
Best Vegan Cookbook For Healthy Meals At Home
Publushed by:
TamaraLast updated:
January 20, 2022
EDITOR’S CHOICE
The Korean Vegan Cookbook
- New York Times Best-Seller
- Top-quality paper
- Photos in all recipes
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EDITOR’S CHOICE
Simply Delicious Vegan Cookbook
- Notes for allergies
- Easy-to-follow
- Great for everyone
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EDITOR’S CHOICE
Isa Does It, Wildly Delicious Vegan Recipes
- 150 recipes
- Full-color images
- Ideal for beginners
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There are many good reasons to start a vegan diet.
It’s good for the environment, it can help you to lose weight, and it focuses on plant-based foods that offer numerous health benefits. It’s also beneficial for you if you have allergies, such as sensitivities to dairy products.
How do you start a vegan diet?
Despite its various benefits, starting a vegan diet isn’t always easy. If you’ve been eating animal-based products your whole life it can be very difficult to make the transition into a vegan diet.
Purchasing a vegan cookbook can help you to learn more about this lifestyle choice and how to make healthy and delicious vegan meals in the comfort of your home.
Here’s our rundown of the best vegan cookbook, along with four high-quality alternatives to help you embrace veganism.
Best Overall: The Korean Vegan Cookbook
Short summary
This book was an instant New York Times bestseller and has been praised by a variety of top publications, such as Spruce Eats, Food52, and Toronto Star.
It’s written by Joanne Lee Molinaro, vegan author and blogger, who explores how to combine being Korean with veganism in this personal cookbook that contains her favorite Korean dishes.
Although Korean cuisine is usually filled with animal-based ingredients, there are many that are plant-based and delicious, and this book will teach you about them.
You’ll love learning how to enjoy Korean foods in a vegan way, as well as the journey through Joanne’s favorites foods, such as the Gamja Guk (potato and leek soup) that her father makes or the Jjajangmyun (Korean-Chinese black bean noodles) that she used to enjoy on her birthdays.
With pictures of the delicious recipes included in the book as well as photos of the author’s family, this feels like an autobiography and cookbook in one that you’ll enjoy indulging in.
This cookbook has been designed beautifully with top-quality paper and photos to make it the ideal gift for a vegan home cook in your life, while also making working through it a more enjoyable experience.
Quick Facts
- Author: Joanne Lee Molinaro
- Pages: 336
- Cover Type: Hardcover
Pros
- The recipes are accessible, with easy-to-source ingredients
- This best vegan cookbook for beginners comes in Kindle and audiobook formats
- This cookbook contains information about ingredients, such as how to store them and the best brands to purchase
- Every recipe included in the book has a photo so you can see how it turns out
- The recipe instructions are clear and easy to follow, which is great for beginners
Cons
- The light brown text on the white page can be difficult to read
- Some people have reported quality issues with the book they received
- Some people have noticed a few errors in some of the recipes
Runner-Up: Simply Delicious Vegan Cookbook
Short summary
This book gives you a wealth of plant-based recipes that are filled with flavor while being healthy, and best of all they don’t cost a lot of money to make. Author Caitlin Shoemaker is a health-world influencer, vegan, and creator of the From My Bowl blog.
You’ll love that her approach is friendly and casual. She proves that cooking vegan foods doesn’t have to be difficult or stressful.
There’s also a misconception that vegan foods are boring or bland – this cookbook strives to show readers that this is certainly not the case.
The recipes included in her book include gluten-free, oil-free, and refined sugar-free recipes, so they’re not just suitable for a vegan diet but others that eliminate popular ingredients.
Some delicious recipes you’ll learn from the cookbook include green curry soup with zucchini noodles, no-bake brownies, sheet pan teriyaki bowls, and more.
The great thing about this book is that even if you’re not embarking on a vegan diet you’ll find healthy, wholesome recipes that help you make nutritious yet delicious comfort food.
Not only does the author provide delicious vegan recipes, but she also offers her personal tips to help you lead a happy vegan life.
Quick Facts
- Author: Caitlin Shoemaker
- Pages: 240
- Cover Type: Hardcover
Pros
- The author provides notes for people with nut allergies and appropriate ingredient substitutions
- The author’s friendly, sometimes humorous tone makes it fun to follow her recipes
- She focuses on whole foods as well as pantry staples, so the ingredients aren’t difficult to source
- Some of the recipes are those the author has featured on her blog, but with an extra twist, so there’s something new for her fans
- The recipes don’t have long ingredient lists or take a long time to cook
Cons
- Some of the recipes in this best rated vegan cookbook produce large quantities of food for just one person
- Some people have said the cookbook is more appropriate for beginners
- There are recipes that require the use of special tools or kitchen equipment
Alternative: Isa Does It, Wildly Delicious Vegan Recipes
Short summary
The author of this book provides vegan recipes, tips, as well as strategies to help you produce simple yet delicious meals at home. She’s America’s best-selling vegan cookbook and it’s clear to see why.
The recipes are easy to follow and you can do them in half an hour or less. The book contains 150 recipes that include sweet potato red curry with rice and purple kale, summer seitan saute with cilantro and lime, chunky miso vegetable soup, and bistro beet burgers.
