Best Canadian cookbooks to gift this holiday season

Nov 12 2021, 3:00 pm

This past year, many of us have been rediscovering our kitchens. With the closure of many restaurants, we had no choice but to step outside of our comfort zones and step into our kitchens to whip up home-cooked meals each night. 

With more cooks in the kitchen these days, we thought we’d share the best Canadian cookbooks with you. It turns out that they also make the best gifts.

Here are eight of our favourites.

Eat With Us by Philip Lago and Mystique Mattai

Eat With Us was written and developed by Philip Lago and Mystique Mattai, the husband and wife founders of Chef Sous Chef. The recipes, like roasted beet fennel and citrus salad and grilled cacio e pepe pizza, are inspired by their family favourites growing up as well as the multicultural city of Toronto, where they live.

Eat With Us is about creating a slower, more mindful approach to cooking and eating together.

Hearth & Home by Lynn Crawford and Lora Kirk

Bestselling author, chef, and Food Network star Lynn Crawford teamed up with chef Lora Kirk to deliver more than 140 super-delicious recipes for casual home cooking in this new cookbook.

Prepare to be wowed by recipes like Sweet Potato and Lentil Coconut Thai Curry, Maple-Bourbon Glazed Ham, and Chocolate Fudge Brownies with Salted Caramel Sauce. 

The Double Happiness Cookbook by Trevor Lui

The Double Happiness Cookbook is a lively celebration of Asian cuisine from Toronto-based chef Trevor Lui.

This one features 88 feel-good, Asian-inspired recipes with a big-city attitude, like BBQ pork on rice, bulgogi beef tostadas, and sweet chili cauliflower wings. 

Island Eats by Dawn Postnikoff and Joanne Sasvari

Island Eats features more than 80 signature dishes, from classic salmon chowder to island-foraged chanterelle risotto, and apple pie waffles to bannock ice cream sandwiches.

This inspired collection of recipes boasts locally minded, soul-satisfying dishes that readers will want to make again and again.

tawâw: Progressive Indigenous Cuisine by Shane M. Chartrand with Jennifer Cockrall-King

Featuring more than 75 mouth-watering recipes, tawâw (pronounced ta-WOW) is the debut cookbook from chef Shane M. Chartrand. It explores the reawakening of Indigenous cuisine and what it means to cook, eat, and share food in our homes and communities.

This award-winning cookbook is categorized by season, and includes recipes for salmon pemmican, bison liver and parsley soup, and chocolate beet cake with Saskatoon berries. 

Acorn: Vegetables Re-Imagined by Shira Blustein and Brian Luptak

You’re in for a real treat with this cookbook from the owner and chefs behind the award-winning Vancouver restaurant The Acorn. This incredible plant-based cookbook highlights the endless possibilities that come when cooking with the seasonal and wild-crafted ingredients that are gifted to us by nature. The recipes focus on minimizing waste and maximizing the potential of each plant.

Pies Are Awesome by Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin

No holiday would be complete without pie. Take your pies to the next level with this awesome cookbook from Vancouver-based pie artist and Instagram influencer Jessica Leigh Clark-Bojin.

The pie art projects in this book are centred around some of our most popular and cherished celebrations in the hopes that they will encourage you to develop your own tasty new traditions with friends and family.

The Vegan Family Cookbook

Anna Pippus, the famed plant-based food lawyer and the voice behind Easy Animal-Free shares her trade secrets for taking a vegan approach to combat the weekday monotony in The Vegan Family Cookbook. The recipes are designed to take a laid-back approach to weeknight meal planning, and you’ll be inspired to whip up delicious  vegan dishes like Hemp Cream Rosé Penne, Chickpea Cauliflower Curry, and Sticky Tofu to Stir-Fry Peanut Noodles. 

Sean LoughranSean Loughran

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