I need your help! I was perusing the gluten free cookbook section of Amazon last week and was dismayed to see how many of the cookbooks had negative feedback. Can you imagine how discouraging it must be to start a gluten free diet and have the first cookbook you buy turn out to be a dud?
Since this site is about learning to cook gluten free foods, I am going to write up a guide for good cookbooks for the gluten free diet. There’s no way that I can test all the gluten free cookbooks or even all of the regular cookbooks that have great naturally gluten free recipes. And that’s where I need your help.
If you’d like to help your fellow gluten-free eaters, please leave a comment listing your favorite cookbook for the gluten free diet. It doesn’t have to be a “gluten-free” cookbook, it just has to be one that works for you as you cook gluten free. After a few weeks, I’ll close the comments on this post and compile a list of your (my readers’) favorite cookbooks.
By the way, even if someone has already listed your favorite cookbook please leave a comment too. If a cookbook keeps appearing in the comments, then we’ll know that it is a good one!
P.S. I haven’t done a Monday Mommy brag in a while. Here’s David newest hiding place.
This is a great idea! My favorite, favorite cookbook is Whole Life Nutrition Cookbook (http://www.amazon.com/Whole-Life-Nutrition-Cookbook-Planetary/dp/0979885906). I have yet to make a bad recipe from this book. This cookbook, combined with your site, and Gluten Free Goddess blog has kept me sane during my transition to eating gluten-free!! 🙂
Yes! In my family of six, three of us are gluten-free and our favorite cookbook (especially for baked goods) is Nearly Normal Cooking for Gluten Free Eating by Jules Shepard. The recipes are so good that we use them for the entire family (not just the GF ones 🙂 ) I bring the cookies, scones, and breadsticks to parties and they are huge hits! She also has a website and newsletter with more recipes. Check it out–you won’t be disappointed! (nearlynormalcooking.com)
When I was first diagnosed with Celiac Disease, I bought just about all the Gluten Free Cookbooks I saw on Amazon.com. Truth be told, I never really used any of them and rihgt now they are all packed away in storage. I have found it’s much easier to use the internet (google gluten free recipes, or just recipes and then gluten free in the on site search box). I also find it’s easy to convert many recipes by substituting Gluten Free products for those we can’t eat–if it says flour, I use a packaged All Purpose Gluten Free Flour that can be used in same measurements. If it calls for bread crumbs, I use gluten free bread crumbs either bought or from a home-made loaf of Gluten Free bread (made from a packaged mix).
I try to cook more using fresh vegetables and meats, and gluten free seasonings. One of my favorite cookbooks in general is The One-Dish Bible c2005 Publications International, Ltd. I’ve made a number of the recipes just substituting gluten free products for the standard ones.
In fact it was my online search for a Gluten Free Cream of Mushroom Soup recipe that lead me to your site!
In my opinion, if you have internet…don’t waste your time or money purchasing the gluten free cookbooks– collect your own favorite recipes from the web and put them in a binder or on cards. There are lots of sites with great tips and recipes.
Linda:-)
(Google should be my middle name!)
When I was first diagnosed with Celiac, I went to a dietician/nutritionist for guidence. My primary referred me to this person because she also had Celiac. She was a great resouce, living on the gluten free diet for 25 years. She recommended Bette Hagman’s, Living Well Without Wheat-The Gluten-Free Gourmet. I have made many recipes from this cookbook and they have all been great! I have had friends ask for recipies from it because they have enjoyed what I have made.
Bette Hagman has many cookbooks, but this is the only one I have.
I have found the best recipes come from people who have Celiac Disease themselves.
My favourite cookbook is Pilsbury Complete Cookbook. It’s like having a trained chef in your kitchen. I’ve never had a cooking or baking question that it didn’t have the answer to.
My favourite gluten free cookbook is Gluten free Baking Classics by Annlise Roberts. She uses brown rice flour for more nutrition and the book is filled with classics that you need everyday like a good pie crust, bread crumbs, coffee cake etc.