There’s a good variety of vegan meals that you’ll be able to make from scratch with ingredients you can easily source from your local supermarket.
This cookbook is beautiful. It’s made with high-quality paper and includes beautiful pictures of the recipes. These images are full-color, full-page photos that appear in generous amounts throughout the book.
Although ideal for beginners who want to learn their way around vegan cooking, the book also contains a bit more complicated recipes so it’s great for beginners and experienced home chefs alike.
The book is also colorful with different background colors that make it vibrant and fun to have in your kitchen.
Quick Facts
- Author: Isa Chandra Moskowitz
- Pages: 320
- Cover Type: Hardcover
Pros
- This cookbook includes quick and easy meals for weekdays and recipes that take a bit longer for weekends
- Many of the recipes in the book are easy for beginners to follow
- With some basic pantry staples, you’ll be able to cook many of the recipes in this book
- The recipes are easy to follow with clear instructions so you don’t have to feel overwhelmed about cooking them
- The author of this easy vegan cookbook is skilled at breaking down the recipe steps and providing suggestions for esoteric ingredients
Cons
- The book only comes in hardcover format
- Some people have said that the book’s font is a bit too small
- There are not many bread or sweet recipes included
Alternative: Fuss-Free Vegan
Short summary
If you ever thought that vegan cooking was difficult or required you to source ingredients that aren’t readily available from your local grocery store, then this cookbook will change your mind.
Author Sam Turnbull has made it her mission to show you that vegan food is not a less-satisfying alternative to animal product-based dishes. You can enjoy delicious, satisfying meals that are so good even non-vegans will love them.
This book is focused on recreating the dishes the author loved the most when she wasn’t vegan, such as fluffy and delicious pancakes, pizza pockets, mac and cheese, chocolate brownies, and pumpkin pie.
This quality cookbook contains 101 recipes that are creative yet guaranteed to succeed, and they include ideas for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
There are also snacks, appetizers, desserts, and vegan staples included. What’s especially great about this book is that it includes convenient menu plans as well as tips so that you can take your recipes to an even higher level of deliciousness.
For increased convenience, the book is spiral bound so that it will stay open on the recipe you’re working on without you losing your place. It’s the perfect home cook’s companion!
Quick Facts
- Author: Sam Turnbull
- Pages: 232
- Cover Type: Spiral-bound
Pros
- The book comes in formats besides spiral bound: you can get it in Kindle and paperback editions
- The cookbook comes with large, beautiful images for every recipe
- The recipes are written clearly and simply so that they’re easy to follow
- The author includes helpful tips and techniques to help you along
- The author’s tone is bubbly and friendly, so you’ll feel like you’re cooking with a friend
Cons
- Some recipes that use vegan cheese require you to first make the cheese yourself
- If you’re experienced with cooking vegan dishes you might find this book is more suitable for beginners
- Many recipes contain ingredients such as white flour which might not be suitable for your diet plan
Alternative: The Plant-Based Cookbook
Short summary
If you want a vegan cookbook that’s focused on featuring less fat and oil, this one’s right for you. It concentrates on plant-based and whole foods that are healthy but without being bland.
Interestingly, the author, Ashley Madden, used to be a pharmacist and she’s now a plant-based chef as well as a certified holistic nutritional consultant.
After receiving a multiple sclerosis diagnosis, she decided to change the way she sees food – and now she can help you to do the same when you’re embarking on a vegan journey.
This cookbook is more than a vegan cookbook. It accommodates a variety of dietary requirements. All of the recipes included in this book are free of dairy, gluten, and oil.
The recipes you’ll be able to learn to make include cheese balls, carrot cake, no-bake cinnamon rolls, creamy pasta, and more.
The book also includes a variety of helpful information, such as how much time you’ll need for each recipe, how to freeze the foods you’ve made, and how to set up a plant-based pantry.
It’s sure to become a staple in your kitchen, helping you to produce healthier meals for your family, whether or not you’re vegan.
Quick Facts
- Author: Ashley Madden
- Pages: 280
- Cover Type: Hardcover
Pros
- The book comes in Kindle format, which is great to have on the go!
- This cookbook is sturdy with thick pages, which shows it’s of a high quality
- Although the recipes are creative, the ingredients to make them are easy to source
- The recipes are short so you don’t have to spend a lot of time cooking healthy meals
- The photos in the book are beautiful and crisp
Cons
- The book doesn’t come in a paperback version
- Some people have said the recipes don’t contain a lot of originality
- Some people have reported issues with the quality of the print
Vegan Cookbook FAQ
There are many high-quality books available online and at your local bookstore on how to learn and embrace vegan cooking at home, so you don’t have to rely on processed vegan foods that can be filled with sugar and other unhealthy ingredients.
If you’re new to vegan diets, here are some important things to know about them.
What are the rules of a vegan diet?
A vegan diet doesn’t contain any animal-based products. This means that if you’re following a vegan diet you can’t eat any foods that are derived from animals, such as chicken, fish, shellfish, beef, lamb, pork, milk, yogurt and other dairy products, and eggs.
