9 Simple Cookbooks for People Who Aren’t Good at Cooking

Award-winning chef and Food Network personality Scott Conant grew up eating simple but delicious meals rooted in his Italian heritage. He learned that simple recipes can be packed with flavor, and now he’s sharing his insights with you. 

Each recipe focuses on fresh ingredients and simple steps designed to cultivate your love of cooking while creating nourishing, satisfying meals for your entire family.

Brunch is bae, and avocado toast absolutely slaps, but we all know you can’t survive on Uber Eats forever. This cookbook understands that you’ve endured enough disappointment—the kitchen will not be another one. 

Covering everything from cereal to lasagna, you’ll find thirty basic recipes that will give your cooking skills the glow-up you deserve.

Maydān is a word that stretches across borders and languages. It means “gathering place” and typically refers to the town center where people meet and congregate. To Rose Previte, this is what food does. 

Meals are not meant to be perfect or complicated; they’re meant to be shared. Filled with accessible and delicious recipes, Maydān shows you how to put bold flavors on your table without any of the fuss.

Have you ever eaten out and wished you could recreate an incredible meal in the comfort of your own home? The team at Eater understands. 

That’s why they’ve curated 100 recipes ranging from street carts to Michelin-star restaurants, all adapted so you can easily cook them regardless of your culinary expertise. 

If you’re searching for easy, no-nonsense meals that focus on vegetables, look no further. Jess Damuck believes that healthy food doesn’t have to be complicated. 

And it can be served in single-sized portions or for an entire dinner party. With over 100 recipes of delicious and nutritious food, this will be your go-to cookbook for whenever you crave something to feed your soul without the guilt.

Facing the kitchen when you don’t have any culinary skills can be daunting, to say the least. After all, we can’t all be Julia Child. The good news is you have all the skills you need—you just don’t know it. 

Written in approachable language, with all the challenges and obstacles laid out up front, Seinfeld will teach you how to make anything from lemon salmon to flourless cake so that you can master the confidence to cook any meal.

Here’s a secret top chefs might not want you to know: great food doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, it can be quite easy. 

You just need the right ingredients, a few techniques, and some basic kitchen equipment. The key is learning to enjoy the process. And Mark Bittman will walk you through everything you need to know.

Maybe you don’t need a recipe to learn how to boil water, but every recipe in this cookbook is as easy as the title implies. 

With tips, tricks, and short-cuts, The Food Network has curated this collection, complete with color photographs, designed to help beginning cooks turn into master chefs.

Picking up a random cookbook when you don’t know the difference between broiling and baking can be intimidating. That’s why Mary-Lane Kamberg compiled 300 recipes that even the most inexperienced cook can’t mess up. 

She’s included a glossary of terms to take the mystery out of culinary language. From easy breakfasts to complicated desserts, you’ll soon develop the confidence you need to ditch the take-out and consistently cook delicious homemade meals.