Sign up to our free weekly newsletter for insider tips and product reviews from our shopping expertsSign up for our free IndyBest emailSign up for our free IndyBest email
Whether you’re partial to cheese, vegan-curious, accomplished baker in need of a challenge, or just after recipes that will breathe new life into your repertoire, there’s a cookbook for you. Owing to the sheer breadth of these cookery tomes, it may be difficult to narrow them down to what you’ll find most useful, but that’s where this guide can help.
If you’re looking for dishes to serve up while entertaining, you need to flick through something like Cooking: Simply and Well, for One or Many by Jeremy Lee. Meanwhile, a cookery tome such as Ixta Belfrage’s Mezcla: Recipes to Excite will lend ample inspiration when it comes to colourful, adventurous dishes. But if it’s vegan and a little vegetarian food you’re looking for, take a look at Georgina Hayden’s Nistisima, and find recipes from Cyprus, Greece, Syria, and beyond.
What makes a cookbook a firm favourite for you will depend on the foods that make your mouth water, but more often, some of the best cookbooks worth keeping on stand-by in the kitchen will take you beyond the ingredients on the plate, to the culture and history behind it. Here, we’ve shared the best cookbooks that we’ve tried and tested.
How we tested
open image in gallery
The cookbooks reviewed for this guide (Susan Low)
Choosing just 10 cookbooks was a torturous exercise of fervid comparison and agonised debate. We were on the lookout for books that will be absolute keepers – the ones you’ll still be using a decade from now. We valued those likely to top wish lists, too – books that would produce a thrill of excitement when the fancy wrapping paper was torn off.
We also highly rated books that broke new ground, that showed originality, great writing and gave fresh insight into food and culture. It goes without saying the recipes tested had to taste great, too.
The result? A round-up of cookbooks to see you peacefully into the new year and the years to come.
The best cookbooks for 2024 are:
Best cookbook overall – ‘Home Food: Recipes to Comfort and Connect’ by Olia Hercules, published by Bloomsbury: £18.38, Amazon.co.ukBest for a slice of social history – ‘West Winds: Recipes, History and Tales from Jamaica’ by Riaz Phillips, published by DK: £18.38, Amazon.co.ukBest for keen entertainers – ‘Cooking: Simply and Well, for One or Many’ by Jeremy Lee, published by 4th Estate: £25, Amazon.co.ukBest for adventurous cooks – ‘Mezcla: Recipes to Excite’ by Ixta Belfrage, published by Ebury Press: £22.59, Amazon.co.ukBest for cheese-lovers – ‘A Portrait of British Cheese’ by Angus D. Birditt, published by Quadrille: £18.52, Amazon.co.uk