I recommend anything by Bette Hagman. when I first found out my daughter had gluten intolerance, I printed a list of every single book the library had on gluten free. I started with Gluten Free Girl. which I highly recommend by the way. and then i’ve been systematically going through every book on the subject. Bette Hagman’s are my favorite by far. they have very appealing recipes. this is also a good way to decide what books you really want to buy. you can “try them out” so to speak. I also got a heck of a deal on 4 brand new gluten free cookbooks on Craigslist. all by Bette Hagman.
I have had very little luck with the exception of the Bette Hagman books. Her bread book has some wonderful recipes, our favorite being the 4 flour bread. I also enjoyed Gluten Free Girl both for her writing and her recipes.
I second the recommendation for Gluten Free Baking Classics by Annalise Roberts. Her muffin, cookies, pie crust, yellow cake and lemon squares are staples for us; I’ve also enoyed the scones and quick bread mixes. I’ve found that her recipes work well with other gluten free flour mixes too.
I love to read cookbooks…a hobby of mine and since I was diagnosed with Celiac, I had a dozen reasons to search the internet for recipes, visit Barnes & Noble for purchases and my local library (to my surprise many of the G-F cookbooks were checked out). I have enjoyed & used G-F Cooking for Dummies, Korn & Sarros, G-F Gourmet Bakes Bread, Hagman, G-F Baking Classics, Roberts, & Wheat-Free Recipes & Menus, Fenster. There are more good ones, but these I use often and while I had not cooked for myself for 10 years when I had a chef, I have really enjoyed learning to bake! I did spend a few bucks on trying different flours and buying equipment.
I know all of the cookbooks that I have ordered from the Library have been Picture Free. I love to look through cookbooks at the pictures and then I have a better idea of what I want to cook and how it will look. I have not found one cookbook that I could do this with, which is pretty frustrating.
Thanks for all of the suggestions, everyone. Keep them coming =)
The Bette Hagman cookbooks are the best.
Thanks for this great idea!
I have some of Bette Hagman’s cookbooks and find them a good inspirational source and jumping off point for recipes. My family’s tastebuds like a little more spice and fire than Bette provides, so we don’t usually cook verbatim out of her books.
For baking, I’ve been most using Elizabeth Barbone’s “Easy Gluten-Free Baking”. I met her at a celiac support group meeting and saw her at another gluten-free event where she demonstrated some bread baking and she’s just delightful. Her book contains a lot of great and truly easy recipes.
Other than that, I try to just use other cookbooks and substitute out gluteny ingredients. We cook a lot of vegetarian meals (love those Moosewood cookbooks!) and these usually don’t involve too much wheat. It does get immeasurably easier after the first year of cooking gluten-free, for those celiac newbies! You get used to new techniques and ingredients and these just get ingrained (pardon the pun) into your cooking style.
-Rachel
I am a beginner and have 5 gluten free cookbooks. I use this one the most: The Gluten Free Kitchen by Roben Ryberg. It’s got basic recipes, nothing too fancy. But that’s why I love it.
My favorites are the Paula Deen cookbooks, you would amazed at how many of the meals are already naturally gluten free, also my teenager, who is Celiac, is so happy to be eating ‘regular’ food and not have to eat ‘special’ food. I susbstitute rice flour or quinoa for wheat flour in many of the recipes and no one at my house has seemed to notice yet.
This book: Gluten Free & Easy: Enjoy Your Favorite Foods with These 90+ Recipes (Paperback), is really great. There are HUGE beautiful pictures and all the ingredients are easy to find. Not basic, but not gormet, it’s a perfect balance.
This book: Great Gluten-Free Baking: Over 80 Delicious Cakes and Bakes (Hardcover) by Louise Blair, is an awesome baking book. Like the book I mentioned above, it too has HUGE beautiful color pictures. The ingredients are perfect and everything I have made from it has worked out so well. Everything is so yummy and the pictures will make you want to bake everything at once. But probably the greatest thing about this book is the fact that alot of the recipes are unique combinations and such, without being strange- there are so many new things to try!
I HIGHLY recommend these books 🙂 go look at them at Amazon. You won’t be disappointed 😉