The Best New Cookbooks of 2023

Consider Yossy Arefi, your sweet tooth enabler. The acclaimed baker makes it nigh impossible to give any excuses not to bake. In her follow-up to the wildly successful Snacking Cakes, Arefi holds true to her promise that almost every recipe can be made in under an hour, in one bowl.

No special equipment or resting of dough required, letting you can go from “zero to cookie” in no time. The steps are so effortless, Arefi effectively dismantles the barriers to baking. “These recipes make it so easy to roll up your sleeves and make something delicious,” she writes, “for when you want to celebrate a great day or zone out in the kitchen at the end of a tough one — even if you don't have that much time or energy to do it.”

The simple-but-stunning bakes, like Chewy Cocoa Brownies and Cheesy Jalapeno Cornbread, are exactly the type of crowd-pleasing treats that’ll win bake sales, pot lucks and cookie swaps. With gluten-free and vegan options, the recipes offer multiple flavor variations to tailor each bake to your snacking mood. If you aren’t quite sure what you’re in the mood for, refer to Arefi’s cravings matrix and let this divining chart scratch that itch. Fancy a bar that’s fruity? Try the Raspberry Mazurkas or Blueberry Swirl Blondies. Pining for something chocolatey or perhaps warm and toasty? The all-knowing matrix will set you right.

Imagine a smart friend enthusiastically explaining the vegetable kingdom to you over drinks, dropping helpful hints for buying and storing produce along the way. That’s the tone of the latest cookbook from Nik Sharma, a molecular biologist turned food writer.

He brings a modern approach to flexitarian cooking, with the rigorous research and testing of a trained scientist. That very combo allows Sharma to unlock the potential of vegetables in thrilling ways. In Hasselback Parsnips with Pistachio Pesto, for instance, he gives the often overlooked root vegetable the star treatment. “The accordion-like fan appearance helps heat penetrate better and creates a crisp texture on the ‘fans’ while the center turns tender.”

In the Potato and White Bean Salad with Zhug, a bright, herbaceous dressing gives the mild spuds and greens much-need oomph. Thrumming with subtle heat from jalapeños, the Yemeni condiment breathes new life into the cookout standby.

Much of what makes Sharma’s book compelling is that he tells you the reason why something works. For Golden Za'atar Onion Rings with Buttermilk Caraway Dipping Sauce, he explains that salting the onions helps dry out their moisture, softening the cells’ tough pectin just enough, creating a crisper texture and more uniform taste.

Culinary school — in this economy? Start Here, a 650-page doorstop of a cookbook from Sohla El-Waylly isn’t just more a more affordable option, it’s infinitely more fun. Guiding you through cooking basics with the reassuring hand of a kitchen BFF, the chef and YouTube star organizes chapters by technique, such as “Break It Down and Get Saucy” (how to stew and braise) and “Whip (and Fold) It Good: Take Your Desserts to Fluff City.” Her goal is to teach readers how to cook, the best way she learned, “with nerdy deep dives and so much context behind the steps of every recipe.”

El-Waylly dismisses the approach of just memorizing steps. It never served her well and her natural curiosity would take over. “Digging a little deeper doesn't just make me the smart-ass everyone already assumed I was (although some of my former chefs might disagree),” El-Waylly writes, “it allows me to understand bigger concepts that can be applied to countless dishes rather than trying to memorize a bunch of random commands for one recipe.”

Dishes, like I Promise It’s Good! Poached Chicken Breast and Everything Seasoned Broccoli teach basic, sound skills. While others, such as the tangy, zingy Watermelon Chaat I made, take those foundations to riotous flavor heights. “The key to chaat is chaatpati flavor, which is so tart and hot,” El-Waylly writes, “it'll make your tongue curl and your mouth pucker, with just enough sugar and salt to keep those punchy vibes in check.” The topping of salty cumin and black pepper cashews tossed in honey did just that — and you can bet it’s not taught in any culinary school.

Jocelyn Delk Adams has the cheery personality you'd expect of someone who regularly appears on food TV and the morning shows. So it’s no surprise that pretty much the entire vibe of Everyday Grand is joyous and the recipes within provide a good dose of Southern comfort.

For Delk, celebrating with food is a reflex even if the occasion isn’t momentous, like a wedding or anniversary. When her daughter took her first steps, she baked a cake; when her favorite show returned after a long hiatus, Delk cooked an epic dinner. She encourages readers to do likewise, adding options to each recipe for possible moments to revel in.

For example, to celebrate the first sip of coffee or to welcome new neighbors, she urges readers to bake the Elvis Banana Bread — a decadent loaf, studded with peanut butter chips and chopped bacon. Did you have a grueling workweek? Then you must greet the weekend with The Ultimate Mac and Cheese, a flavor bomb that guarantees the gooiest cheese pulls.

