The best Vegetable Cooking books: Reddit reviews

From 3.5 billion Reddit comments

Recipe credit: https://www.amazon.com/How-Cook-Everything-Vegetarian-Anniversary/dp/1118455649

This book is amazing, and it has really changed my perspective on eating a vegetarian diet. It's not as hard as I thought, but there are still some challenges.

Over the last couple weeks I've decided to reduce my meat consumption, beginning with replacing about 3-5 meals per week with something vegetarian. Some of the local restaurants are tricky because I'm not much of a salad person (I like salads, I just hate ordering them out), and outside of salads in the southern US vegetarian options are limited in a lot of spots.

Recipe summarized:

2Tbsp olive oil

1.5 lbs of your favorite vegetables (in this pic I used zucchini, yellow squash, broccoli, and carrots)

3/4C heavy cream

fresh grated parmesan

1 lb. of your favorite pasta (cooked) (we like the mini penne)

S/P to taste

Red chili flakes (if desired) - my wife doesn't like spicy, so I omit)

my modifications: fresh garlic to the mix after the cream and parmesan is added I also add dried oregano and fresh chopped basil

Oil in skillet

Sizzle the red chili flakes until fragrant

Add any root veggies if you're using them (you want them in there first to soften up) 5 minutes before your other veggies

Add other veggies

Cook and stir for 5 minutes - salt and pepper

Add in 3/4c heavy cream, 1c fresh grated parmesan, and however much fresh minced garlic you want (I use 3-4 cloves)

Cook until thickened

Add in 1 lb. of your preferred pasta (save 1 cup of the pasta water)

Stir it in, and add pasta water as needed to loosen the sauce

Garnish with parsley, or whatever you want (I use basil because I'm obsessed with it).

Adding to this, check out America's Test Kitchen The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook. The first section of the book is all about how to cut, use, and cook different vegetables. Check to see if your local library has it. Budget Bytes also has some great and really easy to follow recipes.

I agree with the ATK book posted here by /u/PM_ME_A_FACT, but would also like to add the book "Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi." The ATK book is more of a begginers book than Plenty, but both are great resources.

Plenty on Amazon

It's a recipe out of Fermented Vegetables. You basically make chimmichurri as usual except instead of vinegar, you ferment it. And you don't add oil until you serve it.

Start with a great cookbook. I own this one and recommend it highly (not an affiliate link): https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Vegetarian-Cookbook-Foolproof-Recipes/dp/1936493969

This is an excellent beginner guide that will steer you away from anything with a poisonous look alike.

Mushrooming without Fear

Excellent more advanced guides.

I highly recommend searching for mycology or foraging groups on social media specific to your region and joining a group hunt or doing a tour first.

I'm a veggie and celiac too! I roast a lot of veggies on Sunday and reheat them throughout the week. I don't mind plain steamed broccoli and cauliflower. I buy frozen bags and just put them in the microwave when I get home. Do you have a Mexican restaurant near you? The restaurants near me mostly use corn based products. I agree with other posters here. Amy's frozen dinners are a life saver and omelets for dinner are great. It's an adjustment but I learned to love cooking for myself. I found it to be really stressful ordering out and waiting to get sick. PM me if you want! I'm happy to talk about my experiences.

I found this book to be really helpful.

The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook: A Fresh Guide to Eating Well With 700 Foolproof Recipes

I'm vegetarian. Food never need be boring or bland. Much of Indian cuisine is vegetarian and that food is super spicy (not hot-spicy but tasty spicy).

Two great resources:

• Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian: More Than 650 Meatless Recipes from Around the World: A Cookbook. Invest in this book. It has great info on how to cook beans and vegetable and a zillion recipes from around the world (African, Indonesian, Indian, Chinese). I'll post one of my faves below.
• 101 Cookbooks. This is a blog site with a lot of whole food veg recipes. Gorgeous photos. Fairly simple preps. One of my favorites is her Lemony Chickpea Stir-fry Recipe. *chef's kiss*

Easy recipes include:

• Pan roast a bunch of veggies (onions, eggplant) and make a sandwich with sliced hard boiled egg, fresh spinach, and some spicy mayo (add some cayenne and garlic salt to mayo. Add anything your heart desires, actually!)
• Beans and rice. Use canned black beans. Add a quarter onion, jalapeno, and a few cloves of garlic and let simmer. Beans over rice = full protein. Add some salsa or sour cream.
• Greek yogurt and fruit. Lots of protein. Or make a greek yogurt dip by adding spice blends then dip carrots, celery sticks in it.

