The ten Greatest Korean Cookbooks of 2025

The idea of a Korean cookbook would probably mystify my Korean-born mother and father, who I’ve by no means seen use a lot as a teaspoon within the kitchen. Neither of them ever measures something once they prepare dinner, nor did their mother and father earlier than them. Koreans may say all of them have sohn-mat, a time period that roughly interprets to “style of the fingers” and refers to somebody with an intuition for taste, a natural-born prepare dinner. I might say it implies that everytime you’re making an attempt to pry any type of recipe out of them (you already know, for posterity), their response is at all times, “Simply add just a little little bit of this and a pinch of that and an enormous spoonful of that.”

Thankfully, you don’t have to have sohn-mat (or perceive my mother and father’ cryptic recipe directions) to make glorious Korean meals as of late. Because the 2010s, there’s been a notable explosion of Korean cookbooks available on the market, and a few of my favourite cookbooks in my assortment are written by Korean, Korean-born, and Korean American authors. (This Stained Web page Information story by Helin Jung on the historical past of Korean cookbooks in America is a completely fascinating learn).

Whereas there are such a lot of extra Korean cookbooks on the market than this checklist might ever hope to cowl, these are ten books that I—a Korean American prepare dinner and meals author—actually love, every with a novel viewpoint to contribute to the ever-growing dialog concerning the thrilling prospects of Korean and Korean American meals. If ever the day comes after I’m compelled to whittle down my 120-plus (and rising) cookbook assortment, these would make the reduce.

This dynamic, colourful, and soulful love letter to Koreatowns throughout America felt groundbreaking to me when it got here out in 2016, and nonetheless feels timeless immediately. It defied so lots of the day’s established conventions for promoting an viewers on a lesser-known delicacies. As an alternative, Koreatown absolutely embraces all of the issues that make these Korean American enclaves uniquely particular via its mixture of daring design (the banchan-grid cowl is iconic) and reportage-style images that seize moments of on a regular basis life unfolding in typically “unglamorous” areas like underground buying facilities and strip malls. The recipes handle to strike a fragile steadiness between being achievable and tempting to attempt at dwelling, whereas not watering down any of the essence of Koreatown cooking. You’ll discover a mixture of Korean American classics (kimchi fried rice with bacon) alongside recipes from visitor cooks who’ve discovered their very own culinary footing within the diaspora (comparable to chef Edward Lee’s Southern-inspired cornmeal and shrimp pajeon).

To the uninitiated, the various small plates of various savory aspect dishes that greet you upon sitting all the way down to a conventional Korean meal, referred to as banchan, are sometimes a complete revelation. A Korean meal merely isn’t full with out a minimum of just a few banchan on the desk, and the excellent news is lots of them are fairly easy to organize with Caroline Choe’s playful, eye-catching guide as your information. This charming guide presents a style of a number of the principal sub-categories of banchan, from ferments and preserves to recent vegetable dishes, soups, and savory pancakes. Most of the recipes draw on Caroline’s American upbringing because the daughter of Korean-born immigrants, leading to deliciously shocking treats like recent strawberry kimchi and spring greens namul quiche. Whereas the guide options some meat and seafood dishes, most recipes place greens entrance and middle. In the event you’re making an attempt to embrace extra vegetation in your weight loss program, banchan is a good way to up your veggie consumption.

I didn’t develop up in Atlanta, however New York Occasions meals and cooking columnist Eric Kim’s evocative recipes and lovely writing someway make me nostalgic for Atlanta, maybe as a result of regardless of the variations between each Korean American household and group (and their cooking customs and tastes therein), some meals incontrovertibly really feel like dwelling, like griddled Spam or crispy donkkaseu (breaded fried pork cutlets). Kim’s debut guide is deeply private, equal elements cookbook, novel, and love letter to his mom Jean. It’s additionally the story of a sophisticated, in the end triumphant homecoming that was solely made attainable via Kim’s personal interrogation of how and the place we discover dwelling. Kim’s recipes are precisely what I need to eat: Assume pan-seared rib eye with gochujang butter, or creamy bucatini with gim (roasted seasoned seaweed). That is the guide I might purchase for the good friend who reads cookbooks as in the event that they have been novels (me).

