The Best Vegetarian Cookbooks from Around the World
Travel around the world from your own kitchen with the best vegetarian cookbooks.
Cooking Yourself Abroad
We get it – you can’t go to every country. That would be madness (although impressive). Maybe your food dreams are bigger than your bank account or your holiday allowance. You probably torment yourself by following all your favourite restaurants on the globe on Instagram. An endless stream of mouth-watering photos from a food world you are desperate to lose yourself in.
Unfortunately you might not possess the means or time to visit all these beautiful countries. But you’re desperate. You need to try the food. We feel your pain – practically every time we scroll through our feed. Sometimes the next best option, other than going to the country itself of course, is to give it a go at home. Especially if you live out in the sticks or in some small town where a local quality Japanese restaurant opening, just isn’t going to happen.
Learn from the Best
Why not try concocting the delicious food from around the world yourself? Using the best tips and recipes from the people who know better. After all the best vegetarian cookbooks have been curated from a lifelong passion and love of that particular cuisine. By the people who have dived into a culture and pulled out the best vegetarian options from their adventures. Or, even better, the chefs that truly know the food as their birthright. Born and raised with family recipes, handed down from generations, and then to you. So that you can try your own hand at creating something delicious from a culture maybe as many as thousands of miles from where you live.
Remember our motto is “Eat Well Everywhere.” But that shouldn’t stop with your travels. You should have the best food even when you’re resting and recuperating for your next trip.
These books will take you into the food history of another land and they might even inspire you to go visit there for real. Obviously we could go on forever (it’s a big world out there). But here are some of the best vegetarian cookbooks and our food favourites from around the globe.
We’ve included helpful links to buy which will take you to a serperate website. No purchases will be made via MARVED.
U.S.A
Sweet Potato Soul: 100 Easy Vegan Recipes for the Southern Flavors of Smoke, Sugar, Spice, and Soul
If you’ve ever visited the southern states of the U S of A then you would have been lucky enough to have been on the receiving end of some home cooked, love filled, Soul Food. And if you weren’t, then we aren’t exactly sure what you were doing out there.
Maybe you were put off by the many meat dishes and didn’t know where to start. That fried chicken and fried fish sure does look heavenly, however we vegetarians are all too aware of what is lurking underneath that crispy blanket. But we no longer need to worry. Vegan food blogger extraordinaire Jenné Claiborne brings us southern flavours without the menace of meat.
Jenné has created vegan recipes for her soul food favourites. Everything from fried cauliflower chicken to her own version of, the often shellfish and sausage heavy, gumbo. This might be the kind of food you watch American TV presenters wolf down on your favourite Food Network show but never thought to try and cook yourself. Jenné’s recipes bring the soul from her own food straight into your kitchen. Therefore it’s a great starting point to this well-loved cuisine. Certainly one of the best vegetarian cookbooks on soul food.
JAPAN
Vegan Japaneasy: Classic and Modern Japanese Recipes to Cook at Home
Japanese food might be the most intimidating food to contemplate cooking. It’s a delicate, subtle, and distinguished cuisine. It brings to mind the gentle care of chopsticks adding each ingredient to the pan, slowly and carefully, building the foundations to a complex and striking collage of flavours. It doesn’t have the same messy, home-cooked flair that some cuisines have. It’s concentrated and connected.
But it is doable. Tim Anderson provides an entry into the elegant food of Japan. Japanese cooking is traditionally known for its use of fish so it is rare to find a cookbook for the vegan diet in this cuisine.
You will learn how to make your own tempura and the ultra-savoury and tasty Katsu style curry. The whole idea of the book is to keep recipes simple, and you’ll be surprised how simply you can create refined Japanese food at home.
UNITED KINGDOM
Veg: River Cottage Everyday
It’s summertime and all you can think about is the great green foliage towering over country lanes, arching in a romantic embrace of the road as you make your way to a traditional English pub.
Okay okay, England is perhaps not everyone’s first choice for a summer holiday. But when the sun shines and the lush English countryside is soaking up its dynamite rays it really is a beautiful place to be. Of course, it’s not just summer that shines here either. Autumn and winter also give way to cosy pints by the fire and beautiful produce like beetroots, cauliflower, and parsnips.
Subsequently this hefty book by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is perfect for recreating a good English meal any time of the year. He doesn’t leave one vegetable unturned in his quest to get more people eating the good stuff. Here they are the star of the show and you’ll be surprised just how much distance you can get out of a humble vegetable.
MIDDLE EAST
Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes from London's Ottolenghi
Extraordinarily popular chef, Ottolenghi, has a natural gift for pulling unusual ingredients together and creating something unbelievably delicious. He has been around for sometime, meaning he has a few cookbooks under his impressive belt already, but our favourite is Plenty.
You’ll probably be able to guess why – it’s completely vegetarian. He has a few later books that are also veggie but this one is a great all-rounder and an excellent place to start on your Ottolenghi journey. His quirk is that, although Yotam isn’t a vegetarian himself and in his restaurants and other cookbooks, like the hugely popular Jerusalem: A Cookbook, meat is always on the menu – the veg dishes still manage to outshine everything. Here you won’t have to flick over pages to find the vegetable section. It’s all up for grabs.
The New York Times said about the book “one of the most generous and luxurious non meat cookbooks ever produced.” Hence, it’s one you must have on your shelf if you’re in desperate need of those Middle Eastern flavours.
INDIA
Fresh India: 130 Quick, Easy and Delicious Vegetarian Recipes for Every Day
If you’re able to master a recipe to make your own onion bhajis at home, you really are winning at life. This book by Meera Sodha has a fresh twist on some of your favourite Indian meals and some unusual showstoppers that you will happily add to your repertoire.
The myth that India is a mostly vegetarian country has largely been debunked in recent years but we can certainly understand why it might have gained such a reputation. Their vegetable dishes are tasty and varied. Moreover it took other meat-eating nations a lot longer to discover and embrace the possibilities of vegetables like Indian cuisine has done for hundreds of years.
Meera’s recipes use Indias rich, colourful, flavourful spices perfectly to help create your own Indian feast at home. This is a cookbook that will serve you well. Especially in those cooler nights when you long for the warmth and comfort of a pumpkin, black bean, and coconut curry or a spicy sweet potato vindaloo. It’s a must for your imagination if you want to explore the culture of Indian through its lively food.
GLOBE TROTTER
Veg: Easy & Delicious Meals for Everyone
If you’re trying to travel the world but have a distinct lack of space on the bookshelf – this one could be a great alternative. It’s not tied down to a specific cuisine but focuses mainly on our favourite thing, VEG.
Author and celebrated chef Jamie puts his own take on a variation of traditional dishes. As one of the best vegetarian cookbooks out there it has recipes that you can rely on for a great meal no matter what you happen to be in the mood for or which flavour city you’d like to visit.
There are recipes for Persian style rice, moussaka, bhaji burgers. It really does take you around the world in flavours for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
