Cookbooks make great gifts! Find one for everyone on your list—from the home baker to the salad lover to the person who can’t get enough pasta.
Every year, I buy cookbooks to give as holiday gifts. They’re some of my favorite presents for people who love to cook. Filled with bright photography, mouthwatering recipes, and the author’s personal insights, they provide me with tons of inspiration in the kitchen, and I love to share that with others.
So many wonderful cookbooks are coming out these days that you can find the perfect one for everyone on your list—from the baker to the meal prepper to the person who just got back from Italy and is on an all-pasta diet.
I’ve rounded up some of my favorite cookbooks to gift in 2025 below. If you’re still looking for the right gift for the cook on your list, I’m sure you’ll find it here!
Disclosure: I earn a small commission on items purchased. I’ve included Amazon links below, but by all means, take this list and go support your local bookstore!
The Best Cookbooks to Gift in 2025
The Best Gift for Busy Cooks
My latest cookbook, Simple Feel Good Food is designed to make it easy to get produce-packed meals on the table. It features two types of recipes. Half are “at-the-ready” recipes that you can toss together with simple ingredients, and half are “in advance” recipes that you can meal prep.
All 125 of them are packed with fresh veggies—my definition of feel-good food.
More fun features:
- Mix and match charts like a Guide to Lasagna Layers and a Guide to Grain Bowls
- 8 plant and pantry meal plans that include three recipes with a shared grocery list. Leftover components from one day flow into the next to simplify your prep!
The Best Gift for Vegetable Lovers
My second cookbook, Love & Lemons Every Day is a comprehensive resource for vegetarian cooking. Organized into chapters by meal type, it includes recipes for any and every day, from busy weekdays to holiday celebrations.
More fun features:
- Quick meal inspiration, like 5 easy toss-together pastas and 6 veggie scrambles
- Handy reference charts, like a giant grid of 5-ingredient salad dressings and a guide to roasting any vegetable
The Best Gift for People Who Need Weeknight Dinner Ideas
London-based author Meera Sodha wrote her new book Dinner after a long stretch of cooking burnout. It includes the easy (yet flavor-packed) recipes that got her back into the kitchen and cooking dinner for her family.
The book is entirely vegetarian, and in addition to 100+ dinner recipes, it has a tempting dessert section!
The Best Gift for Salad Lovers
Hetty McKinnon‘s new cookbook Linger is dedicated to salads, but not the boring kind. These are vibrant, inventive salads that will make you want to head to the farmers market and cook with the season’s best produce (though I can vouch that they taste great with regular grocery store veggies too).
The Best Gift for Home Chefs—And People Who Love to Read Cookbooks
You might know Samin as the author of Salt Fat Acid Heat. Her new book Good Things is a celebration of sharing simple meals with your closest people. It’s full of her favorite everyday recipes, with plenty of valuable cooking lessons along the way.
It’s a great choice for home chefs who love to make recipes their own. Samin gives you plenty of creative license and tips to adapt her ideas to your kitchen and tastes!
I also have to mention that it’s worth a read from cover to cover—Samin’s writing is just as delightful as her recipes.
The Best Gift for Cooks on a Budget
I’ve been a fan of Gena, the creator of the blog The Full Helping, for years. I think her new book A Grain, A Bean, A Green is her best yet! All the recipes are built around this trio of basic ingredients, forming a collection of affordable, highly nutritious, and flavorful meals that cooks of all levels can master.
The Best Gift for Cooks Who Love Bright, Bold Flavors
I got an advance copy of Tahini Baby last year, and I was immediately smitten with the fresh, delicious, Middle Eastern-inspired dishes inside.
Written by Eden Grinshpan, the host of Top Chef Canada and creator behind Eden Eats, it feels like a party between two covers. The veg-forward recipes are casual, yet elevated, and packed with flavor. You (or the cook you give it to) won’t know what to try first.
The Best Gift for Cooks Who Love Tahini as Much as I Do
Rachel Simons is the founder of the tahini brand Seed+Mill, which, if you haven’t tried it, is some of the best tahini on the market. Her new cookbook goes beyond tahini and documents the history of sesame itself, including 80 plant-forward recipes that show it off at its best.
The Best Gift for Pasta Lovers
We all have someone in our lives who could eat pasta every day: this cookbook is for them! It’s written by James Beard award winner Joshua McFadden, who you might know from his debut cookbook Six Seasons.
Six Seasons of Pasta is two things: a practical guide to cooking better pasta dishes at home, and a manual for filling them with seasonal vegetables.
I should mention that the book itself isn’t entirely vegetarian, but there are many produce-driven recipes that plant-forward eaters will love.
The Best Gift for Cooks Who Love Recipes with a Story
If you follow Joanne Molinaro, aka The Korean Vegan, on Tiktok or Instagram, you’re familiar with her signature storytelling style: videos of mouthwatering recipes accompanied by voiceovers that tell personal stories.
Joanne marries both—recipes and stories—in her new book The Korean Vegan Homemade, a collection of the recipes she turns to most often at home.
Some of the recipes are “totally Korean,” while others are fusion or, as Joanne writes, “not really Korean at all.” Cooks who love big flavors and plant-based ingredients will want to try every recipe here. I mean, Vegan Kimchi Mac and Cheese? Sign me up!
The Best Gift for Bakers Who Want to Fall in Love with Middle Eastern Classics
Maureen Abood’s first cookbook, Rose Water and Orange Blossoms, is one of my all-time favorites, and I was so excited to see her second book, Lebanese Baking, come out this fall.
It’s an authoritative guide to Lebanese baking, including an overview of traditional ingredients to stock in your pantry, ample tips and step-by-step photos, and recipes for classic dishes like baklava, pita, and more. Any home baker will learn from and love this book.
The Best Gift for Beginning Bakers
Sally’s Baking 101 is a new release from Sally McKenney, creator of the popular blog Sally’s Baking Addiction. Sally has a wealth of baking knowledge, and she shares so much in this invaluable baking book.
It includes sweet and savory recipes for bakers of all levels, plus tons of tips and resources to advance your baking. I’m off to try her Lemon Lavender Olive Oil Cake stat!
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