The Vegan Chinese Kitchen: Recipes and Modern Stories from a Thousand-Year-Old Tradition: A Cookbook

Why it's worth it

Hannah Che's James Beard Award finalist traces Chinese Buddhist temple cooking through more than 100 fully vegan recipes. It's the most rigorous book here, and the one that assumes you already know your way around a wok.

A James Beard finalist nod is about the most reliable outside signal a cookbook can carry. It's not a marketing claim or a bestseller ranking — it's a judgment from people who cook for a living. In a category flooded with trend-chasing titles, that credential does real work when you're deciding which book deserves your money.

The plant-based tradition here predates Western veganism by roughly a thousand years. Chinese Buddhist temple cuisine developed an entire flavor system without animal products, so nothing in this book is a substitution. Dim sum, noodles, braises, fermented preparations — all of it arrives fully formed, drawing on Cantonese, Sichuan and Shanghainese regional cooking rather than a flattened idea of 'Chinese vegan.'

From our review of 6 vegetarian and plant-based cookbooks, by Genevieve Dubois, Home & Living Expert

What we like

• +A James Beard finalist nod is about the most reliable outside signal a cookbook can carry
• +The plant-based tradition here predates Western veganism by roughly a thousand years
• +Che explains mechanisms, not just steps
• +It's the book that rewards the cook you're becoming

What to know

• –This is the wrong first plant-based cookbook
• –Plan days ahead, sometimes weeks
• –It's a heavy, substantial hardcover