Spring is one of the year’s stacked seasons for cookbooks. In 2026, new releases include an homage to a single beloved ingredient, Southern cooking by way of both Emancipation and China, and a regional exploration of Lebanese food. Get excited. Get curious. Just get cooking.
‘The Butter Book’
Butter on the brain! So much so that this slim tome from Anna Stockwell is even shaped like a stick of golden glory. “Part historical deep-dive, part recipe book, part decorative object,” said Vogue, the book does it all. Open it, and you’re greeted with a history of butter, plus simple ways to use it to elevate everyday dishes: Your pot of rice will thank you. More complicated recipes appear too, including fancified buttered pasta and butter roast chicken. (out now, $19.95, Chronicle Books, Amazon)
‘Down South + East: A Chinese American Cookbook’
This book “so seamlessly blends Chinese cuisine with classic Southern dishes that they seem almost destined to be paired together,” said The Kitchn. In truth, chef-author Ron Hsu, of Atlanta’s Lazy Betty, stretches the influences across multiple parts of East Asia. Banana pudding wafts with the green vanilla notes of pandan. Soy sauce, Maggi seasoning, daikon and shiitake mushroom yank pot roast into new territory. Batons of Chinese eggplant are coated in cornmeal before frying. Romaine is braised, as is common in Hong Kong, but with ham hock potlikker. You get the idea. (out now, $40, Abrams, Amazon)
‘A Feather and a Fork: 125 Intertribal Dishes from an Indigenous Food Warrior’
Crystal Wahpepah, chef of Wahpepah’s Kitchen in Oakland, California, is an enrolled member of the Kickapoo tribe. With “A Feather and a Fork,” Wahpepah uses her recipes to tell the story of her displaced family, who were moved from Oklahoma to the San Francisco Bay Area, and to “decolonize nutrition and reclaim sovereignty” over “traditional foodways,” Wahpepah writes. Lessons come true and fast among recipes for amaranth salad, wild onion soup and chokecherry pudding. (out now, $35, Rodale, Amazon)
‘Hello, Home Cooking: Do-Able Dishes for Every Day’
Ham El-Waylly’s debut is a “lively book that blends solid technique with a touch of whimsy,” said Library Journal. The chef of the New Orleans-influenced New York City restaurant Strange Delight, El-Waylly brings his fine-dining background and expansive, diverse home cooking skills to vivid life. A Bolivian mother, an Egyptian father and a childhood in Qatar: El-Waylly’s recipes string those influences into a very inspired, American way of eating. (out now, $35, Clarkson Potter, Amazon)
‘Lebanon: Cooking the Foods of My Homeland’
Anissa Helou, a food-writing legend, was born in Lebanon and focused her first book, “Lebanese Cuisine,” on the dishes her mother cooked. This new book reaches across the nation to showcase a variety of regional dishes. Helou “came to look at the food of my own country afresh, realizing that it is far more fascinating to view a cuisine through a regional rather than a national lens,” she writes in the book’s introduction. (out now, $40, HarperCollins, Amazon)
‘Party Tricks: Easy, Elegant Recipes for Snacking and Hosting’
Let us be extremely real: Everyone needs at least two handfuls of party tricks. With Anna Hezel’s new book, you will be the indebted recipient of a bookful. Votives instead of candles to prevent flammable accidents. Premade snacks set in various parts of the space for easy access. A variety of corkscrews plopped within reach, “that way, no one has to search when they’re ready to open another bottle,” Hezel said to MarthaStewart.com. Of course, “Party Tricks” is loaded with knockout dishes and how to make them, including cured ham with hazelnuts warmed in butter, maple butter togarashi popcorn and whipped feta with burnt honey. (out now, $24.95, Chronicle Books, Amazon)
‘On Eating: The Making and Unmaking of My Appetites’
One of the United States’ best thinkers about food, Alicia Kennedy, turns her trenchant critiques on her own self in her latest book. The memoir recounts her childhood on Long Island and her eventual move to Puerto Rico. Kennedy knows that food is forever political — and with that comes omnipresent responsibility. In “On Eating,” the author offers a “warm embrace for everyone who values good food, but not for those who are indifferent to it,” said Kirkus Reviews. (April 14, $30, Balance, Amazon)
‘La Copine: New California Cooking from an Oasis in the Desert’
Joshua Tree National Park, in southeastern California, is a desert stunner. Smaller by far and equally jaw-dropping is La Copine, a sliver of a restaurant in nearby Yucca Valley. The co-owners and couple, Nikki Hill and Claire Wadsworth, have “built what’s become a joyful queer oasis in the high desert,” said Olivia Tarantino at Bon Appétit. That assessment is sound. Open Thursday to Sunday during the day, La Copine is a respite after a long hike — or a long night of carousing. The pair’s book, with its mix of hearty and feathery cooking, transports. (April 28, $45, Abrams, Amazon)
‘The Taste of Country Cooking’
“The most beloved Southern cookbook of all time,” said the press materials for this 50th anniversary edition of Edna Lewis’ 1976 classic. There is not a lick of exaggeration in that statement. Lewis taught Americans not steeped in the traditions of Black Virginian cooking how to prepare green tomato preserves, pan-fried chicken and her style of biscuits. Those in-the-know have long cherished their copies of “The Taste of Country Cooking.” Now a new generation can cradle their own. (May 5, $40, Knopf, Amazon)
‘Ammazza!: Culinary Adventures from New York to Italy and Back Again’
Hillary Sterling is currently known for the monster-hit Italian restaurant Ci Siamo in New York City. It is a destination that is both sophisticated and comforting. “Ammazza!,” Sterling’s debut cookbook, promises a similar endgame. There are recipes for her beloved Ci Siamo dishes, like the braised beans with oil-cured olives and fried sage and rosemary leaves. But Sterling’s resume is long, so her Italian way with Passover is here, as well, and her Mexican take on Thanksgiving, because “so many of our team members come from Puebla or other parts of Mexico. And because Mexican food is my second love after Italian,” Sterling said to Total Food Service magazine. (May 12, $40, Simon & Schuster, Amazon)
Your kitchen is about to have its mind blown