James Beard Award-winning cookbooks of 2025

SIFT Nicola Lamb

SIFT breaks down the key elements and techniques with boundless enthusiasm and beautiful illustrations. Explore every how and why of baking and move forward with complete confidence – you'll never again wonder why your custard has curdled, why your sponge didn't rise or why your panna cotta didn't set.

Nicola's recipes are divided into the time it takes to make a bake, ranging from gooey cookies and airy cakes that you can whip up in an afternoon to fabulous showstoppers you can devote a weekend to.

The Bartender's Pantry Bart Sasso, Jim Meehan

The Bartender’s Pantry includes concise overviews of ten categories of ingredients – sugars, spices, dairy, grains and nuts, fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs, coffee, tea, soda and mineral water and ferments – that cover each subject’s modern history in drinks, popular production practices, artisan processing methods and common distribution channels before suggesting sourcing and service insights from experts in each field.

Each chapter features artfully illustrated recipes incorporating the featured ingredients that bring the reader into the kitchens of some of the world’s most revered bartenders, baristas, importers, and chefs.

Pass the Plate Carolina Gelen

In her debut cookbook, Carolina Gelen shares 100 simple and comforting recipes that emphasise big flavour with minimal effort. No matter the mood or your skill level, you’ll find crowd-pleasing recipes for creative dishes using approachable, everyday ingredients.

Frostbite Nicola Twilley

How often do we open the fridge or peer into the freezer with the expectation that we’ll find something fresh and ready to eat? It’s an everyday act—but just a century ago, eating food that had been refrigerated was cause for both fear and excitement. 

In Frostbite, New Yorker contributor and cohost of the award-winning podcast Gastropod Nicola Twilley takes readers on a tour of the cold chain from farm to fridge, visiting off-the-beaten-path landmarks such as Missouri’s subterranean cheese caves, the banana-ripening rooms of New York City, and the vast refrigerated tanks that store the nation’s orange juice reserves. Today, nearly three-quarters of everything on the average American plate is processed, shipped, stored, and sold under refrigeration. It’s impossible to make sense of our food system without understanding the all-but-invisible network of thermal control that underpins it. 

Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking Joe Yonan

Plant-based eating has been evolving for centuries, creating a storied base of beloved recipes that are lauded around the globe. Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking is the first book to collect these dishes and wisdom into a single volume, treating vegan food as its own cuisine, worthy of mastery.

With numerous variations on base recipes, an extensive dessert section, hundreds of vegan meals, and stunning photography, Mastering the Art of Plant-Based Cooking will become a mainstay in your kitchen, delivering new ideas for years to come.