Erin Elizabeth
There are many reasons to adopt a vegan lifestyle or incorporate more vegan meals into your diet. By using the best vegan cookbooks, you can improve your health, prevent animal and human suffering, and reduce your carbon footprint and impact on the planet.
Vegan chefs and home cooks alike have worked diligently to bring vegan food into the mainstream. In the process, they’ve developed thousands of delectable dishes.
Below, read about the 13 best vegan cookbooks. I’ve included recipe collections for beginner cooks, experienced vegans, and particular types of cuisines.
There’s something for everyone, so let’s dive in and get cooking!
The Korean Vegan Cookbook
If you want a vegan cookbook with heart and soul, look no further than The Korean Vegan Cookbook: Reflections and Recipes from Omma’s Kitchen by Joanne Lee Molinaro. It won a prestigious James Beard Award in 2022.
In this collection of 80 recipes, Molinaro recounts stories from her family and her culture.
She deftly adapts meat-centric recipes to suit a vegan palette without losing the authentic flavors that make them unique.
The cookbook includes gorgeous full-color photography and sections for breads, kimchi, bar and street foods, and noodles.
Molinaro also has a successful blog and traveled to Korea to prepare to write this book.
Vegetable Kingdom
With a title that riffs on the “animal kingdom,” you know that Vegetable Kingdom: The Abundant World of Vegan Recipes means business.
The author, Bryant Terry, holds an NAACP Image Award.
This cookbook organizes recipes by the main ingredient rather than course, making it simple to eat what you like or use what you have on hand.
Terry is more than a recipe author and chef; he’s also a food activist. As a result, most of the ingredients in this cookbook are items you can find at an average supermarket.
Many of the recipes are also affordable to prepare.
If you’re looking for one of the best vegan cookbooks that make vegan food accessible to everyone, this is for you.
East Meets Vegan
In this beautiful cookbook, East Meets Vegan: The Best of Asian Home-Cooking, Plant-Based and Delicious, Sasha Gill takes us along on her personal vegan journey.
Unwilling to abandon her favorite dishes, culture, or values, Gill has masterfully adapted some of the best Asian meals to be vegan.
Sometimes, she uses vegan replacements for ingredients like fish sauce and ghee.
In others, she converts entire recipes, like the irresistible tandoori cauliflower wings.
This collection of recipes also has some new twists with original vegan recipes, ideas for using leftovers, fusion cuisine, and more.
Provecho
A first-generation Mexican immigrant, Edgar Castrejon channels his love for traditional Mexican food in Provecho: 100 Vegan Mexican Recipes to Celebrate Culture and Community.
Like many of the chefs on this list, he refused to lose his heritage and culture when he decided to become vegan.
With 100 irresistible recipes, Castrejon shows us how to successfully swap ingredients like jackfruit, mushrooms, and milk alternatives to preserve traditional dishes.
Many meal recipes also contain instructions for making quintessential Mexican sauces and sides, like a vegan chipotle crema or queso fundido.
Sweet Potato Soul
Don’t let the name fool you; Sweet Potato Soul: 100 Easy Vegan Recipes for the Southern Flavors of Smoke, Sugar, Spice, and Soul has so much more than just sweet potatoes.
Atlanta native Jenne Claiborne brings signature southern flavors without any animal products.
This cookbook draws on favorite local ingredients from across the south, including collard greens, peaches, and, of course, sweet potatoes.
Even if you don’t live in the region, don’t worry; you can still make all these delicious recipes.
Claiborne separates her creations into courses, including everything from breakfast to dessert.
You’ll also find some irresistible drink recipes.
The Homemade Vegan Pantry
Ever wonder how companies produce vegan substitutes for pantry staples?
In The Homemade Vegan Pantry: The Art of Making Your Own Staples, Miyoko Schinner shows you how to make them yourself.
That way, you always have what you need and can start making vegan swaps in your favorite recipes.
This cookbook is a must-have for every vegan home cook and anyone who wants to experiment with new cooking techniques.
In just over 200 full-color pages, Schinner provides instructions for making everything from broths for a soup to dairy-free cheeses to French baguettes.
It also includes recipes for specialty items you never knew you were missing, like lemon cashew eggless mayonnaise, creamy oven-cooked polenta, and pumpkin dinner rolls.
The Vegan Cookbook for Kids
It’s challenging enough to get your kids to eat healthy food, let alone vegan dishes.