Vegetarian eating gets a bad rap because people think they need to replace their usual hunk of meat with tofu or another meat substitute. If you look at cultures that eat vegetarian (India, Buddhist China), you see they eat stews and saucy stir-frys.

Good luck and have fun experimenting!

I am, what I recently learned, is called a semi-vegetarian/flexitarian. I agree with others saying don't try to make substitute meat recipes, they never taste the same and honestly I've never had one that was good. Instead make things that are good on their own. I recommend getting a really good vegetarian or vegan cookbook and experiment with those recipes. Make things where you can add meat if you want it, rather than removing meat for the vegetarian. I recommend How to Cook Everything Vegetarian or Vegan for Everybody (this book is vegan in that it uses things like fake mayo or plant butters, you can easily use real mayo and real butter if you want and then it will just be vegetarian).

Assuming you are in the US, public libraries are a great way to try out a cookbook before purchasing it. Also, if you can afford it, I recommend purchasing a good brand of beans/chickpeas if that is going to be the main protein in a dish, rather than generic brands which I find have a weird texture.

Someone mentioned Sandor Katz's book "The Art of Fermentation", which is basically the bible of fermentation. However, it reads more like a textbook - a reference manual to consult from time to time. If you're looking for something a little more modern with nice pictures and great recipes, I'd recommend these - I own both, and have tried several of the recipes with very tasty results.

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1612124259/

https://smile.amazon.com/Fiery-Ferments-Stimulating-Fermented-Condiments/dp/1612127282/

Suggestion: On the Wiki page, maybe add Fermented Vegetables?

100%. My wife is the most hardcore recycler I know, she knows what they actually recycle, what stuff can't be recycled, and what stuff she has to load into the car and haul off to the specialty recycler by the airport, which she does a couple times a month (styrofoam, etc). She knows it's a drop in the bucket, she knows that for-all-she-knows half of it ends up in a landfill, but she's like "At least I'm doing something", and we're both really conscious about choosing things that are less wasteful. And the big one for us, both serious cooks, trying to only do meat a couple times a week. Re-learning to cook vegetarian and still have awesome meals? That's a "journey" for sure (but thanks Ottoleghi!!)

(She's also like "This is a FOIL-COATED PLASTIC BAG, it does NOT go in the recycling!!!" She's awesome so I just say "yes dear" a lot around here!)

Madhur Jaffrey's books are always good. How about her 'World Vegetarian' book?

Are you opposed to vegetarian? Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian has a ton of vegan recipes and almost everything can be made vegan. Love the tortilla soup.

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman taught me so much. It is really hard to learn to cook from regular cookbooks because most of the recipes use meat and then you have to figure out what to substitute and adjust. This one has everything from everyday things to special meals.

The No Meat Athlete Cookbook

https://www.amazon.com/Meat-Athlete-Cookbook-Plant-Based-Workouts_and/dp/1615192662

Everyday Vegan Cheat Sheet

https://www.amazon.com/Everyday-Vegan-Cheat-Sheet-Plant-Based/dp/1510768653

My wife is using recipes from a book called, Fermented Vegetables by Kirsten K. Shockey and Christopher Shockey.

There are tons of recipes for different krauts, but she like the basic naked kraut.

This is the book on Amazon: https://www.amazon.ca/Fermented-Vegetables-Creative-Fermenting-Chutneys/dp/1612124259/ref=asc_df_1612124259/?tag=googlemobshop-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=292951821317&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=7160782588753962029&hvpone=&hvptw...

https://www.amazon.com/Fermented-Vegetables-Creative-Fermenting-Chutneys/dp/1612124259/ref=sr_1_6?crid=3QMQ23G1INULP&keywords=fermenting+book&qid=1661980624&sprefix=fermenting+boo%2Caps%2C195&sr=8-6

Jesus that is a long link. Fermented Vegetables.... Kirsten and Christopher Shockey.

I am a huge fan of America's test kitchen, and they have their own vegetarian cookbook. It gives some nice blurbs about why the recipes work and also some prep instructions. Jack Bishop of ATK also has a few vegetarian cookbooks as well (his Italian one is particularly good imo).

