The 16 Best Cookbooks For Beginner Home Cooks

Samin Nostrat's best-selling book is not so much about following recipes line for line—it's more about figuring out how to become an instinctual cook. Nostrat explains the four elements of good cooking and how to trust your gut as you find your way around the kitchen.

Once you master some simple 30-minute meals, you can tackle larger, more ambitious ones. Baby steps, people.

The first edition of Joy of Cooking was published in 1931, and while the recipes may look a little different (there are now 4,000+ of them), the plainspoken, easy-to-follow directions haven't changed one bit.

If you're serious about going vegan, or if you just want to start eating more plant-based meals, this cookbook gives you creative meal ideas beyond just meat and dairy substitutions. 

Leanne Brown wrote this book specifically for people on SNAP/food stamp benefits, with $4 a day to spend on food. No matter what your budget is, Brown teaches you how to make dishes like barley risotto with peas and white bean ragù or vegetable jambalaya without breaking the bank.

NYC-based vegan personal chef, cooking instructor, and blogger Jenné Claiborne explains the surprisingly beginner-friendly ways that she turned her favorite soul food recipes vegan.

Bring the lush and vibrant flavors of Italy, Greece, Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, and Lebanon to your kitchen with this cookbook. It teaches you the basics of the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid and how to add heart-healthy recipes into your diet.

The title says it all, folks. This classic cookbook is beloved for its minimalist style. The recipes are simple and focus on nailing the basics (like how to grill vegetables or roast seafood) so that as you get more comfortable, you can make the recipes all your own.

There's a lot you can do in one pot: stew, steam, sauté, simmer, braise, roast. This book teaches you how to make more than 100 recipes, all of which go only require the one dish.

For those who need a story in their cookbooks, you'll enjoy this walk back in time, hearing about Edna Lewis's life growing up in a small Virginia Piedmont farming community over 50 years ago.

We may be biased, but this is one of our favorites on the list. In this cookbook, our editors take the easiest and most convenient dinner meal (chicken), and show you so many creative ways to cook, fry, broil, and most importantly eat it.

Baking and cooking are two different arts, as you'll learn from this cookbook. This book teaches you basic baking techniques (like melting chocolate and cutting butter into flour) then hits you with more than 100 recipes where you can try said techniques.

With the right herbs and spices, veggies can go from a nutritious necessity to a delicacy in their own right. That's Yotam Ottolenghi's approach, which is all about freshness and seasonality.

If you've ever watched the Barefoot Contessa, you've seen Ina Garten's warm and welcoming approach to cooking, That's what you can expect from this tome of recipes, too.

Cal Peternell began working on this beautifully illustrated cookbook when his oldest son left for college. Whether you're going off to college or living on your own for the first time, this book is all about determining independence through cooking.

If you want to get into baking, you have to get Claire Saffitz's wonderful book. It's organized to start you off with the simplest and easiest recipes, while giving plenty of recipes to challenge you once you become a pro. Plus, there is so much more than dessert in here—because, as Claire argues, being a dessert person isn't always about being sweet.