The Best Cookbooks Of 2015

We've rounded up some of our favorites from 2015, and whittled it down to 10 books that we felt best served their readers. Some of the highlights of this year include the massive cookbook from J. Kenji López-Alt; The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science will be an essential part of any cookbook collection for years to come. Then, books like Michael Anthony's V Is for Vegetables, which is written like an encyclopedia for cooking vegetables, focus on simple preparations for home cooks. Running in the opposite direction of Anthony's book is Aaron Franklin and Jordan Mackay's Franklin Barbecue: A Meat-Smoking Manifesto, which tackles the topic of breaking down and smoking brisket in a way that makes the home cook have the confidence to attempt a skill they would probably have never attempted without this meat-packed manual's guidance.

Check out our complete list of must-haves from 2015 that deserve a coveted spot on your bookshelf.

Starting with the first pot he washed in a Portuguese bakery in his hometown Fall River in Massachusetts to filling the shoes of Paul Prudhomme at Commander's Palace in New Orleans, the enigmatic personality we first welcomed into our homes and kitchens on his show The Essence of Emeril, then Emeril Live, details his journey from a boy fascinated by food to the celebrated American chef, restauranteur, television personality, and cookbook author he is today.
 

At the heart of the book is Emeril's mission to teach people to cook. He presents the recipes, techniques, and tools in a way that gives any cook the confidence to tackle dishes like his Blueberry Beignets, Lobster and Saffron Risotto, or Turkey Roulade.  

Aaron Franklin and Jordan Mackay, Ten Speed Press
Aaron Franklin's first cookbook isn't about recipes so much as it is about his own style of central Texas barbecue. He shares his penchant for smoking brisket with readers, and inspires those home cooks who may have never considered making barbecue to give this age old tradition a try. 

The manual-style barbecue book breaks down techniques in a DIY casualness that makes the whole complicated process accessible. Franklin shares his own traditions and central Texas traditions through step-by-step diagrams and detailed explanations exposing the nuances of his smoking craft.

We may all think we know Jacques Pépin, the famed French chef who cooked with Julia Child on television and later on his own, but this look at Pépin's cooking shares 200 recipes that he cooks at home.

This intimate look into his home cooking he shares with friends and family is all about simple, elegant dinners and laidback dishes to serve at your next barbecue. In this book, Pépin shares his life through candid photographs with friends and family to share not just recipes, but how he feeds his family.

Ruth Reichl, the former editor in chief of Gourmet Magazine, documents the life-changing moment when she found out the 69 year old institution — Gourmet Magazine — was shuttered in her latest cookbook My Kitchen Year.  

There are an astounding 136 recipes to test out in Reichl's cookbook, but with one common thread: "When I went back to cooking I rediscovered simple pleasures, and as I began to appreciate the world around me, I learned that the secret to life is finding joy in ordinary things," says Reichl in the introduction to the cookbook.

All of the magic of Yotam Ottolenghi's NOPI restaurant has now been packaged into a clean, white hardback book with gold, glimmering binding. Ottolenghi and NOPI's head chef Ramael Scully have teamed up to write about the food they've been cooking for ages, and luckily for everyone at home, the new NOPI: The Cookbook makes restaurant-quality recipes accessible for the home cook.

All of the magic of Yotam Ottolenghi's NOPI restaurant has now been packaged into a clean, white hardback book with gold, glimmering binding. Ottolenghi and NOPI's head chef Ramael Scully have teamed up to write about the food they've been cooking for ages, and luckily for everyone at home, the new NOPI: The Cookbook makes restaurant-quality recipes accessible for the home cook.

Alex Stupak, a "white boy from suburban Massachusetts where Old El Paso taco nights were mother's milk," might have been trained in fine dining restaurants like Alinea, but his love of authentic Mexican street food is where he made his name. In his cookbook, he addresses the outdated ideas on Mexican cuisine.

This book, designed to unpack Mexican cuisine through a careful dissection of tacos, guides the home cook through the entire process, from what pantry essentials to buy to the nuances of tortillas to the many forms a salsa can take.

Serious Eats' J. Kenji López-Alt produced an encyclopedic-size book that isn't just about making restaurant-quality food accessible for the home cook (although it does that); it really aims to demystify the science behind cooking. 

This book is an instant cookbook-shelf staple and the book for kitchen nerds who don't just want to cook a turkey, but rather want to cook the perfect turkey where everything from oven temperature to trussing is backed by science.

The Four Seasons of Pasta, focuses on the ease of cooking pasta, which is why most of the pasta recipes included in this book call for dried pasta, which Nancy assures us is authentically Italian. But, the book also shows the range of pasta with a sprinkling of more complex recipes that call for homemade, fresh pastas.

While making truly great pasta is a skill that takes practice, this mother-daughter duo shares tips, tricks, and step-by-step instructions to make that journey as transparent and seamless as possible.

"I didn't want this book to turn out too chef-y" said executive chef Michael Anthony about his latest cookbook, V Is for Vegetables. Anthony continued, "The guiding principles were does [the food] taste truly delicious and are [the recipes] realistic for a home cook to make."

This book is entirely focused on the home cook, and it shows. From the thoughtful introduction from Anthony that is accompanied by a picture of the chef sans whites, to the easy-to-follow alphabetized recipes, Anthony guides readers through the entire process from how to buy unfamiliar vegetables to how to cook them.

"I want to get you as close as a book can get you to the true experience of cooking this food," says Michael Solomonov, chef and author of the Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking cookbook, which he wrote with business partner Steven Cook.

Solomonov weaves together personal anecdotes and recipes together in his book to add life to dishes, like his Matzo Ball Soup with the fermented and sweet black garlic shared with a witty anecdote about a failed foie gras-stuffed matzo ball misstep.