Best Cookbooks for Beginners

I love a good cookbook, I believe in cookbooks and the all-time best cookbooks are the ones that, not only taught me a recipe that I can pull out from time to time, but have taught me skills that I now use over and over. The best cookbooks for beginners are those that share knowledge and allow you to utilize that knowledge far beyond the boundaries of its pages. When I get a new cookbook I want to be able to sit down on the couch with a cup of coffee and read it straight through like a novel. The best ones have stories, beginnings, middles and ends and before I start pulling out measuring cups, I want to know the end of the story.

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The five books that make up this list make a solid foundation to any “best cookbook” collection. Each is well written by an interesting author with a great story and a unique take on food. Grease stains and dough color the pages of recipes I turn to time and time again. Yes, the internet is full of new recipes at your fingertips. But I prefer to lay open solid pages that won’t time out on me, and go to work.

Bouchon Bakery by Thomas Keller

The first on my list of best cookbooks for beginners is personal for me. When I first graduated college and started my job as a nurse, I moved into my apartment, living by myself for the first time. With newfound freedom and no idea what to do with it, I remember walking to a Barnes and Noble down the street to kill time. Their cooking section is amazing. That day I picked up a copy of Bouchon and started skimming. Actually, I read quite a bit sitting there on the floor of Barnes and Noble.

I read about weighing ingredients, something I hadn’t heard of at the time. Now, it’s the only way I bake. Many of the bread recipes now frequently make their way onto my dinner table, but the book also showed French pastries I’d never heard of. After buying the book I purchased a cooking scale and started baking. On my nights off in my new apartment I learned to laminate dough. I learned that I loved scones. Most of all, I learned how much love and time can go into baking and I wanted it to become my life!

The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Dinnertime by Ree Drummond

Each of The Pioneer Woman’s cookbooks have been on my Christmas list the year it came out ever since she first published. But Dinnertime is my favorite of the bunch because it really does put dinner on my table the most frequently. When you’re first learning to cook there is no better teacher than Ree. Sometimes I want to know exactly what translucent onions look like, or how brown a seared steak is supposed to be. Each of The Pioneer Woman Cookbooks contains step by step instructions to help guide you through the recipes.

When I first got married and was trying out new dishes, I would read a new recipe and get so confused by the directions. I didn’t know what it meant to make a roux, or reduce a sauce by half. The step-by-step pictures are so useful when you need a little reassurance, a “hooray! you’re doing great!” Best of all, it’s such a fun read! With a little bit of farm life and some cowboys thrown in, it’s a book you’ll flip through time and time again.

The Bread Baker’s Apprentice by Peter Reinhart

If you really want to understand bread baking, this book has so much information. I love the detailed pictures of stretching and folding and shaping the dough. The book contains many recipes suitable for all of your bread needs. However, I would recommend starting with one dough and making it over and over again. They say you don’t really understand a book until you read it five times. I feel the same about a recipe, especially when it comes to bread. Take some time to get a feel for the dough. Make it over and over. See if it turns out the same, a little different, a little better each time and figure out why. Now, I think it’s so tempting to try to bake your way through a cookbook but that’s not how you really learn the intricacies. Don’t just skim the surface. This cookbook has so much knowledge to relay and is worth diving into.

Mastering Pasta by Marc Vetri

While relatively new to my collection, Mastering Pasta quickly climbed to my list of best cookbooks. I love how the author explains pasta’s deep roots while also encouraging you to experiment. This book first sparked the idea that I could use fresh milled flour to make a healthy and hearty staple that my family would love. While the basic pasta recipe is simple and easy to get started with, there is so much depth in the different recipes. Vetri shares his knowledge of flour and the important role it plays in our nutrition. It never ceases to amaze me how such simple ingredients in expert hands can take on such life.

The All-Time Best Cookbook for Beginners: The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook by Deb Perelman

This is the book that showed me how much I love Latkes. Introduced me to the homemade granola bars that are a staple in our freezer. Led me to make the most decadent sandwich I’ve ever eaten. This is my favorite cookbook, and one of the best cookbooks for beginners. In my humble opinion, I think she’s a genius. Although her recipes are rarely simple and often require a special trip to the grocery, they are full of smart combinations and cooking techniques that really work. I love it when I can take skills I’ve learned in one recipe and apply them to my daily cooking. This book is full of such techniques, and Deb does a wonderful job of spelling them out.

Learning from The Best Cookbooks for Beginners, and the Best People.

Ultimately, I’ve learned the most from time spent watching my mom fix dinners from scratch, or calling her up at 3:00 because I had planned a meal I had no idea how to make! She has inspired me to love food and to constantly seek out how to make it a little better, a little more nourishing, a little more satisfying. For me, my favorite cookbooks help us along on our mission. Ultimately, they make the journey a little more fun.