Family Favorite International Cuisines Cookbooks
Add some variety to your meals by adding these cookbooks featuring a variety of international cuisines. These are our family favorites that we come back to time and time again.
Table of contents
Do you feel like you sometimes get in a mealtime rut and always making the same things? Are you wanting to add more variety to your dinners?
Adding new cookbooks to your collections and having them in a prominent place can help you make dinners more interesting again. When I feel in a rut, I give each of my family members a cookbook and ask them to pick a recipe they would like to try. Then we add them to a list to add into our meal planning!
Want ideas on how to teach your children to be respectful when learning about the cultures of the world? See my guide on how to teach your children to become world explorers for tips and tricks!
Why buy these cookbooks?
One of our goals as a family is to eat a greater variety of cuisines from around the world. Having a big family can make this challenging if we stick to takeout or restaurants, both in costs and overall logistics.
Instead, we’ve been adding cookbooks to our collections that allows us to explore new cuisines from the comfort of home. It allows me to tailor dishes if I need, like for allergy issues or for my picky eaters. Also, I don’t have to stress about picking something off a menu that I’m not entirely sure what is in it.
One benefit I hadn’t anticipated was the additional cultural understanding that I’ve gained by reading through the cookbooks. I enjoyed the glimpses into the authors’ families, their cultures, and their experiences and the connections I felt to their stories. We may have grown up in different environments but many of our experiences were similar.
A few tips when cooking from a new cuisine style
- Pick one cuisine to start with and find a recipe that has a main ingredient your family already enjoys like chicken, potatoes, or pasta. Get more tips on introducing international foods to kids here.
- Find any unfamiliar ingredients at your grocery store, local international market or online.
- Set aside a day when you will have plenty of time to enjoy cooking something new.
- Invite your family to help you, even if it’s only for specific steps. I have lots of tips on cooking with kids here.
- Make it fun by turning on some music to match your cuisine choice. I’ve got more tips here on making mealtime fun.
Our family favorite international cookbooks
Family Favorite International Cuisines Cookbooks
These cookbooks are the ones that we keep coming back to and are a fabulous way to support chefs from those communities.
I like these simple recipes that feature light and easy dinners that my family enjoys. A couple of our favorites are the Lemon Chicken Piccata and the Fig Prosciutto and Burrata Salad.
If you want a sneak peek at a recipe from the cookbook, I was allowed to share the Chicken Prosciutto Saltimbocca that is another family favorite.
Shadi was born and raised in Iran and she shares lots of little memories from her childhood. She also gives lots of helpful tips for finding unfamiliar ingredients. Two of our favorite dishes so far have been the Beef Pan Kabobs and the Barberry and Saffron Rice.
One of the things I love is that every recipe has a photo which always helps in knowing what the finished dish should look like.
We have a lot of favorites so far from this cookbook! Two favorites are the Turmeric Lemon Couscous with Currants and the Blood Orange and Pomegranate Salad.
Char is from Malaysia (I interviewed her on my podcast) and she shares the healthier versions of dishes you may recognize as well as other recipes from her Malaysian Chinese upbringing. The Dan Dan Noodles and the Honey Sesame Chicken are two current favorites.
Although not Native Hawaiian, Alana grew up as a local resident of Hawaii and shares many of the things she learned growing up on Maui, the same island my grandma is from! She does a great job representing the diversity of local Hawaiian food. We've enjoyed the Mochiko chicken and Cone Sushi, a favorite from my childhood.
This cookbook is a beautiful homage to the incredible contributions of immigrants in the United States. It highlights chefs from around the world and their stories as immigrants, as chefs, and as Americans. I often get lost reading this cookbook just for fun! You can read more about the cookbook in my review of it here but it's a great all around cookbook.
There are so many recipes in this book that we are dying to try but a few we have tried and loved are the Cambodian Coconut Milk- Marinated Pork with Rice (Bai Sach Chrouk) and the Coconut Beef Curry from Chinese chef Shuai Wang.
Jubilee: Recipes From Two Centuries of African American Cooking by Toni Tipton-Martin
This is an incredible cookbook that has so much historical information. This is another cookbook that I frequently pick up just to read for fun because it is so interesting.
The Chicken and Dumplings and Buttermilk Fried Chicken are just a couple of our favorites that have been made a few times.