Vegetarian and Vegan Cookbooks
The best vegetarian cookbooks and vegan cookbooks are written by people who understand how to cook with plants. Many of the most exciting cookbooks of the last decade come from this category. They’re a far cry from the days when vegetarian recipes were simply attempts to cook meat-based dishes without using meat. Or worse, when a writer just added some eggs and cheese to make sure people were getting enough protein.
Now vegetarian and vegan cookbooks are a fun and dynamic group, attracting some very talented writers. We're always adding flavorful, useful new books to our offerings in order to offer good things to many different types of customers.
Some people have given up animal products completely; others use eggs and dairy in moderation. And then there are many people who buy vegetarian cookbooks simply because they want to eat more vegetables.
Cookbooks for vegetarians are a great way for anyone to diversify their vegetable cooking. Some people are using vegetarian cookbooks for a weekly vegetarian meal, and others are making sure a vegetarian recipe is always on the dinner table.
Great vegetarian cookbooks range from practical weeknight fare to ambitious restaurant-style cooking to deep dives into regional and ethnic cuisines. You can find books here that will help you have dinner on the table quickly, allow you to impress a special dinner guest, or teach you about ancient vegetarian traditions.
If you’re just beginning to explore these types of books, it can help to understand some of the common vocabulary that gets used in describing cookbooks for vegetarians:
- Vegetarian means that the recipes in the book do not use any meat, poultry, or fish. They might contain eggs, dairy products, honey, or other ingredients that can be collected from animals without killing them
- Vegan means no animal products are used whatsoever. That means no eggs, dairy products, or honey
- Plant-based is used interchangeably by publishers; in some cases it means vegan, but some books use “plant-based” in their title or subtitle when they simply contain a preponderance of non-animal products. Because most of our customers use “plant-based” to mean “vegan,” we always try to mention when a book that calls itself plant-based is not vegan.