Best Professional Cooking Books of 2025

The Flavor Bible is a must-have book for any kitchen. It's an essential guide to creating deliciousness in any dish, with thousands of ingredient entries that provide a treasure trove of spectacular flavor combinations. The book is organized alphabetically and cross-referenced, making it easy to work more intuitively and effectively with ingredients. It's seasoned with tips, anecdotes, and signature dishes from America's most imaginative chefs. The book won the 2009 James Beard Book Award for Best Book: Reference and Scholarship. Overall, it's an outstanding reference for anyone looking to elevate their cooking skills to the next level.

The King Arthur Baking School: Lessons and Recipes for Every Baker is a comprehensive cookbook that shares over 100 recipes and essential techniques for baking. The book reflects the King Arthur Baking School's curriculum, which has been honed and refined over the years, with instructors who are experts not just at baking, but at teaching baking. From Yeast Breads to Sourdough, Laminated Pastries to Pies and Tarts, Cookies to Cake, readers gain confidence as they play in the kitchen and build new skills. The book's unique approach is friendly and accessible to all levels, focusing on the "how" and "why." Overall, this book is a great resource for bakers of all skill levels who want to improve their techniques and learn new recipes.

The Pizza Bible by Tony Gemignani is the ultimate guide for pizza lovers who want to learn the art of making perfect pizza at home. The book covers nine different regional styles, including Neapolitan, Roman, Chicago, and Californian, providing more than 75 recipes that cater to every mood and occasion. Tony Gemignani, a 12-time world pizza champion, shares his insider secrets on making dough, assembling toppings, and baking pizza like a pro. The Pizza Bible is a must-have for anyone who wants to elevate their home pizza-making skills into a craft.

The Noma Guide to Fermentation is a must-have book for any home cook or professional chef looking to expand their culinary skills. René Redzepi and David Zilber, the masterminds behind Noma's extraordinary flavor profiles, reveal their never-before-revealed techniques to creating an extensive pantry of ferments. With over 500 step-by-step photographs and illustrations, this book goes beyond the typical kimchi and sauerkraut to include koji, kombuchas, shoyus, misos, lacto-ferments, vinegars, garums, and black fruits and vegetables. Moreover, the book features more than 100 original recipes that showcase the game-changing pantry ingredients. The Noma Guide to Fermentation is a fresh set of transformative cooking fundamentals that will make ferments something cooks reach for as readily as salt.

The French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller is a must-have for any home cook looking to elevate their culinary skills. This cookbook showcases the genius of Keller himself, offering a series of small, impeccable, highly refined, and intensely focused courses. The recipes are exact recipes from the French Laundry kitchen, with no shortcuts taken and all thoroughly tested in home kitchens. From innovative soup techniques to breathtaking desserts, this cookbook captures the essence of one of America's greatest restaurants and its chef. The French Laundry Cookbook is a transformative cookbook that celebrates the beauty and simplicity of French cuisine.

Mastering Pasta: The Art and Practice of Handmade Pasta, Gnocchi, and Risotto [A Cookbook] is an excellent primer for anyone interested in Italian cuisine. Chef Marc Vetri shares his vast knowledge of pasta, gnocchi, and risotto, offering expert tips, techniques, and over 100 recipes. Whether you're a professional or a home cook, you'll learn how to make more than thirty different types of pasta dough and form them into shapes both familiar and unique. Vetri's personal stories of culinary discovery in Italy appear alongside his easy-to-follow, detailed explanations. This definitive work on the subject is the only book you'll ever need to serve outstanding pasta dishes in your own kitchen.

The Professional Chef by Wiley is a must-have reference for any aspiring chef or culinary student. This best-selling title has been completely reorganized to reflect the way people cook in the kitchen today, with a focus on global cuisines and topics such as sous vide cooking, seasonality, and sustainability. The book provides in-depth information on ingredients, equipment, and techniques for a wide range of food items, along with step-by-step photography. The all-new chapter on Plated Desserts is a welcome addition. The Professional Chef is an indispensable resource for both home cooks and professionals alike.

Sous Vide at Home is a beginner's guide to sous vide cooking technique, which has been popular in restaurants for years, offering tender and succulent dishes cooked to perfection. This easy-to-follow cookbook includes over 100 recipes for everything from appetizers to desserts, along with clear instructions on how to harness the power of sous vide technology to achieve restaurant-quality dishes in the comfort of your own kitchen. The book has been praised by chefs and home cooks alike for its great recipes and easy-to-follow instructions, making it a must-have for anyone looking to revolutionize the way they make food at home.

Oaxaca: Home Cooking from the Heart of Mexico by Bricia Lopez is a colorful celebration of the culinary heart of Mexico. The book offers 140 authentic, yet accessible recipes from the landmark Guelaguetza restaurant in Los Angeles, founded by the Lopez family. The first true introduction to Oaxacan cuisine by a native family, each dish articulates their story, from Oaxaca to the streets of Los Angeles and beyond. The book is a great resource for those interested in Latin American cooking and food & wine books. The unique cultural significance of food in the indigenous languages of Oaxaca is an added bonus.

The fourth edition of "Sauces: Classical and Contemporary Sauce Making" by James Peterson is a must-have reference for both home cooks and professionals. With nearly 500 recipes and detailed explanations of every kind of sauce, this book celebrates the importance of sauces in cooking. The updated edition features step-by-step color photographs that clearly show the essential sauces at every step. Peterson covers an impressive range of sauces from the basic to the complex and shows the evolution of sauces across a variety of cuisines. Overall, this book is a useful and accessible reference that is sure to become a companion in any kitchen.