No matter the occasion, Adams has a dish for everyone, every day. And if you can’t think of an occasion, you’ll find plenty of inspo on the pages.

When Taipei-based journalist Clarissa Wei set out to write a Taiwanese cookbook, she simply couldn’t ignore the 1.4 billion–strong elephant in the room. She had to set the record straight: “Taiwanese food isn’t a subset of Chinese food because Taiwan isn’t a part of China.”

Through interviews with residents of the island nation and her extensive research, Wei shows that the cuisine stands on its own. Like its culture and politics, Taiwanese food should not be lumped under the vast Chinese umbrella — despite China refusing to recognize the sovereignty of this small island off its southeastern coast.

A history book told through the story of food, Made in Taiwan captivates readers with tales and images of dishes colored with a tinge of wistfulness. A tall stack of scallion pancakes come from Tun Yu-Chu, a former air force soldier who was born in 1934 and stationed in Taiwan at the age of 16. The photography note on the accompanying image explains that the scallion pancakes were shot in a way that "reflects what breakfast might have looked like in an old military house — the residences that veterans like Yu-Chu were put in when they first arrived on the island."

Similar thoughtfulness is applied to tracing the evolution of the national dish of Taiwan, Beef Noodle Soup. Wei found that this iconic dish dates back to the late 1940s when a swell of Chinese refugees came to Taiwan during the Chinese Civil War. They brought with them the slow-cooking technique for meat called "red-braising." To find out how the dish has changed, she spoke to Chef Hung Ching-Lung, five-time beef noodle competition winner and owner of the Chef Hung multinational beef noodle soup chain. According to Hung, the noodle soup started as a humble street food dish brimming with spices to mask the poor quality of beef. In today’s version, the spices have receded to the background, letting the cook flex the high-quality meat that gives the broth its deep, resonant flavor.

The publication of Made in Taiwan is timely in that it happens to coincide with the increased popularity of Taiwanese restaurants and cooks in the U.S. Wei’s look at how the past shaped this distinct cuisine provides rich context for the foods we enjoy today.

“We step out of the car and are greeted by the heat, the gorgeous glow of old incandescent bulbs and faded sconces and the foliage filling every spare inch of our yard,” writes Yewande Komolafe in a cookbook so evocative, you can practically feel the energy buzzing from the pages. “Lemongrass, wild oregano and scent leaf fill the air as I walk up to the front door.” Welcome to Lagos, the beating heart of Nigeria, seen through the eyes of the beloved New York Times food columnist.

When Komolafe visited her homeland for the first time in 20 years, it would turn out to be a transformative trip — one that gave her new perspective on how to cook Nigerian food beyond the borders of this West African nation. Like Dorothy stepping into the Land of Oz, as soon as Komolafe touched down in Lagos, everything was brought into Technicolor; flavors she thought she knew felt more intense and vivid. With time and influence from different cultures, the food had evolved from what she remembered.

While Komolafe holds dear the cornerstone ingredients that are essential to the cuisine (ferments, herbs and spices), she gives herself — and readers — the freedom to experiment with what appeals and is available. That could be, say, different chiles you find at the market or how much you toast the individual ingredients in the Ground Yaji Spice Blend. Once you’ve stirred together this peanut-based powder, use it as a seasoning sprinkle on a multitude of dishes. The combo of ground ginger, cayenne and garlic powder lights up the Beef Suya, Komolafe’s take on the northern Nigerian street food skewers.

Komolafe doesn’t claim to be the ultimate authority on Nigerian food. My Everyday Lagos is but one piece of the conversation about what the cuisine can be. Consider it an invitation to pull up a chair and join that convo.

A Nigella Lawson of sorts for the millennial generation, former Bon Appetit editor Molly Baz has made a career out of her strong culinary opinions. Her second cookbook, More Is More, is filled with idiosyncratic pronouncements about food: Everything tastes better with sauce; the secret to restaurant food is salt; “you’re probs not using enough herbs.” Trust that the recipes in the book are as big and assertive as Baz's personality.

The can’t-stop, won’t-stop approach results in crave-able food that has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer — with Baz poised to hit you over the head with punchy ingredients. For instance, she marinates feta in chopped pickles and pickle-brine to slather on crusty bread, and reduces an entire bottle of red wine to sauce her Drunken Cacio e Pepe. The Last-Meal Scallops call for more than one stick of butter and she has zero regrets (neither did I after tasting this dish). However, “gluttonous excess is not what this book is about,” Baz writes. “It's about finding more confidence in the kitchen, gaining more trust in our own cooking ability and having the nerve to go for bigger, bolder, more explosive flavor.”

