11 Nourishing Family Cookbooks

From The Colbert Report to The Late Show, Stephen Colbert has delighted TV viewers in their living rooms for years. Now, along with his wife, Evie, he’s moving to the kitchen to share his love of cooking. In Does This Taste Funny? the Colberts serve up their favorite family recipes for every kind of culinary occasion — from mouthwatering meat and poultry dishes to desserts, drinks, and even party food (you can’t call them appetizers if there’s no main course to follow, right?). Enriched with beautiful photos of the Colbert family home in South Carolina and brightened by Stephen and Evie’s loving banter, Does This Taste Funny? is full of delectable dishes and familial joy.

In her debut food memoir, Finding Freedom, renowned chef and restaurateur Erin French chronicled her story of renewal and finding community through cooking. In Big Heart Little Stove, a #1 New York Times bestseller, French offers up tasty meals from her acclaimed Maine restaurant, The Lost Kitchen, and shares cherished recipes from her personal family collection. French presents more than 75 fresh and approachable dishes for any kind of gathering and goes beyond traditional cookbook fare by revealing her best hospitality tips to make every meal at the family table extra special. “[T]he recipes read like the ones we all wish our grandmother had handwritten and passed down to us. They are written by a home cook for a home cook — meant to be made and shared again and again” (Epicurious).

From bestselling author Hetty McKinnon, Family offers a collection of delicious veggie-forward meals to nourish your loved ones. The gorgeously illustrated vegetarian cookbook combines family stories from a variety of home cooks with McKinnon’s own plant-powered recipes and inventive riffs on classic dishes, some of which were passed down by her mother. With these recipes, cooks of all experience levels and tastes can bring the family together to enjoy a healthy home-cooked meal.

Weeknight meals don’t have to be a chore, as former Saveur editors Kathy Brennan and Caroline Campion ably demonstrate in Keepers. The pair draw on years of culinary trial and error to present 120 recipes for every type of household — from time-crunched families facing the dinnertime countdown to busy couples heating up store-bought meals to solo home cooks making dinner for one. Written with encouragement and warmth, and bolstered by helpful tips on thoughtful substitutions, this family cookbook will have you confidently feeding the whole crew, however big or small it may be.

From the family behind the celebrated blog of the same name, The Woks of Life is more than just a cookbook. The Leung family share their stories through food. Mom Judy contributes traditional Chinese dishes, dad Bill offers recipes from his time working in his family’s Chinese restaurant, and daughters Sarah and Kaitlin add their favorite veggie-forward and one-dish meals. Not only will you learn how to dish up a mean Mini Char Siu Bao, you’ll also get helpful tips on making the best Chinese food at home. From their family to yours, the Leungs’ The Woks of Life will have you celebrating the joy of food with your loved ones and cooking up your own stories along the way.

The award-winning The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs from America’s Test Kitchen is exactly what you need to get the little ones in your family cooking. Tested and approved by more than 750 kids, these recipes are expertly crafted to help young and aspiring chefs get comfortable in the kitchen. You’ll find recipes with photos alongside tips and tricks to inspire your youngsters and encourage them to take on new culinary challenges. For parents and guardians, big siblings and babysitters, this family cookbook is an excellent resource for creating quality memories with your up-and-coming chef.

In his James Beard Award–winning food memoir, Michael W. Twitty explores his family’s culinary history and the complicated legacy of Southern cuisine. Part cookbook, part memoir, and part meditation on race in America, The Cooking Gene offers far more than just recipes — though it has plenty of those, too. While Southern cooking is often viewed as quintessential American cuisine, Twitty lays out how the question of its origin is at the heart of our ongoing racial divisions. Through vivid and powerful prose, the culinary historian delves into the issue, examining the politics of food culture and where our favorite recipes really come from while sharing his family’s history through the dishes that they ate and passed down from generation to generation. “The Cooking Gene is gritty, compelling, and enlightening — a mix of personal narrative and the history of race, politics, economics, and enslavement that will broaden notions of African American culinary identity” (Toni Tipton-Martin, James Beard Award–winning author of The Jemima Code). 

Dinner: A Love Story presents practical and delicious meals for your family, with strategies for getting dinner on the table every night. Author Jenny Rosenstrach and her husband, Andy, have made cooking dinner for their family a daily habit. But in their house, dinner is more than just a meal — it’s time they share together as a family, enjoying one another’s company over nourishing food. With recipes and tips for all levels of home cooks, Dinner: A Love Story is for anyone who wants to turn dinnertime into family time. The cookbook’s subtitle gets right to the heart of the matter: “It all begins at the family table.”

You’ve likely heard the advice “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” It’s a quote from celebrated author and journalist Michael Pollan. It sounds simple enough, though it can be easier said than done. In Mostly Plants, the Pollan family — Michael’s three siblings and their mother, Corky — offer a helping hand to cooking wholesome meals and integrating a plant-forward flexitarian diet into your life. You’ll find an abundance of satisfying recipes in this bestselling family cookbook, from Crispy Kale and Potato Hash with Fried Eggs and Salmon Farro Bowls to Tandoori Chicken and Vegetable Sheet Pan Supper. For the Pollans, a healthy diet is a family affair, and with this cookbook, they help you and your loved ones get more vegetables on the plate, no matter your dietary preferences. For a second serving of Pollan family cooking tips, check out their award-winning family cookbook The Pollan Family Table: The Best Recipes and Kitchen Wisdom for Delicious, Healthy Family Meals. 

With a Guyanese mother and an Alabaman father, chef Lazarus Lynch was raised on Caribbean and Southern food. He created “Son of a Southern Chef,” his popular Instagram account, to celebrate the love of cooking and the recipes that he learned from his family. In Son of a Southern Chef, Lynch brings his style and skill to the cookbook world, sharing his creative spins on Southern comfort classics like Shrimp and Crazy Creamy Cheddar Grits and Dulce de Leche Banana Pudding. With vibrant photos and expressive storytelling, Son of a Southern Chef is “an uninhibited, personal celebration of [Lynch’s] family’s cooking and African American foodways” (Grub Street).

In this beautiful, photo-filled cookbook, New York Times food columnist Melissa Clark selects more than 100 of her most-loved dishes from her two previous books for readers to enjoy. Favorite Recipes from Melissa Clark’s Kitchen presents recipes for every meal of the day and for any occasion, all served up with the author’s signature culinary panache. Clark’s simple and seasonal recipes are wonderfully varied, they’re sure to please everyone in your family. Whether it’s date night for two or an extended-family get-together, the inviting dishes here are the perfect excuse to gather at the table.