Here's a look at some of the best cookbooks of 2025, a year that saw both culinary giants and exciting new voices exploring food's connection to culture, history, and personal experience. These books span the globe, offering insights into diverse cuisines and emphasizing the importance of seasonal cooking and shared meals.
Must-Have Cookbooks of 2025
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Monsoon
Asma Khan, chef and founder of London's Darjeeling Express, presents "Monsoon," a guide to Indian recipes inspired by her Bengali heritage. With over 80 recipes, including curries, street food, and desserts like saffron and pistachio yogurt, Khan incorporates Ayurvedic traditions and organizes the book into seven seasonal chapters. It's a masterclass in Indian spices, offering a joyful approach to aromatic cuisine.
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Lugma
Noor Murad, fresh from Ottolenghi's test kitchen, celebrates her Middle Eastern heritage in "Lugma." The title, meaning "a bite" in Arabic, reflects Murad's inspiration from sampling various dishes. The recipes, both traditional and reimagined, honor Middle Eastern customs and flavors, featuring ingredients like black lime from the Gulf, Iranian flavor profiles, Levantine herbs and spices, and pistachio cake with Lebanese labneh.
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Mostly French
Makenna Held's "Mostly French" is a love letter to French cuisine and the South of France. Written from Julia Child's former home, the cookbook simplifies French cooking, offering recipes like roast chicken with lemon and sumac and peach strawberry Caprese. It emphasizes local, seasonal ingredients and slowing down in the kitchen and in life.
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For the Love of Lemons
Leticia Clarke's "For the Love of Lemons" puts the humble lemon front and center in Italian-inspired dishes, accompanied by stunning photography. The cookbook reframes the lemon as the star ingredient in both sweet and savory recipes, including lemon tiramisu, lemon carbonara, and a creamy lemon, fennel, and pecorino bake.
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The Art of Jacques Pépin
Culinary legend Jacques Pépin celebrates his 90th birthday with "The Art of Jacques Pépin," featuring 99 of his favorite recipes alongside his artwork. The cookbook includes classic recipes like bread and onion soup, pork roast and ratatouille, and oranges in caramel, accompanied by Pépin's personal artworks, often depicting food.
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Sour Cherries and Sunflowers
"Sour Cherries and Sunflowers" by Anastasia Zolotarev pays homage to heritage and connection, exploring familial recipes from Eastern Europe. Divided into chapters like "Celebrations," "Preservations," and "Together," the cookbook shares family stories and anecdotes alongside classic recipes like babka, borscht, and dumplings, and desserts like honey, walnut, and soured cream cake.
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Food You Want to Eat
Thomas Straker's "Food You Want to Eat" balances restaurant-quality and home-cooking with simple yet elevated recipes. The cookbook shares Straker's philosophy of easy techniques and using the best ingredients to create delicious meals, emphasizing balanced flavors and seasonal cooking. Recipes include butter chicken, spiced tomato tagliolini, roast chicken and butter beans, and sea bass with lentils and salsa verde.
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Mary 90
Mary Berry's "Mary 90" celebrates a lifetime of cooking with her fuss-free approach and classic recipes. Accompanied by illustrations, personal photographs, and stories from Berry's life, the cookbook includes recipes for mac and cheese, lasagna, raspberry soufflé, brownies, and lemon drizzle cake.
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Super Italian
Giada de Laurentiis' "Super Italian" offers a health-focused approach to Italian cuisine, using Italian superfoods like olive oil, cruciferous vegetables, beans and legumes, fish, and mushrooms. The cookbook showcases delicious and healthy meals, such as Umbrian chicken stew with green olives, roasted butter beans, Sicilian pesto, and green endive salad with citrus and pancetta.
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Umma
"Umma" by Sarah Ahn and her mother, Nam Soon Ahn, is a mother-daughter dedication to generational and traditional Korean cooking wisdom. The cookbook offers recipes, Korean grocery store guides, and traditional cooking wisdom, structured around conversations between the authors. Dishes include kimchi, banchan, and stews.
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Fat + Flour
Nicole Rucker's "Fat + Flour" is a guide to expert-level baking at home, emphasizing simplicity. The cookbook celebrates sweet, indulgent treats, offering creative spins on classic favorites, including chocolate chip and brownie recipes, pies, and banana bread variations.
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Salsa Daddy
Rick Martínez's "Salsa Daddy" is a guide to all things salsa and spicy, diving into the 500-year history of salsa and offering contemporary takes on traditional recipes. The cookbook includes recipes for sandwiches, flautas, burgers, roast chicken, and desserts, all adorned with salsa variations.
