The 13 Best Cookbooks of 2022 (So Far)
Not sure if you heard, but a shipping container full of two of spring’s splashiest—oops, sorry—cookbooks sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, delaying the publication of the upcoming Turkey and the Wolf cookbook and Melissa Clark’s latest, Dinner In One. Supply chain chaos has delayed a few more titles, throwing book tours into frantic rescheduling mode. It’s not an easy season for cookbook authors, but it’s an easy season for cookbook buyers because there are so many lush new books to cook through, whether you’re in the mood for a full-on crawfish boil (My America) or just want to make a big batch of salsa to rely on when it’s nachos-for-dinner time (Mi Cocina). Below, the best cookbooks of 2022 (so far) for very particular people: hungry ones.
For the Gochujang Gang
Let’s start with my favorite spring cookbook, Korean American, by Eric Kim. I made a full Super Bowl dinner for two from the New York Times columnist’s debut book: crispy yangnyeom chickpeas as an app (here’s a sneak peek), LA kalbi with Sprite (!) that got perfectly charred in the oven, and spinach namul on the side, with rice. It’s a sweet and personal book with expertly written, easy-to-follow recipes (the creamy bucatini with seaweed is a weeknight favorite, so much so that we snagged the recipe to share the love). It also has a bildungsroman quality—an annoying word to convey that you can feel Kim growing up as he writes the book, telling his mother’s story alongside his own, finding his way in the kitchen while charming his way into ours. I can’t wait for the next chapter.
For the Bake-Off Wannabe
Another top contender in the best cookbooks of 2022, IMO, is Benjamina Ebuehi’s A Good Day to Bake. I’m legally obligated to mention she’s a former Great British Bake Off contestant, but Ebuehi doesn’t need that IMDb credit to give her work legitimacy; she’s a fabulous baker with another cookbook to prove it. A Good Day has a breezy, impulse-baking feel—you know, when you wake up on Sunday morning and think, “Scones?” (In those moments, rosemary and honey scones are the answer.) I made the brown sugar custard to have with strawberries for a weeknight dinner party, but the savory bakes were my favorites, especially an easy and decadent roasted carrot-and-harissa galette with mascarpone. There’s an entire chapter lovingly dedicated to “the best of beige” recipes—ha! But seriously, how good does malted brown butter pound cake sound?
For the Burnt-Out Home Cook
We ran a few recipes from Ali Slagle’s I Dream of Dinner in our March issue because her style of cooking is perfect for the section of the magazine we call “Family Meal.” They’re realistic, simple, well-balanced dishes like a stir-fry with asparagus, beans, and fish that comes to life with a just-barely spicy lemon vinaigrette. Slagle is good at revitalizing ingredients I get bored with come March, like these sweet potatoes with green salsa, and keeping recipes minimal but flavorful (pasta with rosemary-fried walnuts, nice). It’s the kind of food that helps you remember to eat vegetables because sometimes you forget. The recipes have bullet lists of creative tweaks, and she skips the long headnotes to get right to the point: dinner.
For the Snack Queens
Perhaps you know someone who likes to make dinner out of popcorn and a sleeve of frozen Thin Mints. The beauty of Weird Dinner is given its proper due in Lukas Volger’s Snacks for Dinner, which has the most tempting dip chapter in town—a competitive category! Give me that dilly white bean spread, mushroom pâté, eggplant chickpea whip, and a bag of tortilla chips—and leave me alone on a beach for eight hours, please. The truth is, these aren’t just snacks for dinner but clever ideas for picnics and parties too. The Parmesan-pecan crackers, feta and onion jam tart bites, and ramen Chex mix are all invited to my beach shindig.
For the Kenji Superfans
I keep a copy of The Food Lab by my desk for easy reference because J. Kenji López-Alt usually has (most of) the answers. He brings his meticulous, obsessive, scientific approach to The Wok, a technique-driven cookbook. You’re here to learn how to cook, not just what to cook, and López-Alt is the ultimate teacher. He fills the pages with pH charts and glutamic acid breakdowns, but his writing’s so funny he keeps you rapt. That said, you’ve also got plenty of “what” to cook, from Sichuan-style blistered green beans to cheesy scallion pancakes. Sidebars on oxidation and proper freezing technique will make you realize that this book is about much more than one kitchen tool. The Wok is a goldmine.
