The trend towards healthier, plant-based eating has encouraged a proliferation of vegan cookbooks and online recipes, some good, some decidedly less so. That’s a daunting prospect, particularly for those new to the cuisine, because no-one wants to spend ages following a recipe only to find the end result doesn’t look (or taste) anything like what the influencer had on their plate!
So, this guide to the best vegan cookbooks for beginners aims to give you a helping hand because unless you are going to adopt a vegan diet consisting solely of meat substitutes, some know-how about cooking balanced and interesting plant-based meals from scratch is very useful. Thoroughly tried and tested by me, most over several years, all of these titles remain firm and well-used favourites on my cookbook shelf, so I know from personal experience how good they are.
Vegan Mum’s Top Picks
- Best overall: Soph’s Plant Kitchen
- Best traybakes: The Green Roasting Tin
- Best grains: Merchant Gourmet Simple Plant-Based
- Best vegan basics: Rose Elliot’s Complete Vegan
- Best Asian: East by Meera Sodha
- Best no-frills: A Modern Way to Eat
- Best meat alternatives: Bish Bash Bosh
- Best no waste: The Whole Vegetable
Can simple vegan recipes be tasty?
They absolutely can be, yes. It’s all about knowing how to combine certain ingredients, how to get the best out of the vegetable (or alternative protein that you’re cooking with e.g. tofu or tempeh) and understanding some of the flavourings that us vegans use – hands up who’s thinking of ‘nooch‘ right now?!
So, even though I have been vegan for a very, very long time, I still regularly cook up a tasty meal using one of the books listed in this best vegan cookbooks for beginners guide. Over the years, they have all made a valuable contribution to my store of trusted, reliable recipes that:
- don’t take me all day to cook
- are nutritionally well-balanced and tasty
- have been tried and tested
- I go back to time and time again
Here are the Best Vegan Cookbooks for Beginners
It may be controversial but I have included some vegetarian cookery books here, as well as vegan ones.
Why? Because the vegetarian cookbooks listed still contain a good number of vegan recipes, or ones that can be easily veganised even by an inexperienced cook. Not only that, the vegan recipes they contain should not be missed. See the FAQ at the bottom of the blog for more information on how to veganise some of the vegetarian dishes in these books.
A note about Bookshop.org
You will notice I include the option to buy from Bookshop.org. This online store makes a significant financial contribution to all the independent book shops on the High Street, and you can even select your favourite bookshop to receive a % of the proceeds from your purchase. It’s my preferred choice, but I have included Amazon links too.
Soph’s Plant Kitchen
This book by Sophie Waplington quickly found its way to the top of my list. Her recipes are practical, straightforward and nutritionally well-balanced, and she covers everything from tasty breakfasts to snacks, lunches, main meals, and a few batch cook ideas too. And although even the desserts are nutritionally sound, it doesn’t stop them from being extremely tasty and the chocolate chip cookies made with chickpeas (yep, you heard right) are truly delicious – honestly. My 5 year old grandson is a big fan, so believe me, you can’t taste the chickpeas!
‘Fine dining’ it isn’t, but it’s a thoroughly modern approach to plant-based cooking using nuts, beans, grains, vegetables and tofu, with over 100 protein and fibre-rich recipes that will appeal to everyone. And because everyone seems to worry so much about where us vegans get our protein from, you can reassure the doubters with her great ideas for additional protein layering and toppings too like the ones on my worktop in the image below.
If you are going to start with only one book, this would be my recommendation.
The Green Roasting Tin
I love this book and it gets a lot of use in my kitchen because it makes weekday cooking so easy, with minimal prep and even less washing-up. Rukmini Iyer has managed to create so many varied and tasty recipes, all of which are cooked in one roasting tin – genius!
This cookery book is split into vegetarian and vegan recipes, and then helpfully broken down again into timings – quick, medium and slow. The recipes include a mix of store cupboard ingredients and fresh vegetables and are largely nutritious and very well-balanced meals. That means you don’t have to spend too much time wondering if you’re getting enough protein!
