15 Cookbooks Our Editors Are Gifting In 2023

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It's the end of the year, so you know Team Delish is getting sentimental. One of the most delicious ways to do that, of course, is to mark it with all the best cookbooks that were released in 2023. In a year of TikTok viral recipes (that are, ahem, sometimes hit or miss), cookbooks are a reliable source for finding your new favorite weeknight dinner, a new brownie recipe to keep in your back pocket, or a recipe that will take you on a culinary journey elsewhere.

Truth be told, the only books I really ever buy are cookbooks. I read them like a fast-paced novel, dog-earing copies and inevitably schmearing sauces on stained pages. Cookbooks are just as exciting as a thriller when you think about it: There's all the slow build of gaining confidence tinkering with new-to-you recipes, the trials (perhaps that layer cake recipe turned out more lopsided than layered), and (hopefully) the resolution of having cooked or baked something nourishing and shareable around a packed table.

So whether you want to get closer to Star Baker status, become the dinner host with the most, or just indulge some culinary wanderlust at home, these were our favorite cookbooks of 2023.

Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook

I often Google recipes and add "Sohla" at the end of my search query. That's how much I trust her. Thankfully, I have Sohla's newest cookbook is finally here to save me from my endless Google rabbit holes.

Start Here really encapsulates the playful, joyous, expansive kitchen experience Sohla advocates for when making food. Each chapter focuses on a unique technique to make you a more confident cook (like browning, doughs, and temperature management), with moments where you can improvise and get loose, too. She sums up this choose-your-own-adventure cookbook perfectly when she says Start Here is "a one-stop culinary school in a book (without years of inescapable debt!)" And isn't that the best deal of all?

Company: The Radically Casual Art of Cooking for Others

Are you the kind of person whose middle name could be "Let's just do it at my house"? Well, have I got the cookbook for you!

Company is Amy Thielen's newest cookbook and centers on how to reframe how we gather at the table. On the menu? Less formal dinner parties that happen a lot more frequently, with plenty of not-guilty pleasures, and making the prep as fun and stress-free for the host as it is for the guests. Plus, each of the 125 recipes are arranged by menu, like intimate dinner parties to big holiday feasts (with tips on how to plan and prep without anxiety) and will completely reframe how you can more joyfully cook for ourselves and others.

Made in Taiwan: Recipes and Stories from the Island Nation

Cookbooks are my favorite way to transport myself to another country without having to deal with layovers or someone kicking my seat. One of my favorite places I "traveled" to this year? Taiwan, courtesy of Made in Taiwan by Taipei resident Clarissa Wei.

This cookbook is delicious defiance, especially in the face of China's refusal to recognize its sovereignty, with recipes that highlight the unique flavors and dishes of the island nation, like daikon kueh, braised pork belly, and peddler noodles. More than a cookbook, Made in Taiwan is a propulsive living archive that honors the labor and culture of Taiwanese cuisine.

My Everyday Lagos: Nigerian Cooking at Home and in the Diaspora

Like Made in Taiwan, Yewande Komolafe's My Everyday Lagos is so much more than a cookbook. It's also about what we find out about ourselves in the process of cooking. Braided alongside Nigerian recipes that exemplify the cuisine of the diaspora, Komolafe details her own self-discovery by rejecting the (often problematic) quest for "authenticity" in seeking out dishes of faraway places. As you'll find, this cookbook is as much an exploration of Nigerian food as it is the far-flung cities that gave their own unique spin on classics like jollof rice, beef soup, and crushed yam fritters.

Table for Two: Recipes for the Ones You Love

This year found me trying to reach Ina Garten-levels of Hostess with the Most. So it should come as no surprise that I ate up (nearly literally) Bre Graham's cookbook, Table for Two.

Not just for you and bae, Table for Two is about setting aside the time and care to create loving meals for your mom, sister, or any part of your chosen family. Split into two distinct sections ("easy to impress" and "just to delight"), you'll find meals that are effortless but still scream "Ummm, you're the best I love you," like artichoke and black pepper fettuccine, lemon-lychee sorbet, as well as a full list of "store-bought is fine" classics that are still extra-special for more impromptu proclamations of love.

More Than Cake: 100 Baking Recipes Built for Pleasure and Community

The best cookbooks are not simply just instructions for making [Insert Meal Here]. They should go well beyond clear-cut instructions and pretty pictures, and that's exactly what More Than Cake by Natasha Pickowicz achieves.

In this expansive baking book, Natasha argues that “dessert is beyond simple calories and nutrition.... It spreads delight in a way that no other kind of dish can...it’s not optional.” And the unique recipes match this ethos, with baked goods that'll expand your own baking world and likely bring everyone to the table, like nectarine-miso tarte tatin, tequila-passionfruit layer cakes, and black cardamom-studded pecan sticky buns.

Midwestern Food: A Chef’s Guide to the Surprising History of a Great American Cuisine, with More Than 100 Tasty Recipes

Think you know all there is to know about the cuisines of the U.S. (or even the Midwest)? Think again, because chef Paul Fehribach is proving that Midwestern food is way more than just tater tot hot dish.

