and posole recipes
I have a few incredibly worn Thug Kitchen (their previous name) books, and they have solid recipes, but they’re a little cringe lol. The sweet potato al pastor is super tasty
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Vegan Richa’s Indian Kitchen is a good one
Bryant Terry’s Vegetable Kingdom is fun, although most of the recipes feel more like side dishes than main dishes to me.
I have this vegan Italian food cookbook by Chloe Coscarelli that is really good.
The Veganomicon is one that gets a lot of milage in my house
I second this and anything by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.
Isa Does It has been my own main cookbook for many years and I haven’t found a mediocre recipe in it yet.
Same here!Can you please recommend me some recipes from that book to try? I have it and made one thing from it (I think it was a kabocha squash stew) and I was very underwhelmed, but if there’s better stuff in it I want to give it a go
The chickpea patties are a frequent dinner around here. We usually roast whatever veggies are inexpensive for the season and do some rice for a full meal.
Vegan who loves to cook here, and I’ve got some recommendations for you! As a quick note, I’m vegan for the animals but also interested in healthy eating, so my recommendations are generally for things that taste indulgent but nourish the body and soul as well.
- The Vegan Instant Pot Cookbook is easily my favorite that I have currently. The author, Nisha Vora, is the person behind the recipe website Rainbow Plant Life, which is by far my favorite vegan cooking website. She also has a new cookbook called Big Vegan Flavor that I have ordered but not yet received; I can’t recommend it for sure but knowing Nisha I’m sure it’s going to be excellent. In particular, Nisha is my go-to for Indian cuisine, but she has a wide variety of cuisines she covers well. The hummus recipe, the West African peanut stew, and the broth part of the pho recipe in the Instant Pot cookbook are particular standouts, and from her website I can’t recommend highly enough her Palak Paneer with Tofu (follow the boiled tofu recipe, except you don’t actually have to boil the tofu) and and her Chana Masala. She also has a YouTube channel that is also quite good. If you don’t have an Instant Pot, I highly recommend getting one, they can be gotten on Craigslist or Marketplace for ~$40 usd where I am, and they’re very worth it if you have the space.
- The Vegan Middle Eastern Cookbook by Noha Elbadry-Cloud is another excellent one. The recipes I’ve tried so far have been very flavourful and tasty. I like also that the woman who wrote it provides recipes from all over the Middle East and North Africa, and also includes her own twists on things that are not necessarily traditional but still very good. She has recipes for dishes that are vegan by default as well as good vegan takes on traditional meat-heavy meals, complete with good recipes for homemade imitation meats.
- I’ve heard good things about The Vegan Chinese Kitchen, which is written by the woman who runs The Plant Based Wok (cooking website). I haven’t used the cookbook myself, but friends say it’s good and I have enjoyed the author’s recipes I’ve tried from her website.
Hope that helps! I’ll let you know once I receive Big Vegan Flavor if it’s good, because it seems like it’s going to become my Bible of cooking.
Not strictly vegan, but vegetarian-focused and thus a lot of the recipes are either vegan or can be easily adapted to be vegan: the Moosewood cookbooks. I have the Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home by the Moosewood Collective, but there’s also The Moosewood Cookbook by Mollie Katzen, not sure how much difference there is between the two. Moosewood was one of the OG’s in putting vegetarian cuisine on the map, and they’ve grown to be a highly influential institution for vegetarian and vegan chefs.
Aside from the Poke Bowl recipe at the start, much of the new Pokemon cookbook is largely vegetarian/vegan. I mostly just bought it for some of the sweets, but noticed this fact afterwards.
The Wicked Healthy Cookbook is a good choice. I like Derek Sarno (one of the authors) on YouTube too even though his recipes tend to be made for small armies, and he cuts to his dog a few too many times, but every one of his recipes that I’ve tried has been very good.
Edit - you can also find this Cookbook on Anna’s archive or similar websites if you want to try it out.