She includes recipes for things like a three bean chilli, crispy gnocchi with mushrooms, and an oven-roasted daal – who knew that was a thing?! In those (very few) recipes where protein levels might be a little low, you can always consider adding some cubed tofu or tempeh (coated in a little oil and salt) to the roasting tin for the last 10 minutes or so if that’s a concern.
As for the vegetarian recipes – most can be ‘veganised’. See my FAQ below.
Merchant Gourmet Simple Plant-Based
This Merchant Gourmet plant-based cookbook is a real ‘go-to’ on my cookery book shelves, particularly when I want to include some grains in my diet. You can read Vegan Mum’s thorough Merchant Gourmet’s Plant-Based Cookbook Review for a more in depth look at it too.
The recipes are well thought out, nutritious and balanced, and most are easy to prepare and tasty to eat! Importantly for us vegans (who can spend inordinate amounts of time cooking) it has a good number of recipes that are perfect for mid-week chow-downs when you don’t have a lot of time. Using a mix of store cupboard ingredients and fresh vegetables, these are pretty budget-friendly too.
The downside is that to make these recipes really convenient, they suggest you use packets of Merchant Gourmet pre-cooked grains. They’re great (although I tend to always add a little more seasoning and flavourings to them), and are really quick and easy to use. However, the empty packs need to be recycled through Merchant Gourmet. I try to cook lentils and grains in batches and freeze them instead to avoid this.
Rose Elliot’s Complete Vegan
Rose Elliot is a very experienced cook and writer of recipe books whose recipes got me through 3 successful pregnancies (and subsequent toddler-feeding) many years ago. Sorry Rose, I know that dates you too!
This book supports even the most inexperienced vegan, helping you to make your own basic ingredients like nut milks, and vegan cheese and cream alternatives, but also contains recipes for everyday (think vegan macaroni cheese), as well as classics like yorkshire puddings and meringues.
I think this is an essential for anyone who is just starting out on their vegan journey and who might be a relatively inexperienced cook – the classic ‘vegan bible’.
East by Meera Sodha
OK, this will call for a more extensive list of store cupboard ingredients including chilli powder, cumin, and a variety of whole spices. However, most are readily available in supermarkets. They won’t sit in your cupboard and go to waste either because I guarantee you’ll want to cook so many of the recipes in this cookbook by Meera Sodha, you will plough your way through them very quickly.
And don’t let the lists of more exotic ingredients put you off. Meera Sodha writes in a very engaging way and has managed to simplify a huge range of Asian dishes that would otherwise be quite off-putting for someone new to the cuisine.
But not only are they relatively easy to make; to me at least, they taste authentic, and, well…just very, very tasty!
You can read more details about this wonderful cookbook in my review of East by Meera Sodha.
It does have some vegetarian recipes in it but again, take a look at the FAQ at the bottom of this guide to read more about how to veganise recipes.
A Modern Way to Eat by Anna Jones
This lovely book by Anna Jones is so inviting to look through and contains lots of recipes that are healthy, nutritious and easy to make, using recognisable ingredients.
She has written a number of cookbooks since, but this one is worth buying for the Proper Chilli recipe alone. What a crowd-pleaser, packed with protein and powerhouse ingredients. What’s more, although it makes a very large pot full, it freezes really successfully. Eat with baked potatoes, rice, flatbreads, or just on its own. It’s a real winner, honestly.
It’s definitely not the only recipe worth doing in this book though – there are plenty of other delicious meals to be had, so comes highly recommended.
Again, there are vegetarian recipes in here too, many of which I regularly veganise – see FAQs below.
Bish Bash Bosh
This is a visually pleasing vegan cookery book by Henry Firth and Ian Theasby. It contains straightforward recipes with a very wide appeal – even to meat-eaters – including:
- cauliflower buffalo wings
- bhaji burgers
- jackfruit tacos
- thai red curry
If there is an issue with the book for a beginner, it’s probably that the recipes aren’t nutritionally balanced so you do need to give that some thought – adding a form of protein to the thai red curry for example (think tofu or tempeh maybe). Also, I know that some people have taken issue with how the recipes are written. For instance, you need to read the recipe text to know the onion needs chopping, so I’d suggest always reading it through first to understand what prep needs doing.
This might be a bit of an irritation, but it’s still a really good book with tasty vegan recipes to have on your shelf!