Other ingredients, such as mayonnaise and honey, are also not considered vegan. The focus of a vegan diet is that only plant-based foods are allowed. These include fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts.
Other foods that you can eat on the vegan diet include:
- vegetable oils
- legumes such as beans, lentils, and peas
- seeds
- breads
- rice
- pasta
- dairy alternatives, such as almond and soy milk
Some important rules to follow when starting a vegan diet include the following to ensure that you’ll get all the nutrients your body needs.
- Buy fresh produce that’s in season. This will make it easier to get your daily servings of healthy fruit and vegetables, and will also help you when cooking vegan foods at home because the ingredients will be more accessible to you.
- Get enough fiber. You might be filling up on pasta, but it’s not enough to ensure you get fiber from healthy sources. Include fresh produce, legumes, seeds, nuts, and ancient grains in your diet so that you avoid processed foods.
- Bring more protein into your diet. Choose protein-rich foods, such as delicious chickpeas, tofu, quinoa, nuts, and lentils.
- Make whole foods a priority. Whole foods are natural foods that are minimally processed, so they’re unrefined and therefore have more of their nutrients intact.
Can vegans eat products that may contain milk?
While being vegan means that you’ll want to avoid all animal-derived milk and other dairy products, sometimes this isn’t always a guarantee that the food you’re eating doesn’t contain milk.
If a product doesn’t have milk listed in its ingredients but its label states that it “may contain milk” or “may contain traces of milk,” it can be consumed by people following a vegan diet.
Yes, really! This label just means that the food has been produced in a facility where dairy products are produced, which means that there is a risk of cross-contamination.
When thinking about this issue, it’s useful to consider how veganism is defined: veganism seeks to exclude all forms of cruelty and exploitation of animals as far as is possible and practical.
Just because a product could have experienced cross-contamination with dairy, it’s certainly not the same as it is labeled as containing dairy.
Do you lose weight eating vegan?
A vegan diet can help you to lose some weight as a result of how it removes a variety of foods from your diet, such as meat, eggs, and dairy.
By replacing these with healthier, lower-calorie foods, such as fruits, legumes, and vegetables, can result in weight loss.
Since many foods in the vegan diet contain high amounts of fiber, such as whole grains and fresh produce, this also makes them more filling and satisfying, keeping you fuller for longer. This can contribute to weight loss.
That said, it’s important to realize that focusing on homemade and healthy meals is important if you want to keep your vegan diet nutritious and lose some weight.
Some vegan foods that you can purchase at your local supermarket or fast-food joints usually contain high amounts of sugar, sodium, food additives, fats, and starches, so they are best avoided.
How does veganism change your body?
Starting a vegan diet can result in changes to your body and mind. Here are some of the most positive changes that you can expect.
- You will improve your gut microbiomes: There have been reports on studies that have found people following a vegan diet have healthier gut bacteria in their digestive tracts, and this is said to be as a result of the extra fiber vegans consume from whole grains and vegetables.
- You can improve your heart health: When you’re cutting out animal-based products, such as beef and cheese, this lowers your risk of heart disease as a result of the lower cholesterol and saturated fat in your vegan foods. A study found that death as a result of ischemic heart disease was 24 percent lower in people who didn’t eat meat than those who did.
- You will have more energy: Interestingly, following a vegan diet can help you to boost your energy. This is as a result of how animal-based foods require a lot of energy to be digested as a result of their high quantities of fat and protein. By comparison, a plant-based vegan diet is easier to digest. In addition, eating legumes, nuts, and whole grains boost your energy because of their macronutrients.
- You better manage inflammation: Research has found that following a vegan diet can reduce inflammation, which alleviates symptoms from autoimmune disorders. In addition, having sensitivities to foods like animal products can worsen autoimmune conditions, so by removing them from your diet you can manage and prevent their symptoms, such as skin rashes and joint pain.
- You prevent oxidative stress in the brain: The brain can experience oxidative stress which causes damage to cells, DNA, and proteins. By following an antioxidant-rich diet, this reduces the damage. Since fruits and vegetables that are high in antioxidant properties, such as avocado, tomato, garlic, onion, and berries, form part of the vegan diet, the diet is healthy for the brain.
Conclusion
Vegan diets are healthy and nutritious, but you can pack them with lots of flavor and deliciousness. If you’re not sure how to do this, you should purchase a vegan cookbook.
In this article, we’ve featured five of the best vegan cookbooks so you can start making tasty and healthy meals from scratch that your entire family will love, even if they don’t follow the vegan lifestyle.
Many of the books can also be easily incorporated into other diets, such as the gluten-free or oil-free diet. These books make it easier than ever to start cooking healthier foods from wholesome ingredients.
Resources:
The Korean Vegan Cookbook
New York Times Best-Seller
Top-quality paper
Photos in all recipes
Tamara
Tamara is an avid foodie and successful restaurateur. She has dedicated a large chunk of her life to researching healthy food recipes and diet plans, and also teaching people how to improve their eating habits. Using Eatomology, Tamara shares the very best diet plans, cookbooks, and more. Also, for those on a quest to improve their kitchen, Tamara shares some awesome and high-quality kitchen equipment recommendations as well as buying guides on her website.