10 best vegetarian cookbooks: Meat-free meals for your recipe repertoire

This inspiring and thoughtful recipe collection is gentle in its meat-free stance – it’s not billed as a vegetarian cookbook at all. The focus is on flavour, sustainability and affordability as opposed to vegetarianism. Meat and fish just happen to not be needed, thanks very much. The recipes have been designed for modern (read: time-poor, curious and often rut-inhabiting) home cooks, meaning they avoid fuss and complexity and embrace speed and ease. Most can be cooked in one pot, pan or tray and with a modest investment of time.

That said, there are some slightly more involved, fancier dishes peppered throughout too, for when you’re not against the clock or you want to impress your pals. There are pages filled with short and concise ideas for using up budget-friendly but commonly wasted vegetables as well – from potatoes to cauli and squash. By looking at the gorgeous photography, you’d never guess these dishes were so low maintenance – and your dinner guests won’t, either.

Best: For keeping track of your nutrition

You’ll just find unadulterated recipes in this book – from cauliflower tikka masala to roasted black bean burgers and summer tagliatelle – with no introductions or culinary philosophising. Each is no longer than a page (most are considerably shorter) and every single one sits opposite a bright, full-size image, so you know exactly what you’re aiming for. If your mission to eat more veggie meals is motivated by the pursuit of health, then you might find all the nutritional stats at the bottom of each recipe helpful. There are plenty of low fat, low calorie dishes that come packed with the good stuff. While there’s not a scrap of meat or fish here, animal products aren’t totally absent – a couple of ingredients such as parmesan (which contains animal rennet) are in attendance, although they’re clearly marked for anyone wanting to steer away from them. If you often run low in confidence in the kitchen, know that the methods here leave no room for error. While helpful hints will offer ways to change dishes up or how to substitute ingredients if needed, they don’t distract from the straightforward approach.

Best: For indian-inspired feasts

With a family hailing from Gujarat – an Indian state with a millennia-old vegetarian food culture – and a childhood spent in an English farming village, Meera brings together the best of both culinary worlds in this veg-led Indian cookbook. Using the resourcefulness and ingenuity her Indian mother put into practice when she moved to the UK in the ‘70s, Meera has come up with a catalogue of fresh-tasting and happily achievable Indian-inspired recipes that make the most of British-grown ingredients (with the odd easy-to-find Indian staple thrown in too). Darjeeling momos are stuffed with shredded carrot, cabbage, spring onion and paneer, while cauliflower korma with blackened raisins breathes new life into the humble brassica. Recipes are really easy to follow and avoid speciality ingredients and equipment, making them an ideal way for UK home cooks to take vegetables in all kinds of new directions and inject some serious punch into mealtimes.

Best: For gluten-free options

 As opposed to avoiding meat or dairy, these recipes are instead about packing our plates with as many fresh, vibrant and nutritious vegetables as possible. So, while animal products aren’t criticised or scoffed at, they remain absent from the pages – as do bread, pasta, pastry and other refined flour products – to allow vegetables to sit right at the centre of each meal. This inclusive book, then, is not only a great shout for vegetarians but also vegans and those with gluten intolerances. The main meals, salads, soups, sides and small plates here reimagine popular veggies, seeing them prepped and cooked in new and tempting ways and showing off their versatility and appeal. Lesser-used grains are given a deserving platform too – such as pearled spelt, which is put to work in a pea, lemon and hazelnut riff on risotto.

Best: For barbecuing

Whether you’re a vegetarian or meat-eater, Charred can revolutionise your barbecues. No longer will you automatically reach for the burgers and sausages when you light those coals, and nor will corn on the cob or halloumi be your vegetarian go-to's (unless, perhaps they appear in Mexican-spiced skewers or a watermelon and lime-pickled onion salad, that is). That’s not to say that meat is demonised here – this fire-cooking pro loves a flame-licked slow-cooked joint as much as the next barbecue fanatic. Instead, Charred aims to prove that the alchemy at play when cooking with smoke and coals can elevate vegetables just as much as it can a hunk of brisket. Start with the smoky baba ganoush with crisp breads; sweet potato with spiced and caramelised red onion; and miso grilled aubergine with sticky pumpkin seeds, and take it from there.

