The Best Jewish Cookbooks: The Ultimate Guide
Updated: Dec. 08, 2023
These Jewish cookbooks have recipes for holiday comfort foods, easy kosher meals, Israeli dishes and more!
Best Cookbook For: Traditional Jewish Recipes
The Jewish Cookbook
By Leah Koenig
If you’re only going to buy one Jewish cookbook, Leah Koenig’s The Jewish Cookbook is a solid option. The book explores the diversity of Jewish cuisine around the world, featuring recipes from Ashkenazi (Eastern Europe), Sephardic (Spain, Portugal and North Africa) and Mizrahi (Middle East, including Iran and Iraq) communities. Among the more than 400 recipes in the book are Koenig’s versions of rugelach and pumpkin challah.
Best Cookbook For: Jewish Comfort Food
Bubbe and Me in the Kitchen
By Miri Rotkovitz
In her Jewish cookbook Bubbe and Me in the Kitchen: A Kosher Cookbook of Beloved Recipes and Modern Twists, Miri Rotkovitz features kosher recipes from her grandmother—or “bubbe”—as well as her own recipes and a selection of dishes from contributors. You’ll find instructions for charoset, matzo ball soup and kasha varnishkes, as well as watermelon gazpacho and Persian chicken stew.
More Jewish comfort food cookbooks:
- The 100 Most Jewish Foods by Alana Newhouse
- Eat Something: A Wise Sons Cookbook for Jews Who Like Food and Food Lovers Who Like Jews by Evan Bloom and Rachel Levin
Best Cookbook For: Jewish Holiday Foods
Joan Nathan’s Jewish Holiday Cookbook
By Joan Nathan
You can’t write about the best Jewish cookbooks without mentioning Joan Nathan. And when it comes to recipes for Rosh Hashanah foods and Passover meals, you can’t beat her Jewish Holiday Cookbook. The book includes multiple sample menus for all the major Jewish holidays.
More Jewish holiday cookbooks:
- Perfect for Pesach by Naomi Nachman
- Kosher by Design: Picture Perfect Food for the Holidays & Every Day by Susie Fishbein
Best Cookbook For: Israeli Cuisine
Jerusalem
By Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi
Co-written by Yotam Ottolenghi, an Israeli chef, and Sami Tamimi, a Palestinian chef, Jerusalem: A Cookbook highlights the complex cuisines of this shared city. Recipes include fattoush, roasted butternut squash with za’atar and tahini, lamb kofta, and a cardamom rice pudding with pistachios and rose water.
More Israeli cookbooks:
- Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors From My Israeli Kitchen by Adeena Sussman
- Zahav: A World of Israeli Cooking by Michael Solomonov and Steven Cook
Best Cookbook For: Kosher Cooking
Joy of Kosher
By Jamie Geller
If you keep a kosher kitchen, you’ve probably already heard of Jamie Geller, who has written several other popular kosher cookbooks. In Joy of Kosher: Fast, Fresh Family Recipes, she shares accessible kosher recipes with suggestions for ways to “dress it up” for special occasions or “dress it down” for picky kids. Her recipes also feature kosher wine pairings and tips for easy kosher cooking.
More kosher cookbooks:
Best Cookbook For: Insight into the History of Jewish Cuisine
The Book of Jewish Food
Claudia Roden
Winner of the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook of the Year award in 1997, The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand to New York documents the history of Jewish cooking with hundreds of traditional Jewish recipes, stories and photos. The book covers Jewish foods from both Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities. Claudia Roden has written multiple other books about Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking.
Another historical Jewish cookbook:
- Miracles & Meals: Volume 2 of the Holocaust Survivor Cookbook by Joanne Caras
Best Cookbook For: Jewish Baking
Modern Jewish Baker
By Shannon Sarna
You may already be familiar with some of Shannon Sarna’s recipes—we’ve shared her pomegranate short ribs and chicken matzo ball soup. But as we learned when she showed us how to make her Passover rainbow cookies, Sarna shines as a baker. In her book, Modern Jewish Baker: Challah, Babka, Bagels & More, she shares techniques, tips and recipes for making the most important Jewish carbs: challah, babka, bagels, rugelach, hamantaschen, pita bread and matzah.
More Jewish baking cookbooks:
- Rising: The Book of Challah by Rochie Pinson
- Breaking Breads: A New World of Israeli Baking by Uri Scheft
Best Cookbook For: Jewish Fusion
Millennial Kosher
By Chanie Apfelbaum
From ramen shakshuka to beer-marinated London broil with arugula chimichurri, Millenial Kosher: Recipes Reinvented for the Modern Palate features globally inspired versions of classic Jewish foods.