Examining his own Indiana roots, Fehribach takes on the task of documenting and tracking the diverse foodways and migrations of the Midwest, while also dispelling common myths and bringing forward all the powerful players in the midwest's culinary scene. Along the trail, you'll find plenty of dishes to keep you from going too hungry on this trek across the region, like Midwestern barbecue classics, watermelon rind pickles, and pawpaw chiffon pie.

Kung Food: Chinese American Recipes from a Third-Culture Kitchen

If there's anything to look forward to in 2024 and beyond, it's the creative and unexpected third-culture cuisines that'll change the way you cook at home. One of the best examples of this is Jon Kung's Kung Food, where the TikTok-viral Los Angeles-born chef re-examines Chinese-American food along with the influences of Hong Kong and Toronto, where he grew up to bring it to the present.

Playful and inspiring, these recipes (which include curried mac and cheese, "snacky snacks" like sesame shrimp toast, and dan dan lasagna) are a delicious journey in itself.

Bake Smart: Sweets and Secrets from My Oven to Yours

I've long sworn by Samantha Seneviratne's baking know-how (if not just after baking her recipe for peach focaccia with thyme), so I basically sprinted to buy her newest book, Bake Smart. What I love most about this book is that it shows that baking is not 100 percent a science; there's plenty of room for riffing once you get a few bits of technique nailed down. If you think baking is "not your thing," Bake Smart will convince you it is, and a pleasurable one at that (with very little fussiness or long-winded directions, too). I mean, how could you not feel confident with your baking skills once you try her recipe for burnt caramel basque cheesecake? I rest my case.

Portico: Cooking and Feasting in Rome's Jewish Kitchen

If you're looking to go ever deeper into your love of Italian cooking and Jewish foodways, Leah Koenig's tour of Rome's Jewish community should be the next stop, especially as a tight-knit community marked creativity despite centuries of persecution.

Portico is a true two-for-one special, with an exploration of the history and heart, alongside enchanting recipes that define the neighborhood, like honey-soaked matzo fritters, Jewish-style fried artichokes, and semolina gnocchi gratin.

Veg-table: Recipes, Techniques, and Plant Science for Big-Flavored, Vegetable-Focused Meals

Nik Sharma's Veg-Table is more than proof that vegetables are no longer just being relegated to side dishes. Far from it!

With his signature scientific eye and eminently cookable recipes, Sharma breaks down just how expansive it can be when it comes to cooking vegetables for vegetarians and omnivores alike (his chicken katsu with poppy seed slaw is reason enough to buy this cookbook, TBH). If your cooking has been in need of some maximalist punch, Veg-Table is about to shake up how cook anything from onions to endive.

Flavor Kitchen: Vibrant Recipes with Creative Twists

If there's anyone I trust, it's basically any baker who has ever appeared on The Great British Bake-Off. Especially when they've received the "Hollywood Handshake", which is absolutely the case for former finalist Crystelle Pereira.

Flavor Kitchen argues that not only do you need to make space for this cookbook on your shelf, but in your pantry, too, because your cooking toolbox is about to overflow with condiments and spices that reflect the heat and vibrance of Pereira's Portuguese-Goan roots. My current to-cook shortlist is essentially straight from my dogeared copy of Flavor Kitchen, and I think yours soon will be too, once you try her recipes for spanakopita mac & cheese, tahini and coffee-date rice pudding, and red Thai chicken pot pie.

Latinísimo: Home Recipes from the Twenty-One Countries of Latin America: A Cookbook

This year we've traveled (via cookbooks) already to Taiwan, Minneapolis, and Lagos. Next up? We'll be heading across the 21 countries of Latin America, thanks to Sandra A. Gutierrez's Latinísimo.

Divided by the over two dozen ingredients that star in cuisines across the continent (like beans, yucca, and corn, and vanilla), Latinísimo is an exhaustive guide to the region and serves up over 300 dishes with a side of history, from A to V (Argentina to Venezuela). Plus, the easy recipes are practical for everyday home cooks wanting to perfect their arepas game as well as those who've waited long for an encyclopedic guide to all things Latin America.

Tenderheart: A Cookbook About Vegetables and Unbreakable Family Bonds

2023 was clearly the year that vegetables received many, many love letters, and no cookbook was more clear about its vegetable love than Hetty Lui McKinnon's Tenderheart. If you, like me, love it when cookbooks get personal and memoir-adjacent, Tenderheart is the down-to-earth cookbook that examines how we cook with vegetables and connect with others through food. Even if you're just in the market for new vegetarian, weeknight-friendly dinners, Tenderheart will keep you full all the way into 2024 with its recipes for choy sum feta galette, charred broccoli reuben salad, and cauliflower adobo.

The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z

Especially in a world where food waste is sadly way too widespread (40 percent of the food we buy gets thrown away), I'm so glad that cookbooks like The Everlasting Meal Cookbook: Leftovers A-Z are taking this issue task. Dare I say it, this cookbook make leftovers look so good? Flip to any page of this 1,500 recipe-stacked book and you're guaranteed to find something that'll fancy up whatever is languishing in your fridge and make you feel like a kitchen magician (like turning stale donuts into bread pudding, cheesecake into milkshakes, and french fries into frittatas).

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