My Favorite Plant Based Cookbooks

I love vegetarian cooking and I love books so of course I love plant based cookbooks. They inspire me and teach me new tricks. I don’t always follow the recipes exactly. I use them more as a guide. Sometimes I just look at the pretty pictures.

When we moved back to Tennessee I had to go through my books and purge an excessive amount. It was so hard giving my books away! Our old house had two massive built in bookcases. Our new house doesn’t have any built in shelves and we were trying to reduce the amount of boxes we had to pay to be moved out of state. Some cookbooks were easy to part with because I hadn’t looked at them in years. Other cookbooks I rediscovered as I was packing and couldn’t part with.

Books are an investment. No one wants to waste money on cookbooks with recipes that are hard to follow or bland. These plant based cookbooks are shelf worthy for different reasons. Some have drool worthy epic photography and provide me with inspiration. Others on this list are classic reference books that I revisit often.

For this list I wanted a dig a little deeper and share vegan and vegetarian cookbooks I love that you may not have heard of before.

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Plant Based Cookbooks I Love

How To Cook Everything Vegetarian

If you are newer to cooking or new to a plant based lifestyle a basic book can be helpful. Going back to the basics is never a bad thing. Mark Bittman’s How to Cook Everything Vegetarian is the basic essential plant based cookbook that I recommend to new cooks. It is also great for anyone who wants to take their food game to the next level. This book is full of easy to follow very detailed instructions and illustrations. It covers everything from how to trim and grill an artichoke to, BBQ jackfruit sandwiches, Portobello “Bacon”, and even covers the art of making bread.

Grains For Every Season

Author Joshua McFadden’s first book, Six Seasons, won the James Beard Award for Best Book in Vegtable-Focused Cooking in 2018. His follow up book, Grains For Every Season, is just as impressive. He introduces different whole grain ingredients that aren’t commonly used like millet, quinoa, and Farro. The book goes beyond just the basics and breaks down different techniques. His books are plant forward but not exclusively vegetarian. I love his approach to food because it encourages me to explore and try new things but also keeps me mindful to use seasonal ingredients. I’m also really excited because Joshua McFadden has a new cookbook coming out fall of 2025, Six Seasons of Pasta! Who doesn’t love pasta?

Love & Lemons Every Day

This next plant based cookbook I enjoy because it feels like a chose your own adventure book. Do you remember those as a kid? Where you would get to decide how the story ends by turning to separate endings on differnt pages. Love & Lemons Every Day is the second cookbook from food blogger Jeanine Donofrio. If features 125 plant focused meals and at the end of each section there is a fun mix and match recipe photo spread. It feels like she wants me to explore and empowers me to customize my meals to personal preferences.

Platters and Boards

Platters and Boards is not really a plant based cookbook. It feels plant forward but there is a lot of cheese and some meat in this book. I am obsessed with making pretty boards (like my Fruit and Chocolate Board) of snacks to graze on. I love the creative process. Each board feels like an original work of art. That’s why I love this book. Author Shelly Westerhausen makes the board creation easy with guided suggestions and beautiful photos. Shelly has so many brilliant ideas to share!

The Korean Vegan

This cookbook won the James Beard Award for Best Book in Vegtable-Focused Cooking in 2022. Author Joanne Molinaro is the creator behind The Korean Vegan blog. Her cookbook with shared name The Korean Vegan Cookbook shares her family story and plant based versions of the food she grew up with. Joanne shows how veganizing anything is possible. She has a new cookbook coming this fall! I can’t wait to read The Korean Vegan Homemade.

Afro-Vegan

If you don’t know who Bryant Terry is you should. He has a few books but my favorite is Afro-Vegan. This is an amazing and inspiring cookbook. The recipes and photos are drool worthy. He elevates and explores classic flavors that are familiar to me as a Southerner but also introduced me to African and Caribbean spices.

The Southern Vegetarian

The Chubby Vegetarian is one of my all time favorite old school blogs. The Southern Vegetarian is the first book from the Memphis based husband and wife team behind that blog. I love this book because the recipes are inspired by a love of food and feeding people. In the south we love to feed people, family and friends, that’s how we show love and welcome you into our homes. The recipes in this book are easy to follow and are full of Southern flavor.

Crossroads

Crossroads is a cookbook I look to for inspiration. It’s a beautiful book but I don’t cook from it often. A lot of the recipes are not practical for a home cook. I take inspiration from the amazing photos and I take liberty adjusting the recipes to better fit my skills and kitchen equipment. Chef Tal Ronnen is a genius when it comes to flavors and plating but maybe not at translating restaurant recipes into recipes you can make at home. One of the first recipes in the book for Smoked White Bean Hummus directs readers to open their windows and remove the battery from their smoke detectors. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to smoke wood chips in my kitchen but I may reinterpret the vision of the recipe and smoke wood chips on my grill outside to create that smoky flavor. If you are able to use your imagination when you cook Crossroads is a great cookbook.

Two Honorable Mentions for Fun Plant Based Recipes

To round out this list I would also recommend Salad Freak and The Bean Book. Both are fun cookbooks worth checking out!

What Vegetarian Cookbooks Do You Love?

What plant based cookbooks do you love? Are any of these on your list? I love books and it’s always fun to share them with friends.

If you are looking for more book recommendations check out these older posts:

• Running & Hiking Books Spring 2018
• New Fall Cookbooks I’m Excited About
• New Fall Yoga Books I’m Excited About