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Rooza
Nadiya Hussain's "Rooza" takes inspiration from Muslim traditions, Ramadan, and Eid. The recipes center on sustenance, hailing from regions across the Islamic world, and emphasize gathering, warmth, and sharing meals. The cookbook curates 30 main meals and desserts for the holy period, as well as recipes for the post-fast feast.
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Real Japanese Cooking
Makiko Itoh's "Real Japanese Cooking" is a comprehensive guide to Japanese cuisine, offering traditions, tips, techniques, and over 600 recipes. Itoh answers questions on traditional Japanese ingredients and includes essays on serving etiquette and Japanese culture.
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Celebrate
Paul Hollywood's "Celebrate" showcases recipes ideal for birthdays, holidays, parties, and events, with chapters divided into seasons. The cookbook offers year-round recipes for every imaginable occasion, including yule logs, pumpkin and apple pie, picnic treats, and party snacks.
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Sabzi
Yasmin Khan's "Sabzi" celebrates vegetables as the main event, drawing inspiration from the Middle East and South Asia. The cookbook features plant-focused meals like coconut channa dhal, smoky tofu shakshuka, sweet potatoes with pistachio and mint pesto, and Persian aubergine, split pea, and dried lime stew.
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Picnic
"Picnic" evokes nostalgia and the joy of outdoor eating, with recipes focused on being transportable and fuss-free. Chapters include sandwiches, dips and deli, shares and boards, and sweet things, with recipes like summery chicken, mango, and cucumber ciabatta.
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My Southern Kitchen
Ivy Odom's "My Southern Kitchen" presents Southern recipes for celebrations and everyday life, offering cooking tips and over 100 recipes. The cookbook includes homemade cream of chicken soup, desserts like pavlova, and homemade condiments like salad dressing, hot honey mustard, and garlic aioli.
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Green Mountains
Caroline Eden's "Green Mountains" recounts her hiking journey through the Caucasus, from Armenia to the Black Sea, and the meals she encountered. The cookbook details the families who hosted her and offers culturally-specific recipes, including Armenian herb-filled flatbreads, Syrian Freekah with lamb and nuts, and Georgian chicken with white wine and walnut sauce.
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American Soul
Anela Malik's "American Soul: A Deep Dive into the Black History of Food in the United States" combines recipes and history, exploring the African diaspora's impact on American food. The cookbook shares over 30 recipes, explores crop migration, and profiles prominent Black chefs, restaurateurs, and culinary personalities.
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Six Seasons of Pasta
Joshua McFadden's "Six Seasons of Pasta" uses seasonal cooking as his approach to innovative pasta dishes. With over 120 unique recipes, the cookbook features variations like beef and sweet bell pepper ragu, mushrooms with spicy sausage, chiles, and burrata, and corn with jalapeños and brown butter.
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We the Pizza
"We the Pizza: Slangin' Pies and Savin' Lives" by Muhammed Abdul-Hadi tells the story of Down North, a Northern Philly pizzeria run by previously incarcerated people. The cookbook shares the employees' stories alongside recipes, photographs, and context on incarceration in Philadelphia.
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Shred Happens
Arash Hashemi's "Shred Happens" shares his insights on weight loss alongside macro-focused recipes. The cookbook offers Mediterranean-inspired meals that can be cooked in under 30 minutes, including spicy tuna salad, stuffed eggplant rolls, lamb kofta, and walnut scallops.
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The Spanish Pantry
José Pizzaro's "The Spanish Pantry" comprises 12 chapters, each dedicated to an ingredient typical of Spanish cuisine. The cookbook builds over 100 dishes around ingredients like onions, tomatoes, peppers, chorizo, manchego, almonds, lemons, rice, chickpeas, beans, jamón, and saffron.
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Setting a Place for Us
Hawa Hassan's "Setting a Place for Us" explores the link between food and geopolitics, sharing 75 recipes from eight war-torn countries alongside essays contextualizing the conflict. The chapters comprise Afghanistan, DRC, Egypt, El Salvador, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, and Yemen, with dishes such as Ta'ameya (Egyptian fava bean fritters) and Masoub (Yemeni banana and flatbread pudding).
Methodology
This selection was based on customer reviews and ratings, focusing on books with high ratings on major platforms, bestseller lists, and editorial picks. Special attention was given to books with notable reviews, top ratings, and social media buzz, aiming for a diverse range of cuisines and culinary voices.
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