Oh She Glows Every Day: Quick and Simply Satisfying Plant-based Recipes: A Cookbook

Why it's worth it

Angela Liddon's book is the most beginner-friendly plant-based title here, built on supermarket ingredients and clear allergen labels. If you're feeding a family that's skeptical about meat-free dinners, start here.

Every recipe tells you what's in it before you're halfway through cooking. Allergen labeling is explicit throughout, with gluten-free and soy-free options marked clearly. If someone in your house reacts to gluten or nuts, this is the only book in the guide that spares you the recipe-by-recipe detective work. That alone justifies it for a lot of families.

The recipes were pressure-tested by an enormous number of home cooks before they ever hit print. Liddon's blog has drawn well over 100 million lifetime pageviews, which means the recipes were cooked, complained about and revised in real kitchens long before publication. You feel it in the timings — the prep estimates are honest, which is rarer than it should be.

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

What we like

• +Every recipe tells you what's in it before you're halfway through cooking
• +The recipes were pressure-tested by an enormous number of home cooks before they ever hit print
• +It explains the why, so beginners actually learn something
• +It's the book most likely to win over a skeptical household

What to know

• –You'll outgrow it
• –The flavors stay close to North American comfort food
• –It's a big, wide hardcover that doesn't want to lie flat