Best: For asian inspired meals

This is one of the most-used cookbooks on our shelf right now – you can tell by its crinkled and sauce-splattered pages. East’s 120 vegetarian recipes are influenced by – as you might have deduced at this point – the food and cookery from across the eastern world. Inspiration comes courtesy of everywhere from Korea to India, China to Japan. That said, most dishes are fit for speedy weeknight cooking and all are approachable to Western home cooks – strict authenticity is less of a priority than practicality and accessibility for this Indian cook and food writer. With sections on noodles, curries, rice dishes and sides (among others), the book also organises some dishes by occasion for quick reference: think speedy dinners, picnic dishes, breakfasts and storecupboard creations, for instance. The peanut and purple sprouting broccoli pad Thai, chilli tofu and aubergine larb with crispy shallot and peanut salad are go-tos for us, and every time we flick through these pages another corner gets folded down.

Best: For fuss-free cooking

Sure, we all want colourful and exciting dinners packed with flavour and texture but – let’s be honest – we’re really not here for the pile of washing up that usually comes with them. Which is precisely why Iyer’s series of Roasting Tin cookbooks has been such a triumph, we reckon. The Green Roasting Tin is made up of vegetarian and vegan recipes that see the oven doing most of the heavy lifting. Hands-on time peaks at half an hour in one case (happily, most recipes call for just ten minutes of prep) and equipment is pretty much limited to a knife, chopping board and that all-important roasting tin. Recipes are organised into categories of quick, medium and slow, so you can choose them depending on how much time you have – or how urgently those hunger pangs need tending to. Recipe pairing suggestions help you to create themed feasts (think picnics, group lunches or seasonal eating, for instance) although most recipes are more than substantial enough to fly solo.

Best: For practicality and batch cooking

Rather than focusing on cutting ingredients out of your meals, Green is all about what extras you can pack in – namely, more vegetables, fruits, greengrocer bargains and garden gluts. And it does this with the restraints (time) and priorities (satisfaction) of busy home-cooks in mind, too. Base recipes to batch and freeze are not only in attendance but come with different methods for reviving them from their icy slumber. For instance, rose harissa chickpeas become a hearty toast topping with fresh gremolata for a satisfying lunch, and also get baked with za’atar-coated feta and served with a lemony salad for a punchy dinner. One-pan meals, 20-minute recipes, frittatas and on-toast suggestions follow, all showcasing really easy and imaginative ways to prep, cook and pair veggies. With slightly more involved dishes for weekends and a section to help you prep for the week ahead, Green is a modern and practical book that can not only help you change up your meals but also the way you shop and cook.

Best: For meals to impress

This book focuses on the things that bring out the best of a vegetable’s flavour: the cooking process, what you pair it with and knowing when to let it shine alone. And there are lots written about each of those three tactics, as well as on specific ingredients and their nuances. But there’s no reason to get bogged down in the alchemy of it all if you’re solely after hearty and offbeat dishes to help ramp up your veg game – just skip straight to those all-important recipes. Dishes take the form of riffs on classic meals (traybake ragu made with mushrooms, carrots, lentils and grains, and aubergine dumplings alla parmigiana) as well as novel, imagination-sparking plates like melon and mozzarella salad with kasha and curry leaves, and stuffed aubergine in a curry and coconut dal. All have the eyebrow-raising intrigue that we’ve come to expect from this Middle-Eastern chef.

Best: For using store cupboard staples

If it’s new ideas for old faithful vegetables you’re after, Bazaar might just come up trumps for you. Get those carrots lingering in your fridge drawer involved with a grater to make carrot, halloumi and dill balls perhaps, or root around in your store cupboard to make chickpea and vegetable koftas. In fact, it’s surprising how many of these novel recipes you’ll already have most of the ingredients for – this book is just about nudging you to use them in new ways. As with most of Ghayour’s recipes, there’s a distinct Middle Eastern thread running throughout these dishes, but by blending different ideas and concepts together they dodge any pigeonholes and can;t be consigned to one cuisine or region. Small plates to snack on or share are followed by comforting soups and stews, fresh salads and impressive main courses, so that whatever the occasion (or vegetable) you have in mind, you’ll find a recipe that hits the nail on the head.