26 Latin American Cookbooks & Websites That’ll Improve Your Kitchen Skills
Food is at the center of Latinx culture and history
Photo: Gran Cocina Latina
Food is at the center of Latinx culture and history. It’s part of our childhood, our adult lives, and what we pass down to the next generations. It’s tradition, family, and love, wrapped up in nourishment.
Our abuelitas, tias, and mamas are often there to show us how to cook, should we want to learn, but they often teach us without measured amounts. Sometimes, we need a more precise, easy-to-follow recipe, and we would also love healthier versions of these old-school classics.
Here’s a look at 27 great Latinx cookbooks and websites that you should certainly check out. Some feature modern interpretations of Latinx meals, while others have classic recipes that have been passed down for decades.
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Decolonize Your Diet: Plant-Based Mexican-American Recipes for Health and Healing
by Luz Calvo and Catriona Rueda Esquibel
https://www.instagram.com/p/BSuMx6HB-H5/
The first book on this roundup of Latin American cookbooks you should add to your shelf is Decolonize Your Diet: Plant-Based Mexican-American Recipes for Health and Healing. It teaches you today how to eat like our ancestors of yesterday while showing you how to create delicious Chicano food without using meat.
Available at amazon.com
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My Colombian Recipes
My Colombian Recipes is a great website for learning how to make traditional Colombian food (it also includes recipes from other Latin American countries). It was created by Medellin native Erica Dinho in February of 2009, and inspired by her grandmother, Mamita. You’ll be able to find how-tos on everything from ajiaco, to several dishes featuring arepas, to arequipe de coco.
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Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way by Francis Mallmann, with Peter Kaminsky
For those who do love meat, why not learn some grilling recipes from one of the biggest meat-eaters in the world? Seven Fires: Grilling the Argentine Way shows you the ropes to cooking carne the way they do it in Argentina, courtesy of Chef Francis Mallmann.
Available at amazon.com
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Isabel Eats
Another fabulous site that shares yummy Latinx recipes is Isabel Eats. Focusing on Mexican food, Isabel Orozco-Moore’s blog started as a way for the first-generation Chicana to document successful trials making her family’s food. You’ll learn how to make “Easy Chicken Tacos,” margaritas, tres leches cake, grilled corn salsa, chipotle shakshuka, and more.
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The Cuban Table: A Celebration of Food, Flavors, and History by Ana Sofia Pelaez
Want to learn how to make yummy comida Cubana? Then you should take a look at the James Beard Award-nominated cookbook, The Cuban Table: A Celebration of Food, Flavors, and History. It features over 110 traditional recipes, including one for the iconic Cuban sandwich.
Available at amazon.com
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Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America by Maricel Presilla
When it comes to Latinx food, it’s super cool to learn recipes from our own country or countries, but also really nice to learn those from other parts of Latin America. Gran Cocina Latina: The Food of Latin America, the 2013 James Beard Foundation Cookbook of the Year, features over 500 recipes from all over Latinoamerica.
Available at amazon.com
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Laylita’s Recipes
Head over to Laylita.com for recipes on all sorts of Latin food, like Brazilian tapioca crepes, Ecuadorian chicken stew, chimichurri butter, and more. The site, created by Ecuadorian Layla Pujol, also features non-Latinx how-tos, like tomato basil sauce, French salmon tartare, and raspberry creme brulee.
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Puerto Rican Cookery by Carmen Aboy Valldejuli
Available at amazon.com
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A Cozy Kitchen
Everyone wants a cozy kitchen. Peruvian-Colombian Adrianna Adarme decided to deliver that feeling through her cooking site of the same name. A Cozy Kitchen features recipes for meals including “Instant Pot Cuban Black Bean Soup,” “Acorn Squash Queso Fundido,” and “Pumpkin Tres Leches” (there are also recipes from different, non-Latin-American countries).
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Peru: The Cookbook by Gaston Acurio
Peruvian food is considered among the best and most sophisticated in the world. So much goes into making its complicated yet delicious dishes, so you’ll want a cookbook that knows what it’s talking about. Peru: The Cookbook by Chef Gaston Acurio, is over 400 pages of the awesomeness Peru has to offer in terms of comida.
Available at amazon.com
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Muy Bueno Cookbook
Muy Bueno Cooking offers “traditional Mexican, Latin-inspired & healthy-ish recipes.” Started by Chicana Yvette Marquez-Sharpknack, the site will teach you how to cook delicious Mexican dishes and drinks like a lavender lemon margarita, sopes, and albondigas soup.
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Latin American Street Food by Sandra A. Gutierrez
Street food takes the best flavors and elements of a country’s comida and turns them into cool, portable, and delicious bites. Learning how to make some of your favorite Latin American street food would be so much fun! Latin American Street Food: The Best Flavors of Markets, Beaches, and Roadside Stands from Mexico to Argentina provides several recipes to try out for yourself.