The Whole Vegetable
I think this cookbook, with its sustainable no-waste recipes, is very clever and reminds us that parts of vegetables commonly thrown away can actually be very tasty.
I also make great use of it when I’m faced with a vegetable glut; I try to eat seasonally which means that sometimes, there are only so many ways I can think of cooking beetroot! However, this book has lots of different and simple ideas, like this roasted beetroot with a bean dip pictured.
Many of the dishes are quite well-balanced nutritionally, but there may be times when you want to add a bit of protein in the form of tofu or tempeh if you feel the need. See my tempeh bacon recipe and tempeh protein balls recipe for a bit of inspiration.
FAQs
Are vegan and plant-based cookery books the same?
Well, generally yes, although exercise caution. Theoretically, the different diets can be defined as below. However, I’m not guaranteeing you won’t see different explanations!
- Vegan diet: generally means that the individual has made an ethical choice to avoid the use of any animal products, either dietary or lifestyle, because they believe it is wrong to use animals to fulfil any human need or purpose. So, that means not eating any animal products of any description, not wearing leather items like shoes and belts, avoiding ingredients like lanolin in cosmetics, and anything else that uses animal by-products – like certain glues for example. Here at Vegan Mum, we are definitely in this camp!
- Plant-based: generally defined as an environmental choice rather than an ethical one. So whilst the diet might generally eliminate all animal products, the individual may decide not to avoid animal-derived, non-food products. Consequently, they may still wear leather shoes for example, or not worry about using things that contain animal by-products like cosmetics. So theoretically, from a dietary perspective, plant-based diets (and plant-based cookery books!) are interchangeable with vegan diets (and vegan cookery books!) so you will see some here in my best vegan cookbooks for beginners guide. However, you can sometimes see ‘plant-based’ diets cross over with ‘flexitarian’ and ‘vegetarian’ diets…
- Vegetarian: Vegetarians generally, like vegans, believe that it is wrong to eat animals. However, they do not believe that eating animal by-products such as milk, cheese and eggs is wrong, and so will still eat them. Why do vegans get cross with vegetarians? No, it’s not the start of a joke! It’s true, I’m afraid we do. The consumption of dairy products and eggs most definitely DOES harm animals – come on you vegetarians, you’re almost there! Vegan cheese and vegan milk is really good nowadays. And who knows what fermentation processes will do in the future to create things like eggs? Anyway, rant over…and some vegetarian recipe writers have still made it to my best vegan cookbooks for beginners guide.
How to veganise recipes
Here are some suggestions from Vegan Mum on how to veganise recipes:
Use cubed firm tofu, tempeh or soya chunks to replace:
- paneer
- small pieces of meat
Use tinned jackfruit or shredded oyster mushrooms to replace:
- pulled pork
Use nutritional yeast to provide:
- cheesy flavours
Blend silken tofu with garlic and onion granules to make:
- creamy sauces
Use plant-based milks with flour and vegan butter to make:
- bechamel/white sauces
Use soya mince, or minced mushrooms mixed with cooked puy lentils to replace:
- minced beef
Use tinned banana blossom to make:
- fishcakes
Use tempeh to replace:
- meat strips and chunks
Which Ottolenghi book is best for vegan recipes?
I love Yotam Ottolenghi’s food, and although he is not vegan, most of his recipes are vegetable-based and easy for an experienced cook to veganise.
However, simple they are not, so for that reason they don’t make my guide to the best vegan cookbooks for beginners! So, if you are just starting out on your vegan journey, you may find them a bit overwhelming, although I strongly recommend that you work towards them; I am a huge fan of Ottolenghi’s recipe books and his food is inimitable. However, if you’re keen to give him a go, here are 3 recommendations:
Is it a good idea to have a vegan food plan?
It depends on what type of cook you are. But when you are first starting out on a vegan diet, planning may be a very good idea to ensure you are getting all the right nutrients.
Take a look at the Vegan Society’s meal planning page to find out more.
More Vegan Mum food articles
I hope you have enjoyed this guide to the best vegan cookbooks for beginners. I love writing about food, so there are plenty of other guides and reviews to choose from. Here’s a selection
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