If a good friend requested me which cookbook they need to purchase as an introduction to fashionable Korean meals, this prompt basic is the one I’d suggest. It’s a extremely honed piece of workmanship stuffed with understated magnificence, from its daring but clear and stripped-back design to the attractive pictures. (Full transparency: I like this guide a lot that I employed the photographer, Kristin Teig, to shoot my personal upcoming cookbook!) The recipes are a well-curated edit of what I might take into account a few of Korea’s most well-known dishes, from yangnyeom-gejang (spicy marinated uncooked blue crab) to dolsot (scorching sizzling stone) bibimbap to doenjang jjigae (fermented soybean stew). However, this being a cookbook written by a Michelin-starred chef, I recognize the addition of barely extra bold recipes, comparable to juicy pork and shrimp “dumplings” wrapped in perilla leaves as a substitute of dough, that are then delicately battered and fried. The guide additionally has an exceptionally considerate information to buying Korean substances.

The pandemic compelled Monica Lee’s beloved Los Angeles restaurant Beverly Quickly Tofu to shut in September 2020, however Beverly devotees are blessed to have Sohn-mat (reminder: Korean for “style of the fingers,” a time period used to explain a prepare dinner with pure instincts for taste). That is Lee’s blueprint for recreating her iconic quickly tofu chigae, or mushy tofu stew (which you may additionally see spelled as sundubu jjigae or soondubu jjigae). Lee spends a 3rd of the guide going deep on each ingredient of her well-known chigaes, with numerous info and recommendation on shopping for the best substances and the Korean earthenware serving vessels referred to as ttukbaegi (integral to the consuming expertise at Beverly), in addition to recipes for broths, spicy seasoning paste, and the chigaes themselves. The remainder of the guide is devoted to the dishes you’ll need on the desk to eat alongside your quickly tofu chigae and a sizzling bowl of rice: all types of banchans, kimchi, appetizers, massive platters to share, and stews and soups.

It’s arduous to imagine there wasn’t a guide dedicated to jangs prior to now. “Jang” refers back to the household of fermented soybean merchandise that make up the all-important “mom flavors” that give Korean meals its undeniably distinctive taste. You’re accustomed to jangs in the event you’ve ever had bibimbap or cooked with gochujang, the more and more widespread candy fermented crimson pepper paste that’s in every little thing as of late from glazed fried rooster to cookies. This guide, written by the esteemed chef of Michelin-star restaurant Mingles in Seoul, bridges the normal with the fashionable, going deep into the wealthy historical past of jangs in Korean delicacies and tradition, accompanied by gorgeous pictures of conventional Korean artisans within the jang-making course of. It’s divided into three sections: ganjang (Korean soy sauce), doenjang (fermented soybean paste), and gochujang (fermented crimson pepper paste), with a mixture of conventional Korean dishes in addition to recipes that present how jangs is usually a welcome, versatile addition to a worldwide pantry. (Assume tagliatelle with ganjang ragù, or Greek salad with doenjang French dressing.) Whereas this isn’t the guide I’d suggest to somebody brand-new to Korean delicacies, I’d purchase it for the good friend whose thought of a weekend well-spent is getting misplaced within the aisles of a specialty meals retailer, then coming dwelling to make one thing scrumptious.