Available at amazon.com
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Sweet Life
https://www.instagram.com/p/B43CIThFVar/
If you want to live the sweet life, a place to head to is Vianney Rodriguez’s blog, Sweet Life. The Texas Mexicana will show you how to make several things, including beef pozole rojo, oatmeal pepita muffins, and breakfast huaraches. Added bonus? Sweet Life also includes DIY food projects.
wp_*postsThe Central American Cookbook by Book Sumo Press
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Flanboyant Eats
Flanboyant Eats isn’t just an adorable recipe blog name. It is also a vertical on Afro-Cubana Bren Herrera’s website that shows you how to cook yummy Latinx food. You’ll be able to make dishes like Nutella with rosewater flan, boiled yuca with garlic citrus mojo, and salmon tacos with spicy coconut milk slaw (in addition to recipes from other countries).
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Viva Vegan! by Terry Hope Romero
You can totally enjoy the flavors of your Latinx homeland but in a healthier way. If you are looking to become vegan or just want to eat more veggies and fruits and less meat in general, why not check out Terry Hope Romero’s Viva Vegan!: 200 Authentic and Fabulous Recipes for Latin Food Lovers?
Available at amazon.com
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Hungry Food Love
Dominicana Melissa Bailey will teach you how to make sweet and savory Colombian hot dogs, mango glazed Alaskan salmon, guacamole plantain cups, and more on her website, HungryFoodLove.com.
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Latin d’Lite: Delicious Latin Recipes with a Healthy Twist by Ingrid Hoffman
Another book that takes traditional Latinx recipes and gives them a modern, healthier revamp is Ingrid Hoffman’s Latin d’Lite: Delicious Latin Recipes with a Healthy Twist. Recipes include plantains-and-peppers frittata, watermelon tropical fiesta salsa, and Yucatan-style pulled pork.
Available at amazon.com
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The Other Side of the Tortilla
Maura Hall Hernandez is the woman behind the food blog, The Other Side of the Tortilla. Married to Mexican, she shares what she has learned over 12 years of travel to Mexico when it comes to cooking and travel advice. Some of the categories of food and drink you’ll find on the site include aguas frescas, breakfast and brunch, and desserts.
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Paletas: Authentic Recipes for Mexican Ice Pops, Shaved Ice & Aguas Frescas by Fany Gerson
You can’t have Latinx food without tasty sweets. And what makes us smile more than some Mexican paletas? You will be happy to know that there’s a cookbook focused on this delicious, hydrating, and summer-perfect treat, called Paletas: Authentic Recipes for Mexican Ice Pops, Shaved Ice & Aguas Frescas.
Available at amazon.com
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Simple by Clara
Simple, by Clara is the umbrella name for both dominicancooking.com and cocinadominicana.com. It is the joint project of Dominican Clara Gonzalez and Gibraltar native Ilana Benady. Check out the site to learn how to make a keto Dominican breakfast, dulce de Cajuil, espaguetis, and more.
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Latin American Paleo Cooking by Amanda Torres and Milagros Torres
If you ever wanted to blend the Paleo Diet (a.k.a. eating like a caveman) with Latinx food, the following book is for you. Latin American Paleo Cooking provides over 80 recipes that ditch the gluten and grains, but keep the Latinx flavors and dishes you grew up with.
Available at amazon.com
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Brown Sugar & Vanilla
Alejandra Graf’s Brown Sugar & Vanilla (the Spanish version is Piloncillo & Vainilla) is a food blog in which Ale shares how she cooks organic, clean, and plant-based meals. Some options to recreate include vegan chilaquiles with red sauce, poblano-mushroom “protein-packed” sandwiches, and Mexican style tofu scramble breakfast tacos.
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Muy Delish
https://www.instagram.com/p/B7TxW1Dlr7O/
Muy Delish delivers just that to readers — recipes that lead to very delicious meals. Ana Fria’s food blog focuses on Mexican fare, with recipes including chicharrones de harina, molletes, chicken tortilla soup.
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Presley’s Pantry
Another Latinx food blog worth checking out for fabulous recipes is Presley’s Pantry. It is the brainchild of Nicole Presley, who shares all kinds of cool recipes, various in the form of webisodes. These include “Salted Cajeta Chocolate Flan,” “How to Make Tamales,” and “How to make Capirotada.”
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Hungry Sofia
We already mentioned her book, The Cuban Table, but we also had to include Ana Sofia Peláez’s food blog, Hungry Sofia. On it, the Cubana shares how-tos on several Latinx dishes. Among them are croquetas de jamon, yuca frita con salsa a la huancaina, and tostones.
