nikholas 
Even if your meal rotation has a bunch of really good vegetarian options, it’s always fun to try a new recipe for dinner. So we’re thrilled to see a bunch of new vegan and vegetarian cookbooks coming out this spring. Below, you’ll find a few that we’re particularly excited to check out: 15 vegetable-focused books that can help you get dinner on the table tonight, whether you’re just dipping a toe into plant-based eating or you’ve been vegan as long as you can remember.
Plus: Get our guide to more new spring cookbooks, plus baking books and cocktail books.
When George Lee’s grandfather died, he and his family abstained from eating meat for a hundred days as a part of the Buddhist funeral customs. It changed his outlook on food, and eventually he gave up meat for good. The 22-year-old author fills this book with vivid memories, painting a picture of Taiwanese vegetarian cooking by carefully walking you through dish by dish.
If you think of cooking in France as being “too mild, too sous vide, too old school, or too meaty” as Carrie Solomon puts it, it’s time to rethink your concept, especially if you’re looking for vegetarian cooking inspiration. Here, Solomon, who moved to France about 20 years ago, shares her version: radish toasts with herby butter and pickled onions, which she serves for apéro outdoors; steamed asparagus with herbed breadcrumbs and soy milk sabayon; gooey mushroom and potato tartiflette; shaved-carrot tart with fennel dukkah and burrata; ratatouille cooked until it’s jammy, topped with crunchy croutons and poached eggs.
Bon Appétit and Epicurious contributor Chrissy Tracey shares 85 vegan recipes highlighting wild foods like ramps, nettles, pawpaws, mushrooms, knotweed, and pine. You’ll find tempura fiddleheads with miso glaze and chili crisp, hearts of palm “calamari” seasoned with sugar kelp, and banh mi with jackfruit and wild mushroom pâté.
Colorado-based Lanich-LaBrie’s recipes include notes on how to harvest the plants you need and what to swap if your foraging efforts don’t pan out. While this book will mostly appeal to anyone interested in herbalism, the food is beautiful: In spring, Lanich-LaBrie’s wild dandelion pakoras gleam golden with turmeric, in summer, she folds nasturtium blooms and edible rose petals into vegetable-stuffed rice paper rolls.
Devlukia-Shetty, a clinical dietician with training in Ayurveda, shares plant-based recipes for every meal, including a riff on the English fry-up with smoky eggplant bacon, a chickpea-flour-based substitute for paneer that’s marinated with tandoori spices and baked for tacos, and an entire chapter of savory soups.
Hage, the author of The Lebanese Kitchen, The Middle Eastern Vegetarian Cookbook, The Mezze Cookbook, and Middle Eastern Sweets, collects and reimagines meatless recipes from across Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, and Turkey here. There are snacks and small plates like beet muhammara and spring rolls filled with halloumi and za’atar; baharat-rubbed mushrooms swaddled in flatbread and tabbouleh made with smoky freekeh.
Chef and culinary instructor Becky Selengut, author of Shroom, Good Fish, and How to Taste, wants you to give eggplant another chance, to try cooking artichokes another way, and to reconsider the radish. But even if you already love cabbage, turnips, burdock, and rutabaga, this book is a treasure trove of cooking ideas that might help you break out of a vegetable routine. First up for me: Glazed Kohlrabi With Pistachio-Sage Streusel and Parmesan.
Yes, you can host a vegetarian Rosh Hashanah and a hearty, meatless Passover seder, especially with this book in hand. Siva turns carrot ribbons into a lox-like topping for bagels, thanks to a nori marinade. Hearts of palm easily mimic whitefish, and matzo balls are present in both vegetarian and vegan form. Can roasted king trumpet mushrooms and extra-firm tofu, cooked with wine, mustard, onions, and ketchup, take the place of Grandma’s brisket? We’re definitely curious enough to give it a try.
“Seasonal produce has been a focal part of Turkish cuisine, along with legumes and wholegrains, for centuries,” writes food writer and cooking instructor Özlem Warren in the introduction to this collection of 85 recipes. She shares pumpkin and chestnut soup topped with nutty sautéed chestnuts, spring onion fritters with fresh mint, and halved eggplants stuffed with sautéed onions, peppers, and grated tomato and baked in lemony olive oil, plus gözleme stuffed with cumin-spiced potatoes and spinach. Every page will make you hungry.
Toriano Gordon shares recipes from his Oakland, California vegan soul food restaurant: smoked plant-based brisket, Smackaroni and Cheese, gumbo, buffalo chicken-fried mushroom po’ boys, and more.
The author of The Vegetable Butcher offers frameworks and recipes for main dish salads, cozy pots of soups and beans (with dynamic crunchy toppings), veggie burgers and sandwiches, grain bowls and sheet-pan meals. The dishes feel both bright and hearty. There’s sweet potato and poblano chili with white beans; lentil and millet-based kofta with cucumber-dill yogurt; and spring asparagus and artichoke paella with olives, smoked paprika, and saffron. It’s a complete vegetarian playbook, ideal for getting you out of that meal-planning rut.
Murielle Banackissa’s savory cornmeal waffles are topped with chopped jalapeños, vegan sausage, and a silken-tofu-based hollandaise. She adds toasted, salted pistachios to a green smoothie, and replaces the meat in Quebec’s signature tourtière with lentils and bulgur. Some dishes here are plant-based versions of recipes from her childhood in the Republic of Congo, others inspired by her life in Montreal and her mother’s Russian and Ukrainian specialties. She wraps up with lots of vegan baking ideas.
Paging through this book emphasizes how many Greek favorites are easily—and often traditionally—meatless. It’s hard to choose between gigantes simmered in a rich tomato sauce or eggplant baked with garlic cloves. (Hint: don’t choose!) Come summer, you’ll want to make the watermelon, onion, and feta salad, soaked with ouzo. The author’s proceeds go to the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre.
Remy Morimoto Park’s journey to health after struggling with disordered eating and substance use consisted, in part, of turning her family’s comfort foods into new vegan and gluten-free recipes. This book shares those recipes: Taiwanese rice stick noodles with cabbage, carrots, and a savory mushroom and walnut crumble, Popcorn Tofu with five-spice and Thai basil, “fridge cleanout” pajeon with scallions and zucchini, plus vegan pizza and tofu-based miso caramel crème brûlée.
Make the vegan dishes from this Los Angeles favorite in your own kitchen, including queso fundido with mushroom-based chorizo, tostadas with jackfruit barbacoa, plus seitan al pastor and oyster mushroom birria.