More Jewish fusion cookbooks:
- Molly on the Range: Recipe and Stories from an Unlikely Life on a Farm by Molly Yeh
- Peas, Love and Carrots by Danielle Renov
Best Cookbook For: Jewish Deli Favorites
The Artisan Jewish Deli at Home
By Nick Zukin and Michael Zusman
While it’s hard to truly re-create the experience of dining in a classic Jewish delicatessen, The Artisan Jewish Deli at Home will get you as close as possible. With recipes ranging from homemade dill pickles and potato latkes to knishes and pastrami sandwiches, the book shares the history of Jewish delis in America and highlights some of the most famous ones.
(Here are the best delis in every state!)
More Jewish deli cookbooks:
- The 2nd Ave Deli Cookbook: Recipes and Memories from Abe Lebewohl’s Legendary Kitchen by Sharon Lebewohl and Rena Bulkin
- The Gefilte Manifesto: New Recipes for Old World Jewish Foods by Jeffrey Yoskowitz and Liz Alpern
Best Cookbook For: Global Jewish Dishes
King Solomon’s Table
By Joan Nathan
We couldn’t help but feature another one of Joan Nathan’s cookbooks. In her latest, King Solomon’s Table: A Culinary Exploration of Jewish Cooking from Around the World, she explores Jewish dishes from across the globe and demonstrates how Jewish food is as diverse as the Jewish people.
Another global Jewish cookbook:
- Shaya: An Odyssey of Food, My Journey Back to Israel by Alon Shaya
Best Cookbook For: Healthy Jewish Cooking
The New Yiddish Kitchen
By Simone Miller and Jennifer Robins
The New Yiddish Kitchen: Gluten-Free and Paleo Kosher Recipes for Holidays and Everyday features traditional Jewish recipes like bagels and kugel adapted into versions that fit practically every dietary constraint. The recipes in this modern Jewish cookbook are kosher as well as grain-, gluten-, dairy- and refined sugar-free.
More healthy Jewish cookbooks:
- Kosher by Design Lightens Up: Fabulous Foods for a Healthier Lifestyle by Susie Fishbein
- I Heart Kosher: Beautiful Recipes from My Kitchen by Kim Kushner
Best Cookbook For: African-Jewish Cuisine
Koshersoul
By Michael Twitty
No roundup of Jewish cookbooks is complete without the voice of Michael Twitty, a preeminent scholar, chef and culinary historian who explores food through the lens of his African-American and Jewish identities and ancestry. His book Koshersoul focuses on African-Jewish cooking, the people who make this food and how the histories are intertwined. Twitty is an essential voice of his generation—and this is essential reading!
More books about Southern and Jewish cuisine:
- Jewish Soul Food: From Minsk to Marrakesh by Janna Gur
- Kugels and Collards: Stories of Food, Family, and Tradition in Jewish South Carolina by Rachel Gordin Barnett
Best Cookbooks For: Modern Jewish Food
Jew-ish and I Could Nosh
By Jake Cohen
Jake Cohen is loved for his sassy cooking videos and beautiful challah braiding, so it’s a good thing he now has not one but two cookbooks to devour. I Could Nosh, his sophomore cookbook, follows hot on the heels of Jew-ish, his first cookbook. Both explore Jewish classics with a modern twist. I Could Nosh includes recipes like everything bagel panzanella and a whole chapter of schmears!
More cookbooks with a modern Jewish twist:
- Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors From My Israeli Kitchen by Adeena Sussman
- Modern Jewish Cooking by Leah Koenig
Best Cookbook For: Italian Jewish Recipes
Portico: Cooking and Feasting in Rome’s Jewish Kitchen
By Leah Koenig
Leah Koenig is back at it with her newest cookbook, Portico. Koenig is a beloved Jewish cookbook author and food writer, with a wealth of knowledge about Jewish culinary histories. Portico is loaded with Roman-Jewish recipes like Jewish-style fried artichokes and will have you running to your kitchen to give them a try.
More cookbooks for Italian Jewish cuisine:
- Cooking alla Giudia: A Celebration of the Jewish Food of Italy by Benedetta Jasmine Guetta
- Classic Italian Jewish Cooking: Traditional Recipes and Menus by Edda Servi Machlin
Originally Published: February 17, 2021