For the Big Green Egg Head
Kevin Bludso learned the art of brisket at his granny’s “illegal, bootleg BBQ stand” in Corsicana, Texas. His own spot in Compton took off (thanks in part to a rave review from Jonathan Gold) and made way for a Bludso’s barbecue mini-empire. Every sentence of this cookbook full of rubs, ribs, and curried oxtails is seasoned with Bludso’s colorful voice, his heart, and his sense of humor. (His ex-wife accidentally buys a stewing rooster instead of a chicken and “that shit is like trying to roast your little brother.”) The introduction about his transition into barbecue after working for the Department of Corrections is so engrossing I’d have read an entire memoir. There are some fun surprises in Bludso’s BBQ Cookbook, like the “Sweetest Things I’ve Ever Known” chapter (desserts), which opens with a recipe for Hennessy on the rocks.
For the Cookout Connoisseur
We got a preview of Nicole A. Taylor’s Juneteenth cookbook last summer and have been waiting patiently for the book’s publication ever since. Watermelon & Red Birds is the first cookbook dedicated to Juneteenth, the day enslaved Africans found out they were free in Galveston, Texas (two years after the Emancipation Proclamation). Taylor honors that history while pushing the recipes forward, defying stereotypes of what Black Southern food is and can be. “This book is intended to be light with the pleasures of good food and heavy with the weight of history,” she writes. The recipes embody Taylor’s “kaleidoscopic feasting,” from strawberry-sumac cake to very green coleslaw with charred poblanos and a bright red hibiscus snow cone.
For the Hemisphere Hopper
Take a quick trip to the Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea with Nornie Bero, who is from the Komet tribe of the Indigenous Meriam people. In Mabu Mabu, Bero writes that the best way to teach others about her culture is to cook them sop sop (yams in coconut cream) and a chicken, soy sauce, lemongrass, ginger, and vermicelli noodle dish called semur. At the mention of both of those dishes, she had my attention, and soon I was shopping for cinnamon myrtle and earthy wattleseed. It’s a sunny and colorful cookbook that preserves the flavors of a Native Australian community for generations to come. “Mabu mabu,” by the way, means “help yourself” in Mir, the Meriam language, and is also the name of Bero’s food business.
For the Étouffée Enthusiast
Have a quart of shrimp stock ready: We’re making gumbo this weekend. My America is Kwame Onwuachi’s follow-up (with Joshua David Stein) to his celebrated memoir Notes from a Young Black Chef. Onwuachi mixes his past with broader cultural histories in the deeply researched headnotes to these recipes, which loosely feature Louisiana-Bronx flavors by way of Nigeria and the Caribbean. After a few pages, I couldn’t get Onwuachi’s voice out of my ear—Ethiopian braised short ribs are “achingly tender and totally on fire”—and I couldn’t shake the sudden urge to fill my fridge with remoulade and jerk paste.
For the Magazine Hoarder: Eaten magazine
Not a cookbook, but hey, there are eight breakfast recipes from 1859 in the latest issue of Eaten, an indie food history magazine with zany-wonderful art direction. Editor and historian Emelyn Rude oversees the magazine’s smart, well-researched contents. The latest issue—breakfast-themed—includes the history of Earl Grey, a croissant investigation I didn’t see coming, and a poetic piece on Singaporean fishball noodles. And actually, a mutton chop for breakfast sounds pretty great?!
Shameless Plugs
Andy Baraghani’s The Cook You Want to Be is a collection of very-Andy recipes, which longtime Bon Appétit readers will know means flavorful condiments and crunchy toppers, tons of vegetables that look as gorgeous as they taste, and luscious pastas. Big Shells With Spicy Lamb Sausage, at your service. Here are a few recipes as preview: Clams With Crispy Ham and Butter Beans, Kuku Kadoo, Buttered Potatoes With Salted Lemon, Smoky and Crunchy Peas With Creamy Nuoc Cham, and Shawarma Roast Chicken With Shallots and Lemon.
Anna Stockwell’s For the Table is a cookbook actually designed for feeding a crowd, with full menus all planned out from apps to dessert and consideration for a range of dietary needs. I flagged the vibrant green-and-red spinach and ricotta dumplings in a Calabrian chile-tomato sauce to make ASAP. It’s impeccably organized and delightful, just like Anna.
Rick Martinez’s Mi Cocina is a party. I love this book for the salsa chapter alone (I have so much salsa de aguacate in my freezer, ready for breakfast tacos and whatever else life throws at me), but it’s also an ambitious collection of regional Mexican recipes based on years of Rick’s research and travels. I love the citrus-filled Yucatàn chapter and can’t wait to make the Oaxacan albóndigas, one of my favorite foods of all time. Pre-order this book, buy some guajillo chiles in bulk, and start dreaming of the tortas that’ll soon be within reach.
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