Our favorite new spring cookbooks

March 17, 2026

I've spent weeks reading through the season's slate of new cookbooks. Narrowing down dozens of releases to just 15 selections is always hard, but these are the ones that really caught my eye this year.

Bettina Makalintal

The spring cookbooks you should have on your radar

The days are getting longer, the sun's shining, and the whisper of ramp season is starting to swirl through the wind, with an abundance of exciting spring produce fast behind it. It was an especially cold, icy winter in New York City, and because of that, my excitement to cook also felt stuck in a snowdrift at times. That's to say I was more excited than usual to read spring's slate of new cookbooks.

Collage by Masood Shah | All cover images courtesy publishers

What I look for when working on a list like this, first and foremost, is a sense of perspective. I'm a cookbook collector who reads them like books; accordingly, I want cookbooks that have something to say and make a case for their own existence that goes beyond the celebrity status of a chef or the social media following of a TikTok creator. I live in a small apartment and I'm always running out of shelf space, so I want cookbooks that feel like they earn their place and add to my collection, whether that's in terms of their focus on a specific cuisine, the author's voice or point of view, or by taking a new approach to familiar ideas through technique or flavor. I'm drawn to cookbooks I'll return to over and over again, and if they're not books I'd necessarily cook from often (sometimes a cookbook is more like a coffee table book, and that's okay), I want them to at least be a pleasure to behold.

This season's roundup of cookbooks delivered, with obsessive explorations into vodka sauce and chocolate chip cookies, incredibly in-depth explanations of barbecue that'll push anyone with a grill to up their game, delightfully moody musings on baking and early 20s life, playful tips from a popular Brooklyn chef for perking up store-bought pita, and so much more. I can say with certainty: Reading these books, I'm excited to cook again. (Luckily, all those snowdrifts have finally melted, too.) I hope they do the same for you.

Some of my picks this season include:

Mariana Velásquez's Revel: A Maximalist's Guide to Having People Over, a glamorous book about hosting that'll appeal to all the primpers and preeners who have active Pinterest accounts.
Ham El-Waylly's Hello, Home Cooking: Do-Able Dishes for Every Day, a colorful and playful collection of very chef's day off recipes, like pita transformed into cinnamon-sugar-glazed breakfast cereal.
Jorge Gaviria and Fermín Núñez's Vitamina T: Your Daily Dose of Tacos, Tortas, Tamales, and More Mexican Street Food Classics, a joyful and comprehensive compilation of Mexican street foods.

You can find the full list of spring cookbook picks here. Later this week, I'll also drop a list of non-cookbook food books, for all the readers out there.

More for the table

As a reminder: Eater's new cookbook, Eaterland, which you can find more information about in the link above, is now available for preorder. It's out April 28, and you can use the code EATERBOOKS40 for 40 percent off.
East Village Cookbook "was only supposed to be a collection of crowd-sourced recipes printed out and stapled together to raise a little money for a soup kitchen and food pantry." Against all odds, it's become a success, even finding a global audience. (Grub Street)
Happy St. Patrick's Day. Why not revisit Punch's recent piece about the "Irish Pub-aissance" that's sweeping the country? And if you're in NYC: Spice bag tonight?