Mexican Cookbooks: The 5 Best Books To Have in your Kitchen
Mexican food is one of the most widely enjoyed and experienced cuisines throughout the world. Its rich, vibrant flavors mirror the festive, familial values of the culture itself.
The history of Mexican cuisine is as enamoring as its mouthwatering flavors. The culture’s delicious cuisine takes cues from many different groups of people. From Mesoamerican communities to the Spanish influence, Mexican food should not be left out of your diet.
At De La Calle, we are passionate about fusing the tradition and beauty of authentic Mexican traditions with complementary aspects of the modern world. Just look at our tepache.
Now, you can blend your everyday life with the traditions of authentic Mexican cooking. The best way to get a solid sampling of what the food has to offer is to cook it yourself, and an amazing way to sample and understand Mexican cooking is with Mexican cookbooks. The kitchen is an artist’s studio, but it helps to have a template to follow. That’s where the cookbooks come in.
Having a few cookbooks in your kitchen is the perfect gateway to diversifying all of the food that you eat and finding your new favorite recipes.
We are passionate about Mexican cuisine, and you will be too once you flip through the pages of these cookbooks. You can basically smell the pictures!
In the interest of catering to a variety of diets and tastes, we selected five Mexican cookbooks that we consider must-haves for your kitchen. These books range from classic traditional Mexican cuisine to entirely vegan and fusion Mexican foods.
The kitchen is the heart of the home; give your heart some options! Read on to check out the five must-have Mexican cookbooks to line your kitchen cabinets.
1. Mexico from the Inside Out by Enrique Olvera
Enrique Olvera is an incredibly famous, critically adored Mexican chef. Olvera blends authentic Mexican tastes with modern culinary style and accents. His restaurant, Pujol, is currently the #1 ranked restaurant in Mexico, according to the World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards. Pujol is also ranked as the 20th best restaurant in the entire world. If that’s not enough to convince you to get this book on your shelves, maybe its contents will!
This cookbook strikes an excellent balance between high-end recipes that challenge even the most seasoned chefs and more accessible recipes for all. The book also blends Olvera’s unique philosophies about cooking and eating with the plethora of recipes inside. Not only will you find yourself cooking exciting creations, but you’ll be enjoying them with a renewed perspective about what it truly means to cook and eat.
The cookbook also contains beautiful photography of the Mexican landscape alongside Olvera’s mouthwatering masterpieces.
What are you waiting for? Begin your collection of Mexican cookbooks with the works of an unrivaled chef.
2. Tu Casa Mi Casa: Mexican Recipes for the Home Cook by Enrique Olvera with Luis Arellano, Gonzalo Gout, and Daniela Soto-Innes
This cookbook includes recipes from the masterful manos of Enrique Olvera, alongside several other impressive, talented chefs. While the last cookbook had challenges for all levels of chefs, this one is specifically for the home cook interested in enriching their understanding of Mexican home cooking.
This cookbook acts as a tribute to down-home Mexican home cooking. A departure from the high-end recipes featured in the previous book, this cookbook encourages the home chef to incorporate Mexican cooking into all aspects of their routine food prep.
Expert knowledge is combined into a personal ode to the first love of these chefs: good old Mexican home cooking. This book contains 100 recipes, including the recipes considered basic staples in Mexican cooking.
This book is a fantastic start for the busy home chef!
3. My Mexico City Kitchen: Recipes and Convictions by Gabriela Camara and Malena Watrous
The author of this cookbook was named one of Time Magazine’s Most Influential People; need we say more? This cookbook is an absolute joy to read and gives the reader heaps of options for Mexican dishes.
Gabriela Camara gifts the reader with 150 different recipes throughout the colorful pages of My Mexico City Kitchen.
This cookbook is unique in its emphasis on seafood-centric dishes. It also has many options for vegetarian meals. This book places importance on having fresh, healthful, and delicious options for the home cook.
This book is an excellent introduction to the fundamentals of Mexican cuisine while infusing the colors and flavors of vibrant Mexico City.
4. Mexico: The Cookbook by Margarita Carrillo Arronte
Need an all-inclusive encyclopedia-style cookbook? Look no further than Mexico The Cookbook. This fantastic fuschia beauty has over 700 recipes within its pages, so lace up that apron. It’s time to get cooking!
These recipes celebrate the variety of tastes and textures that all fall under the umbrella of Mexican cooking. From tamales to tacos, moles to melon seed juice, blue crab soup to burritos, this cookbook has it all, and then some.
This cookbook is also a fantastic way to learn about the history and influences of traditional Mexican cuisine. The introduction provides a detailed description of the facets of Mexican cooking and culture.
This cookbook is excellent for anyone looking to dive deeper into the regional tastes of Mexico.
5. Nopalito: A Mexican Kitchen by Gonzalo Guzmán
Gonzalo Guzman, the head chef at high-end San Francisco restaurant, Nopalito, takes some of the most basic Mexican ingredients and packs them with flavor and personality in this fantastic guide to delicious, savory Mexican cooking.
This cookbook even gives you a glimpse into how to make the recipes featured at Nopalito. No need to make a reservation. Just set your dining room table and ready your spices.
There are so many incredible and innovative recipes in this cookbook. Just to name a few, Guzman supplies readers with dangerously delicious Crispy Red Quesadillas with Braised Pork and Pork Rinds, Toasted Corn with Crema, Ground Chile, and Queso Fresco. Need we say any more?
This cookbook is a fantastic find for anyone looking to take the flavors of Mexico and inject them into any number of other kinds of cuisine. It masterfully demonstrates how to intuit strong crossover flavor combinations that any budding cook is sure to appreciate.
Have Fun With Cooking Mexican Food at Home!
These cookbooks are the best of the best to start you off on the right foot with Mexican cuisines at home.
There is no need to be intimidated by these recipes, only cause for excitement. These cookbooks are wonderful road maps to guide you along your culinary journey. They are also a great pick-me-up for any meal-making slumps you may fall into. Meatloaf every night might just start to wear on you, so change things up with some mole!
These five cookbooks will have you loving the traditions of Mexican cooking as much as we do. Even if you close your eyes, open a book up, and point, you are sure to have a good time trying out a new recipe. Or perhaps you are a master already looking to glean new techniques.
Whatever the case, these cookbooks will keep you going when you feel like microwave dinner is the only option, plus bring you some truly incredible flavors and textures.
Sources:
Top 10 foods to try in Mexico | BBC
Traditional Mexican Food—A Treat for All the Senses | Family Search