Phaidon’s single-subject cookbooks dedicated to main culinary cuisines of the world are objects price gracing your espresso desk, to make sure. However again and again, I’ve been delighted by the invaluable trove of data these books comprise that I can seldom discover in different English texts. At 496 pages, The Korean Cookbook is an absolute beast, masking the nation’s historical past, geography, culinary evolution, native substances, and far more together with the 350 recipes, lots of which I had by no means heard of or seen in another English guide. The chef-authors strongly emphasize the significance of greens and fermented and preserved meals within the evolution of hansik (Korean delicacies), and the recipes accordingly showcase the huge and diversified Korean preparations of greens, kimchi, and preserved pickles. The recipes have been developed with the house prepare dinner in thoughts (although I don’t suppose this dwelling prepare dinner shall be making the recipe for 26 kilos of doenjang anytime quickly), and certainly many might be simply ready after a fast journey to H Mart. Different recipes may current extra of a problem to those that don’t have entry to Korea’s native greens and animal proteins, although they’re fascinating to examine all the identical.

Like the remainder of the web, I take into account the wildly widespread YouTuber Maangchi (a.okay.a. Emily Kim) to be Korean Mom (and I have a Korean mom). It’s unimaginable to not love her candy demeanor, her wild outfits, and her knockout-delicious meals. Maangchi’s Actual Korean Cooking is her first cookbook, which got here out in 2015, and reads like a greatest-hits compilation of the recipes on her web site, like bulgogi, seafood-scallion pancake (haemul-pajeon), and sticky-sweet Korean fried rooster (yangnyeom-tongdak). Maangchi excels at delivering the flavors of her youth rising up in Korea (versus within the Korean American diaspora) together with her American and international viewers, making this guide complete however accessible. Maangchi does a very glorious job of explaining the necessities of the Korean pantry—you’ll need to convey this guide as your discipline information on a visit to the Korean grocer.

Chef Peter Serpico’s recipes are knowledgeable by his lived expertise as a South Korean-born transracial adoptee rising up in Laurel, Maryland. The recipes on this environment friendly little guide are undoubtedly nontraditional, however clearly relay Serpico’s distinctive viewpoint as somebody who realized to attach along with his Korean heritage within the kitchen effectively into his maturity. He has made a considerate effort to develop recipes which might be accessible to dwelling cooks of all expertise ranges, in addition to those that may not have entry to a Korean grocer or specialty retailer. You in all probability wouldn’t discover a recipe for curly parsley kimchi or pickled iceberg lettuce in a Korean cookbook that hewed extra intently to conventional fare, however that’s precisely what makes Serpico’s guide attention-grabbing to me. I additionally recognize that though Serpico is an acclaimed chef with a nice eating pedigree, many of those recipes are streamlined and exceptionally achievable, even for busy weeknights.

Korean-born, London-based creator Su Scott’s second cookbook, dedicated to the road meals tradition of Seoul, is the guide she says she needed to jot down even earlier than she penned her quietly lovely debut guide, Rice Desk. (The titular “pocha” is shorthand for “pojangmacha,” the various avenue stalls or carts you’ll discover slinging low-cost and comforting snacks and drinks in South Korea.) The guide’s cleverly constructed chapters take you on a daylong feast: Begin with pine nut porridge with oatmeal (jat juk) in All Day Eating, break for smoked salmon bibimbap in Market Lunch, seize a salted Nutella pancake for a pick-me-up in 4PM Stoop, and wind down with some anju (consuming snacks) washed down with numerous soju in Feasting Underneath the Stars. Scott is a poet. Her Seoul, captured in mesmerizing images, is deeply engaging, electrical, alive, and stuffed with historical past. You’ll be able to’t assist however need to comply with her via the streets of the town, rapturously consuming your method via 24 scrumptious hours in her beloved hometown.

Why We’re the Specialists

• Christina Chaey is a Korean American recipe developer, author, and soon-to-be cookbook creator. She is an ardent lover of cookbooks and, eventually rely, owns greater than 120 of them.
• She spent seven years as an editor at Bon Appétit, the place she wrote and edited tales and developed recipes within the Check Kitchen.
• She labored as a line prepare dinner underneath chef Suzanne Cupps on the now-closed Untitled on the Whitney Museum of American Artwork, the place she cultivated her love for native, seasonal cooking.