The 10 Best Cookbooks for Beginners

Food is one of the great pleasures of life. There comes a time when most of us would like to cook a meal from scratch, whether on a regular basis or sporadically. Cooking need not be a scary concept and a lot of satisfaction can be derived from rustling together a bunch of ingredients and producing a delicacy. Luckily, there are several master chefs all too eager to impart their knowledge and know-how.

The Roasting Tin: Simple One-Dish Dinners

This is a great cookbook for busy people who want to prepare wholesome dinners without fuss. As the name implies, just pop the ingredients in the roasting tin and let the oven do all the work. There are 75 recipes that range from delicious pasta bakes to chicken roasts to super grains. Each chapter also includes a helpful guide to prepping for a meal using whatever is in your fridge. This book is a basic that caters for all and is a must in any kitchen.

5 Ingredients — Quick & Easy Food

Jamie Oliver is a celebrity chef who is known for his passion for using fresh food to create tasty, nutritious meals from scratch. He has been in the forefront to demystify the art of cooking, making his recipes doable and easy to follow. This book will show you how to use just five ingredients to put together no fuss, budget-friendly dishes that are full of flavour. It contains over 130 recipes and with each one you will find a visual ingredient guide, serving size, timings, and quick reference nutritional information. This book is sure to become your new best friend in the kitchen.

At My Table: A Celebration of Home-Cooking

This book by Nigella Lawson celebrates the food she loves to cook for friends and family. Nigella is a leading proponent of home-cooking and At My Table is jam-packed with recipes that are warming and inspirational and which feature new takes on classic recipes as well as fresh ways to use ingredients. Any cookbook by Nigella is bound to contain recipes for delightful desserts and this one is no exception. This is definitely food for sharing.

BOSH! Simple Recipes. Amazing Food

Calling all vegans. This has to be one of the best cookbooks around that caters for your needs. Bosh! Shows you how to cook tasty plant-based food from scratch. This book features delicious all-plants meals that are surprisingly easy to prepare. The authors, who have a huge online following, ensure that the ingredients used are always fresh and supermarket-friendly so that eating vegan is made simple and not a chore. There are over 100 recipes for healthy breakfasts, quick lunches, satisfying dinners, party pieces and scrumptious desserts.

The Curry Guy Easy

Dan Toombs is the Curry Guy and in this cookbook, he presents 100 fuss-free recipes of British Indian restaurant curry classics to make at home. These are curries that taste just as good as the original restaurant ones but take half the time to prepare. The author has spent years studying the secrets of Indian cooking and this cookbook is the result of that knowledge. All curry aficionados need this in their life.

Ella’s Kitchen: The Easy Family Cookbook

Ella’s Kitchen is the fastest growing UK brand in the baby food sector with its emphasis on healthy, nutritious meals for babies and children. The Easy Family Cookbook provides readers with over 100 easy-to-prepare recipes that both kids and adults will love to make and eat. There are fast weekday meals, aimed at busy lifestyles, to delicious dishes for entertaining. Each recipe is perfectly balanced and can be enjoyed by the entire family, from weaning babies to grown-ups.

Nadia and Kaye Disaster Chef

This cookbook is aimed at the total novice cook and those who dread cooking. As the name suggests, there are over 80 foolproof recipes that even the most inept can handle. Nadia and Kaye’s humorous approach and witty advice will have every budding chef sporting a broad smile whilst trying to avert a disaster in the kitchen.

Family Kitchen Cookbook

The Family Kitchen Cookbook is a must-have for busy families. It’s chock full of tips, advice, and recipes to feed the entire family. There are healthy, nutritious meals for kids and adults, easy to prepare meals for busy lifestyles and crowd-pleasers for entertaining. It covers batching, freezing, and nutritional breakdown to meal prepping, shopping lists and ideas for kids’ parties. This cookbook will help you avoid spending hours in the kitchen with family-friendly recipes for everyone to enjoy.

Home-Cooking Made Easy

BBC TV chef Lorraine Pascale’s much awaited second book is packed with 100 recipes for delicious, home-cooked meals that are simple to prepare. The focus is on easy to prepare recipes that even a novice chef can handle. Recipes range from warming soups and roasts to moreish bread. The book is beautifully photographed and is a pleasure to own and use.

The Savvy Cook

Vegetarians will go nuts for this book. It’s full of more than 160 nourishing and tasty vegetarian recipes that are time and wallet-friendly. There is also lots of advice for menu plans, smart shopping and how to use leftovers. Each recipe includes a handy key for easy identification of vegan, dairy, and gluten-free options. This is cooking made easy for the new cook operating on a tight budget and limited time.

Enough food for thought? There is a serious cooking inspiration in all of these books. Get on down to Agenda Bookshop and channel your inner chef.