In less assured hands, these recipes could be a shambles but Baz has the cooking chops to pull everything off. If you find yourself less capable in the kitchen, there are QR codes on recipes that bring you to“audio experiences” that will guide you along the steps. No matter your level of cooking expertise, More Is More takes you on a maximalist culinary joy ride that you never want to end.

Certain cookbooks feature writing that is so sumptuous, you want to devour the words as much as the recipes. That’s definitely the case for this 560-page tome filled with 150 of Nigel Slater’s essential recipes, along with stories for what inspired each. The British food writer describes his food as, “straightforward, everyday stuff, the sort of thing you might like to come home to after a busy day," which is a self-effacing way to say these recipes are cozy, casual and super crave-able.

But as Slater points out, "casual does not mean careless." He's adamant about thoroughly washing and drying salad greens; he'd much rather pound pesto in a mortar than blitz it in the food processor. Most recipes, though, are unfussy and forgiving. A chicken roasting in the oven has potatoes hop along for the ride, sopping up the pan juices. Tarragon, heavy cream and a good glug of marsala or vermouth then round out the rich drippings to form a simple, spectacular gravy. Yes, there are very British dishes, like smoked mackerel pie in a chapter titled, “Sometimes, you just want pie.” You’ll also find recipes informed by Slater's travels and takeaway ventures, like a warming pumpkin laksa enlivened with ginger, lime and chiles. Fans of weight measurements in recipes will love the grams and ounces given for measuring volume-imprecise ingredients, like herbs and bulky produce.

"Cooking — for me at least — is about making yourself something to eat and sharing food with others,” he writes, “but is also — whisper it — about the quiet moments of joy to be had along the way.” In A Cook’s Book, Slater has created a leisurely world that comforts as much as his food.

As someone who lives in the woods of northern Minnesota, when Amy Thielen wants to have a meal with friends, she “does not drive 25 miles to meet at one of the three restaurants in town.” Rather, the chef and TV cook gathers folks at her house through impromptu invites and encourages readers to do the same.

That spontaneity is liberating: It can free you from the burden of trying to impress with your cooking. For in-house entertaining, Thielen is like a low-maintenance Martha Stewart. She doesn’t concern herself with napkin rings or matching plates. The focus of her book is on loose, large-format menus that are meant to be served buffet style, allowing, even encouraging, guests to overcrowd their plates. The menus in Company can serve up to 20 (or more) as in the "Casual Walkabouts" chapter, though the rest serve anywhere from six to 12, generously. “Since we eat with our eyes,” Thielen writes, “a surplus of food puts everyone at ease and encourages momentary indulgence.”

And who wouldn’t want to indulge when the spreads have such deeply delicious offerings? Her menu for "Pent-Up Winter Grilling," for instance, includes Deviled Egg Dip — a clever starter that delivers the richness of deviled egg filling while economizing on cooking time. No fiddly peeling of shells and stuffing egg white halves required.

Other dishes have chef-y (yet imminently doable) flourishes from her days cooking in fine dining restaurants in New York City. The Bundt pan chicken, for example, is her take on beer can chicken. The whole bird gets a continental-chic makeover with white wine and garlic-anchovy butter inspired by bagna cauda.

But perhaps the best offering from Thielen is the grace to be imperfect when we host. “The kitchen isn't perfect, but productive, creative workspaces rarely are,” she writes. “And when people start arriving, that's the vibe they'll catch and follow.”

Part cookbook, part culinary memoir, Tenderheart is an ode to Hetty Lui McKinnon’s late father, a Chinese immigrant to Australia, who passed away when McKinnon was 15 years old. He worked for a banana wholesale business in Sydney and would bring home crates of greens — shaping how young Hetty ate then, and her vegetarian diet today.

“I have carried this memory of my father as the generous 'fruit and vegetable guy' close to my heart my entire adult life,” she writes. “Today, my endless love for vegetables is one of the ways I honor my dad's legacy, by cooking them every day with detail and care.”

While McKinnon salutes produce in her book, she also honors the quiet heroes: Asian pantry staples that bolster flavor behind the frontline of vegetables. Soy-Butter Bok Choy Pasta Soy sauce and butter form an umami-rich pan sauce to coat thin ribbons of bok choy and spaghetti—a dish inspired by wafu pasta, spaghetti cooked Japanese-style. In Cashew Celery, a plant-based riff on Cashew Chicken, McKinnon combines cornstarch, soy sauce, Shaoxing rice wine and water to make a quick but complex slurry that eventually melds into a glossy sauce for the vegetables.

If you're looking to incorporate more veg in your life, this book is a must-buy.

If you find satisfaction in giving credit to those who are due it, then food journalist and historian Toni Tipton-Martin should be your hero. She’s made a career of ensuring that the contributions and stories of Black food creators are acknowledged.

In Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking, she highlighted the oft-forgotten Black cooks who shaped American cuisine. In her latest book, Tipton-Martin turns her attention to the Black drink makers, their recipes and hospitality — from the Black women who gained agency during the antebellum era by selling home brews; to the Black bartenders shaking up cocktails in glamorous jazz clubs during the Harlem Renaissance; to current-day rappers, like Snoop Dog and T-Pain, who’ve created and published their own signature cocktail recipes.

Tipton-Martin has thoroughly researched this fascinating, largely unknown history, which she sprinkles throughout the pages. In the Batch chapter, Tipton-Martin spotlights Planter’s Punch, the citrusy rum drink derived from the sugar plantations throughout the Caribbean. According to Tipton-Martin, this traditionally sweet drink may have originated from the plantation practice of rewarding enslaved workers with strong liquor. “Today, we can reclaim this recipe,” she writes. Bar educator Tiffanie Barriere reimagines the classic cocktail as a bright, refreshing punch bowl, ramped up with more citrus and a homemade grenadine.

In the recipe for Bowl of Eggnog, Tipton-Martin references early 20th century mixologists Tom Bullock and Julian Anderson as inspirations for her big batch version of the creamy holiday drink. She chills and stores the eggnog a day ahead to let the flavors mellow before topping glassfuls with billows of whipped cream. Tipton-Martin also suggests doing as Edna Lewis and Scott Peacock recommend: Pack the eggnog into mason jars and gift it to friends with tins of Christmas cookies.

You may know Rie McClenny from the popular BuzzFeed series “Make It Fancy” but it's the homey Japanese comfort foods she ate growing up in Hiroshima that’s the subject of her debut cookbook, Make It Japanese.

Since living in the U.S., McClenny realized that most Americans weren't familiar with Japanese home cooking. "The assumption is that Japanese food was either a multi-course sushi extravaganza or a theatrical Benihana-style teppanyaki with onion volcanoes,” McClenny writes, “when in reality, it’s simple, humble and nutritious." Her goal is to show that this style of cooking is for everyone, even if you didn't grow up eating it or working in fine dining establishments in Los Angeles, as she did.

When McClenny was an exchange student in West Virginia, she attempted to recreate the dishes she was homesick for, making do with what she could find in the one Asian market. "What seemed like a compromise when I first came to the U.S. no longer feels that way today,” she writes, “ If anything, it can be a wonderful discovery." Her Homemade Japanese Curry, for instance, is a fresh take on the common shortcut version made with store-bought curry roux, but without the unwanted additives.

Another recipe that can be made from grocery store ingredients is the Easy Soy Sauce Ramen. The broth is a simple combo of clam juice and chicken broth. If you can't find ramen noodles, McClenny has an easy hack: Add baking soda to the pasta cooking water, which will turn spaghetti darker and give it the flavor and spring texture of ramen.

To those familiar with the cuisine, a veg-forward Vietnamese cookbook is almost inconceivable. How would you avoid the use of fish sauce, a crucial component of so many dishes? Well, if I’d trust anyone to pull it off, it’s Andrea Nguyen.

When faced with health issues, the food writer and everyone’s favorite Vietnamese cooking teacher set out to give her recipes a plant-based makeover, with minimal amounts of animal protein. “In the late summer of 2019, I hit a wall,” she writes in her seventh cookbook. “I felt cruddy after years of eating everything I wanted, all in the name of professional research.”

She convincingly reverse engineers a vegan fish sauce using pineapple juice and two types of seaweed and pineapple juice. “Kombu contributes a round mouthfeel like that of meat collagen while the wakame injects a briny back note like that of dried seafood,” Nguyen explains.

Her ingenuity extends to the Oven-Fried Crispy Shiitake Imperial Rolls. She skips the traditional deep frying and instead blasts the spring rolls with the high heat of an oven or air fryer until shatteringly crisp. For the beautifully burnished exterior, she has another trick up her sleeve: “Like applying butter to phyllo, brushing seasoned coconut cream on the rice paper wrappers enriches and hydrates them just enough so they’ll seal up and brown to a crisp.”

High-heat cooking is also the key to the deeply caramelized savoriness of her Char Siu Roasted Cauliflower. The signature sweet-smoky flavor is from a combo of pantry ingredients (hoisin sauce, sesame oil, agave syrup, ketchup, soy sauce and five-spice powder) that she slicks onto the vegetables before roasting.

While Nguyen notes that she felt much better after eating less meat and more vegetables, the book is not intended to be a “health” book; rather, it’s a launch pad for having a more diverse diet. “Vegetables are the source of so much creativity in the kitchen,” she says. “Meat you can manipulate in only so many beautiful ways, but the sheer variety of vegetables is infinitely inspiring.”

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