Wholesome Plant-Based (seasonal) Recipe Books

Learning to cook your own food is empowering, as you no longer have to rely on expensive plastic-wrapped ready-meals and takeaways. Master your favourite cuisines at home. Then every night is restaurant night!

The First Mess is a highly-reviewed cookbook packed with wholesome recipes to eat through the seasons. What makes this book different is that it uses real locally-sourced organic ingredients to create recipes, using seasonal finds from your weekly veg box.

Before cooking, read up on food safety for people and pets (many ingredients are unsafe near animal friends). Bin allium scraps (onion, garlic, leeks, shallots, chives) as acids may harm compost creatures (same with tomato/citrus/rhubarb scraps).

If growing food, read our posts on pet-friendly gardens and wildlife-friendly gardens. Avoid facing indoor plants to outdoor gardens, to help stop birds flying into windows.

What Foods to Eat (and when?)

Spring – asparagus, spinach, peas, radishes, rocket, kale
Summer – tomatoes, sweetcorn, strawberries, courgettes, peppers
Autumn – carrots, apples, pumpkins, parsnips, squash
Winter – collards, squash, kale

Arguably, the best recipe books are those that use local natural and seasonal produce. Not only better for the planet with less food miles and less packaging, but the ingredients are easy to find, and more affordable.

The author is a Canadian who grew up in a family that ran organic box schemes. She trained as a chef, and also writes and photographs well. So all combined, you end up with a smashing book.

Recipes include:

Beet & Mushroom Bolognese
Fluffy Whole Grain Pancakes
Hot Pink Beet Smoothie
Broccoli Caesar with Smoky Tempeh Bits
Vegetable Bean Pot Pies with Potato Crust
Weeknight Root Vegetable Dal
Burrito-stuffed Sweet Potatoes
Romanesco Salad with Meyer Lemon Dressing
Chilli Tofu Lime Bowls
Roasted Aubergine & Olive Bolognese
Earl Grey & Vanilla Bean Tiramisu

Laura Wright has been cooking and testing plant-based seasonal recipes for years. Her cooking blog is one of the most popular in the world, packed with recipes that use real affordable ingredients, and turn out well each time. Many of her readers are not vegan, she prefers to simply focus on good food to inspire, rather than be a ‘celebrity chef’.

A (Welsh) Book of Seasonal Vegan Recipes

The Seasonal Vegan is a book of simple affordable recipes that make use of local seasonal produce. Each recipe is geared to seasonal crops, with year-round menus. Illustrated with beautiful colour images, these recipes let you enjoy wholesome affordable meals.

Each of the 70 recipes in this book (by a Welsh-speaking veggie cook and writer) focuses on fresh local product). The 70 recipes include:

Pancakes with Blueberry Compote
Potato Salad with Watercress Pesto
Summer Berry & Coconut Milk Ice Lollies

Grow, Store and Cook Vegan Food

If you like growing and eating your own food, read The Vegan Cook & Gardener. This book is co-written by a father and daughter (he’s a gardener, she’s a chef).

This is affordable feel-good food, if you don’t want anything too fancy. Find recipes for soups, mains and cakes (carrot or strawberry chocolate).

At once scholarly and entertaining, the book is gloriously illustrated, and the recipes are easy-peasy to follow. Joanna Lumley

Piers Warren and Ella Bee Glendining are experienced vegan cooks. He is a conservationist, permaculture expert and wildlife filmmaker who wrote How to Store Your Garden Produce.

Ella Bee is a passionate advocate for animal welfare, who recently received huge accolades for directing the film Is There Anybody Out There?‘, where she tries to find others with the same rare disability as her.

Learning to cook your own food is empowering, as you no longer have to rely on expensive plastic-wrapped ready-meals and takeaways. Master your favourite cuisines at home, using wholesome easy-to-find ingredients you can find in any grocery store.

Dreena’s Kind Kitchen is a nice book by one of our favourite cookbook authors, who always uses fresh wholefood ingredients and uses a little oil and maple syrup (she’s Canadian!) with recipes that will appeal to most tastebuds. This book offers 100 easy-to-make and delicious recipes.

This is a book you will use, whether you want a quick weeknight supper or a dish for a special occasion. From breakfasts to small bites to dinner and dessert, enjoy recipes for:

Light Fluffy Breakfast Pancakes
Lemon Poppyseed Muffins
Potato Cauliflower Scramble
Seasoned Potato Squashers
A-Game Chilli
White Bean Corn Chowder
Beyond Beet Burgers
Fiesta Taco Filling
Smoky Caesar Salad
Lentil Sweet Potato Meatloaf
Holiday Dinner Torte

There’s also a troubleshooting section to boost your kitchen skills, with tips on techniques, time-saving skills and suggestions for re-purposing leftovers into delicious new dishes.

Dreena Burton is a self-taught cook and one of North America’s most popular vegan cookbook authors, whose recipes are also recommended by health professionals, due to always using real wholefoods over fake anything.

A mother of three children (who she and her husband have raised vegan), she is author of several best-selling recipe books.

Plant to Plate: Celebrate Nature’s Produce

Plant to Plate is a book by Welsh chef Gaz Oakley, who combines his cooking skills with gardening knowledge, to offer recipes that make use of seasonal fruits and vegetables.

Inspired by his own plot in the rural Welsh countryside, this book offers 100 versatile recipes to celebrate the bountiful produce that nature has to offer.

Focusing on accessible ingredients (carrots, cabbage, beetroot, tomato, onions, apples and pears), he offers a medley of seasonal dishes to showcase crops at their best. Recipes include:

Strawberry & Lavender Welsh Cakes
Stuffed Harissa Onions
Tomato, Thyme & Almond Upside-Down Cake

Gaz Oakley is a classically-trained chef, who consults with brands and restaurants worldwide, and if often named the best vegan chef in the world.

The pandemic inspired him to move from London to a homestead in the Welsh countryside, where he connected more deeply with the food he prepares. Today he grows his own organic food and has even adopted some rescued chickens, to give them a better life.