The Best Cookbooks of 2022 (Published 2022) (2024)

Few things delight quite like sitting down on the couch with a newly purchased cookbook, giving the spine a good crack and thumbing through those glossy, yet-to-be-sauce-splattered pages. But when hundreds of cookbooks publish every year, the opportunities for culinary wonder can feel endless. Where does one begin? At The New York Times Food desk, with a color-coded spreadsheet and an appetite, of course. Our staff read and tested dozens of books in our annual search for the most compelling stories, the sharpest cooking instruction and the most mouthwatering recipes. These 16 books managed to transport, teach and entice in ways that distinguished them from the pack — and to convince us that yes, there’s always room for one more title on the shelf.
— TANYA SICHYNSKY

‘Bludso’s BBQ Cookbook: A Family Affair in Smoke and Soul’

Time is the secret ingredient for transcendent barbecue, but as Kevin Bludso shares in “Bludso’s BBQ Cookbook” (Ten Speed Press), generations of barbecue know-how is key, too. Mr. Bludso made a name for himself with a Texas-style barbecue restaurant in Compton, Calif., but his first book celebrates the family-style cooking and the gifted cooks in his family that made him the chef he is today — like his Granny (his paternal great-aunt Willie Mae Fields) in Corsicana, Texas, who taught him brisket, and his uncle Kaiser in Compton, Calif., who taught his mother how to barbecue. While recipes for dishes like shrimp and grits smothered in a deeply rich gravy, red chili burritos and smoked oxtails birria show his culinary versatility, it is the barbecue that will bring you to tears. The brisket, just four ingredients and your time, is the best thing I cooked all year. — SARA BONISTEEL