Another rec, is How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. It's a massive book and as you can expect a ton of recipes. I feel this one is a good book for getting the starting fundamentals. The recipes aren't "blow your mind" good, but they are solid especially for getting the basics down.

Amazon link for America's Test Kichen

Amazon Link How to Cook Everything Vegetarian

Sounds like your nailing it tbh.
Checkout a cookbook called No Meat Athlete, I've found a few new dishes and it's great nutritional advice for rigorous exercise.

Only other advice is you can get frozen edamame which can come in handy when pairing with tofu etc...

Also Huel gang rise up

World Vegetarian by Madhur Jaffery has so much information in it, it is wonderful! I am no longer a vegetarian but still love that cookbook.

https://www.amazon.com/Madhur-Jaffreys-World-Vegetarian-Meatless/dp/0609809237

Minimalist Baker has lots of yummy and simple vegan recipes! She also has a cookbook that I highly recommend Minimalist Baker's Everyday Cooking: 101 Entirely Plant-based, Mostly Gluten-Free, Easy and Delicious Recipes https://www.amazon.com/dp/0735210969/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_9EYD1A5KBJCSBHVGASPC

Congratulations on going vegan!!! 💚💙

Plenty & the follow up Plenty More

Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi https://www.amazon.com/dp/1452101248/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_DAJBNAKKBT48PBE398D8

Gjelina

Gjelina: Cooking from Venice, California (California Cooking, Restaurant Cookbooks, Cal-Med Cookbook) https://www.amazon.com/dp/145212809X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_R224PVYZ96K3HA3RYPM0

Thanks ill check it out!

https://www.amazon.com/Plenty-Vibrant-Vegetable-Recipes-Ottolenghi/dp/1452101248

is this one good? do you know?

Having celiac is a real problem. Seitan is out for you, and more power to you!

OP suggested learning to make tofu, which I've never done. However, I've used tofu for decades and it is relatively easy to digest. Think of it like eggs. Raw eggs are terrible, and so is raw tofu. But, if you know how to cook them, they can make delicious meals.

Find a good vegetarian (you don't have to look into vegan unless you want) cook book - used bookstores often have a lot of them. An excellent one that you can get old or new is:

How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. This book taught me how to bake tofu like they serve at Chinese restaurants, how to fry it, and how to use chickpea flour and many condiments for toppings (again, think of tofu like eggs - you can top them with anything from Hatch green chiles to maple syrup).

I'd say learn to use tofu first, if you haven't already. Then look into making it.

You can even buy tofu in shelf stable tetra boxes that supposedly last a year on the shelf. I think I have another prepping item to stock up on! Honestly, the tetra boxed tofu isn't as good as fresh (tofu is best kept under fresh water), but if I'm hungry it will be just fine. :)

I’ll also add No Meat Athlete Cookbook, this author also recently wrote The Plant Based Athlete. Lots of whole food recipes in this one

>The Mushroom Hunters Field Guide

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1602391602/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_image?ie=UTF8&psc=1

this is one of the books I got. It basically does exactly what you're saying. Goes through a bunch of edible mushrooms and how to make absolutely certain you're not gonna kill yourself. Chicken of the woods, bollets, etc. :)

I got the Audobahn field guide to mushrooms. I'll look around for the one you suggested. Thanks

IDK if you’re the book type but this:

Fermented Vegatables

Doesn’t dive super deep into heavy calculations and the like but gives you info in a layman’s term. Good starter book. 😎

You're welcome.

You will know. It will not smell good, and it will not taste good. If unsure, taste it but don't chew or swallow. Spit it out if it doesn't taste good, then rinse your mouth out with water.

Keep it submerged in a salty brine, and you're golden. I've only thrown away a couple of fermentation projects over the years; celery does not ferment well; it ended up slimy and gross.

Some people like sauerkraut that's sat on the counter for months.

Check out this book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1612124259/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_80NT864T3R9HTPYXWF21

It goes into the history and science behind lacto fermented foods, which is the easiest kind of fermented food to start with. Sauerkraut, kimchi, and more fall under that umbrella. Lacto refers to the bacteria that thrives in salty, anaerobic conditions.

Good luck on your new journey!

Ottolenghi’s books are all great. Beautiful to look at and very creative. He has a new one out, but my favorite (and probably his bestselling) is Plenty. Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi https://www.amazon.com/dp/1452101248/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_i_4d42FbT24HSZH