But vegan blogger Barb Musick has solved the dilemma with The Vegan Cookbook for Kids: Easy Plant-Based Recipes for Young Chefs.
Entice your kids to join you in the kitchen as you explore new ways to use familiar ingredients kids often snub, like cauliflower or even spinach.
There are lots of kid-pleasers, too. Explore 50 delectable recipes for cinnamon swirl pancakes, sloppy joes, chocolate-chip cookies, and many more.
Best of all, the recipes are easy for young readers to follow.
Unbelievably Vegan
With a foreword by Venus Williams (did you know she was vegan?
I didn’t!), Unbelievably Vegan: 100+ Life Changing, Plant-Based Recipes by Charity Morgan is a national bestseller, and for a good reason.
Its full-color pages are packed with recipes you’ll be itching to try.
Morgan’s family has Puerto Rican and Creole heritage, and those traditions shine in her recipes.
They aren’t lacking flavor, especially smoke, heat, and sugar.
I love that this cookbook starts with fundamentals, so you can master basics like Rojo sauce, vegan mayonnaise, and sofrito before moving on to dishes as diverse as “lobster” bisque, smoky jambalaya, and pecan sticky buns.
Afro-Vegan by Bryant Terry
Bryant Terry already made my list once, but I had to include him again with Afro-Vegan: Farm-Fresh African, Caribbean, and Southern Flavors Remixed.
In this more niche cookbook, he has created vegan versions of some of the best recipes in the African, Caribbean, and southern traditions.
Terry drew on his diverse roots for this cookbook, as well as those he has worked closely with in his chef and justice work.
He deftly takes us through the African diaspora’s history and its people’s endurance through food.
The 100 recipes in this cookbook include traditional dishes like Kenyan irio, savory grits, and fusion twists.
La Vida Verde by Jocelyn Ramirez
Jocelyn Ramirez’s Mexican Abuela, or grandmother, taught her to cook.
In La Vida Verde: Plant-Based Mexican Cooking with Authentic Flavor, she finds creative ways to bring those flavors to vegan food.
Like many of the cookbooks we’ve included, this one converts traditional Mexican dishes like queso fresco and carnitas tacos (made with seasoned jackfruit) and makes them vegan.
But inventive recipes also use these same flavors in new and creative ways.
You can also use this book to learn to make vegan basics, like homemade tortillas, traditional Mexican drinks, and desserts.
Simply Delicious Vegan
Caitlin Shoemaker gained internet notoriety as a home chef and health influencer with her blog, From My Bowl.
In Simply Delicious Vegan: 100 Plant-Based Recipes, she collects some of her favorite online recipes along with new treats.
Shoemaker’s recipes aren’t just vegan; they’re also clean, organic, unprocessed, and all-around healthy.
If you’re hoping to make the jump to veganism to improve your health, this is the cookbook you need.
One of the great things about Shoemaker is how personally she makes all her recipes.
Her style comes through in her tips and anecdotes as she teaches how to fill your belly safely.
The College Vegan Cookbook
Veganism has seriously taken off, and young people have always been leaders in the trend.
In The College Vegan Cookbook: 145 Affordable, Healthy, and Delicious Plant-Based Recipes, Heather Nicholds takes the stress out of sticking to your vegan lifestyle in college.
The first section of the cookbook is dedicated to helpful advice for the college-bound vegan, as well as pantry-stocking tips.
As much as college students and 20-somethings will love this cookbook, it’s truly for anyone and everyone.
The recipes–like pad thai, five-layer dip, and sesame-lime seared tofu–can be enjoyed at any age.
The Vegan Meat Cookbook
Whenever I hear someone say they couldn’t go vegan because they would miss eating meat, I recommend The Vegan Meat Cookbook: Meatless Favorites Made with Plants by Miyoko Schinner.
This beautiful cookbook is well-stocked with traditionally meat-centric recipes and finds inventive, creative, and delicious ways to convert them to veganism.
Schinner doesn’t even change the names in the recipes to draw in even the staunchest animal-eating hold-outs.
My favorite recipes in this cookbook include ham and pistachio arancini (traditional rice balls), rotisserie chicken, and beef stroganoff.
You can also make complex dishes like coq au vin (French chicken cooked in wine), garlic lobster fettuccine, and moussaka.
Learn How To Cook Vegan Dishes
Try these vegan cookbooks to make impressive vegan food. If your goal is to eat healthier, you can also check out our favorite healthy cookbooks or cookbooks for diabetics.
