Cookbooks make excellent gifts for pretty much anyone you are looking to buy a gift for this year. Whether you have a passionate home cook in the family or a young niece or nephew just living on their own for the first time, a cookbook is a perfect way to send a little love this year in the best way, through food.
Modern Comfort Food: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook
This cookbook is perfect for comforting classics with a fancy twist. And who doesn’t love the Barefoot Contessa? Between the decadent and delicious recipes and Ina Garten’s adorable personality, this one is sure to be a hit. Don’t forget to buy some “good vanilla” to go with this one.
Dessert Person: Recipes and Guidance for Baking with Confidence
This marvelous cookbook comes from a Bon Appétit Test Kitchen alum who left the company after this summer’s scandal. The cookbook is just like Saffitz herself, meticulous, creative, and fun. If someone on your list loves to bake or has a sweet tooth, this is an easy winner.
Betty Crocker’s Picture Cook Book
As far as cookbooks go, this one is an absolute classic. It’s the most used cookbook in my kitchen. Betty Crocker might be a little old fashioned, but it’s also been popular this long for a reason. It’s just really solid, and almost every recipe in here is really good.
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking
There is actually a Netflix show based on this cookbook, so that’s how you know it’s good. This book focuses on the essential flavor balances needed to really take your cooking to the next level.
Tequila Mockingbird: Cocktails with a Literary Twist
I bought this fun little cocktail book for my brother a few years ago based on a silly inside joke, but it wound up being a pretty solid and high quality gift for how small of a budget I was working with at the time. There are a multitude of fun, cleverly named cocktail recipes in here. I’ve actually bought this in the years since for a few more people, and everyone always loves it.
Cravings: Recipes for All the Food You Want to Eat: A Cookbook
Chrissy Teigen’s food is decadent, gorgeous, and utterly crave-able. I watch her cook on Instagram all the time and everything she makes is an instant hunger trigger. This book is the perfect gift for a home chef that wants to take it to the next level.
Cravings: Hungry for More: A Cookbook
This book is an excellent gift for someone who loves Chrissy Teigen and already has the first Cravings cookbook. Or anyone wants to step their game up and start cooking meals that are straight-up Instagram goals.
Binging with Babish: 100 Recipes Recreated from Your Favorite Movies and TV Shows
Binging with Babish is one of the best cooking YouTube channels out there. He makes food from different TV shows and movies, and now you can too! Entertainment enthusiasts will love this gift that brings food from the screen straight into your kitchen.
The Book on Pie: Everything You Need to Know to Bake Perfect Pies
Celebrations and holidays are all about pies. Or family togetherness or whatever, but mostly pies. If you have a friend or family member that shares that sentiment, this cookbook is the queen of pie-baking cookbooks and will make the perfect gift.
The Art of Mixology: Classic Cocktails and Curious Concoctions
Ok, this is one of a few on this list that might not technically be a cookbook, but it’s at the very least cookbook adjacent. You make cocktails in the kitchen, right? This book is a delightful array of creative and fun cocktails, because while a vodka soda might do just fine at the club, it’s a little drab after months of staying at home. Anyone over the age of 21 who enjoys a nice cocktail will love this book,
Gordon Ramsay’s Home Cooking: Everything You Need to Know to Make Fabulous Food
Everyone loves Gordon Ramsay and his cursing, slightly terrifying manner of speaking. This cookbook will not yell at you or call you an idiot sandwich, but it will teach you everything you need to know to make fabulous food.
Southern Vegan: Delicious Down-Home Recipes for Your Plant-Based Diet
Do you have a vegan on your Christmas list who still enjoys a nice, hearty home-cooked meal? If so this cookbook might be the perfect option. Even for non-vegans, these are great recipes that can help all of us eat a little more sustainably without sacrificing flavor or that feeling you get from a nice warm Southern meal.
The Unofficial Hogwarts for the Holidays Cookbook: Pumpkin Pasties, Treacle Tart, and Many More Spellbinding Treats
This cookbook is a delightful and fun gift for the whole family. These are great recipes to make alongside a Harry Potter marathon on a snow day. This is another fantastic gift option that blends cooking and entertainment in a way that’s destined to be a crowd-pleaser.
Good Drinks: Alcohol-Free Recipes for When You’re Not Drinking for Whatever Reason
I really like the title for this one, which acknowledges the wide range of reasons why a person might not be drinking alcohol. I love a nice, flavorful drink, but often times I want the fun and fancy feeling of a cocktail but without the effects of the alcohol. This is the perfect book for that.
The Full Plate: Flavor-Filled, Easy Recipes for Families with No Time and a Lot to Do
This cookbook is great for quick and easy recipes that will still completely deliver on taste. It’s a perfect gift for that busy parent on your list who likes to cook, but doesn’t have a ton of time.
Friends: The Official Cookbook
This cookbook will be there for you when you’re stuck inside on a snow day. With outside activities getting harder as the weather gets colder, this cookbook is the perfect way to fill up a boring day. The Friends fanatic in the family will be thrilled when this shows up under the tree.
The Mexican Home Kitchen: Traditional Home-Style Recipes That Capture the Flavors and Memories of Mexico
These recipes are the pinnacle of comfort food. Warm, inviting, and utterly delicious, this cookbook will make anyone on your list happy this year. This is an especially great gift for anyone who’s recently moved North out of California and is seriously missing really good Mexican food.
Ferment: A Guide to the Ancient Art of Culturing Foods, from Kombucha to Sourdough
This is an excellent option for the experimenter on your list. Fermenting food is all the rage on the food related YouTube channels lately, and it’s super cool. If you have an adventurous eater on your list, this is the perfect new thing to try this year.
Bread Therapy: The Mindful Art of Baking Bread
With new lockdowns possible and COVID cases spiking, it’s possible we all might need to revert to that bread baking phase of quarantine. Don’t fret! This book will help you make bread in the most therapeutic and calming way possible. It’s delightful.
Vegan for Everybody: Foolproof Plant-Based Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and In-Between
This cookbook makes vegan eating accessible and a little less daunting than it might seem at the beginning. This is a perfect gift for newly minted vegans or anyone looking to eat a few more plant-based meals in 2021.
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