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Best cookbooks for winter recipes

by Julia Pal

published on 4 January 2024

What better way to shrug off the winter blues than to get in the kitchen and cook something warming, comforting and nutritious? Our collection of the best winter cookbooks is bursting with recipes to see you through the colder months – we’re talking warming soups and stews, one-pot casseroles, impressive roasts, and indulgent puddings. From Mary Berry to Jamie Oliver, you’ll find something for you in this cookbook collection.

Simple Comforts

With its emphasis on fuss-free comfort food, Simple Comforts is the perfect winter cookbook. It’s packed with plenty of Mary’s clever tips and shortcuts, as well as over 120 recipes, each accompanied by a beautiful photograph. You’ll find a sausage and red pepper hot pot, double-baked mushroom soufflés, a brioche frangipane apple pudding, and many more recipes to brighten up those dark winter evenings.

Soup Broth Bread

by Rachel Allen

An homage to one of the world’s most popular dishes, Soup Broth Bread is about soup in all its forms, from flavoursome broths to chunky stews. There’s plenty here to warm you up on a chilly winter evening, and Rachel also provides recipes for breads, scones, stocks, and garnishes, so you can create a hearty, soup-based meal with ease.

Cook, Eat, Repeat

A blend of recipes and enchanting narrative essays, Cook, Eat, Repeat is as much a book to curl up on the couch with as it is to prop up on the kitchen counter. Nigella’s characteristically warm and witty musings on the meaning of cooking are interspersed with over 150 soul-soothing recipes. From brown butter colcannon mash and black pudding meatballs to a multi-layer chocolate and peanut butter cake, these recipes are designed to bring you joy.

Comfy Chris Collins

Comfy

by Chris Collins, Don’t Go Bacon My Heart

Chris Collins’ debut cookbook is a love letter to all things comfort food. The creator behind the wildly successful food blog behind Don’t Go Bacon My Heart shares 80 delicious, nostalgic, and inventive dishes that are perfect for enjoying curled up on the sofa.

Rick Stein’s Simple Suppers

This collection of evening recipes by Rick Stein will have you covered year-round, whether you’re cooking for one or planning a dinner party. But it’s the warming, hearty stews, curries, and bakes that make it especially good for home-cooked winter meals.

Rick Stein's Simple Suppers

Rick Stein’s Simple Suppers

Rick Stein Cauliflower CUrry
The Great British Bake Off: Winter Kitchen

The Great British Bake Off: Winter Kitchen

by Lizzie Kamenetzky

This modern classic from The Great British Bake Off collection is full of approachable but impressive seasonal recipes. With all recipes written by Delicious Magazine food editor, Lizzie Kamenetzky, essential sections include Weeknight Comfort, Weekend Feasts, Winter Veg and Seasonal Occasions.

Stirring Slowly

by Georgina Hayden

For Georgina Hayden, comfort food is just as much about the process of cooking as it is about the food on your plate. Stirring Slowly celebrates the time spent in the kitchen, whether that’s a few minutes spent creating a fresh-tasting noodle bowl, or an hour whiled away stirring a creamy dhal. This is a book that emphasises food’s power to restore and revive, with recipes you’ll come back to again and again.

Jamie’s Comfort Food

Jamie’s Comfort Food is all about those recipes that hit the spot every time – the failsafe classics that never fail to lift the spirits and please a crowd. With his typically approachable style, Jamie sets out 100 ideas for quick pick-me-ups, childhood favourites, and sweet indulgences. We’re big fans of the smoky winter chilli, the overnight roast pork, and the truly excellent sticky toffee pudding.

One Pot Wonders

by Lindsey Bareham

This collection of one-pot recipes will make winter cooking easy. Billed as ‘100 recipes to curl up with’, these are perfect dishes for cold nights, with plenty of inspiration for hearty soups, flavoursome stews, warming curries, and those all-important puddings. And the best part? With only one pot to wash up, you’ll have more time to savour the memory of a great meal whilst tucked up by a roaring fire.

Great British Puddings

by The Pudding Club

A celebration of timeless puddings and desserts, the recipes in this book are guaranteed to fill you with nostalgic warmth and comfort on a frosty winter day. From steamed puddings to crumbles, and from school dinner favourites to chocoholic delights, these are puddings to boost the spirits.

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