Nine Healthy Cookbooks to Inspire Your Next Meal

Learn how to apply the techniques of Ayurveda, sports nutrition, and more to enhance your plate and your life with these healthy cookbooks.


In the age of the internet, cookbooks may seem like an outdated idea, but they’re still a useful tool.

Not only are cookbooks a great way to avoid getting flour all over your phone screen, but according to Sally Ekus, culinary literary agent at The Lisa Ekus Group, “Cookbooks have to offer more than just recipes since anyone can get a recipe online. In many ways they have become big, beautiful story books. They are showpieces that are paying homage to a cuisine or place or an ingredient. They are collectors pieces to cook and love and imprint on.”

If you’re looking for some healthy cookbook ideas to get your collection started, look no further than this list. These cookbooks will provide you with recipe ideas for different tastes and diets, and also teach you some valuable cooking skills.

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1. Thug Kitchen: The Official Cookbook

With more than 100 recipes, Thug Kitchen is a vegetarian cookbook that’ll make you laugh while you cook. Plus, the cookbook provides extra info and techniques to help shop on a budget and improve your cooking skills.

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2. Clean Eating Bowls: 100 Real Food Recipes for Eating Clean

Whether you want breakfast or dessert, all of these recipes are “bowl style” and include everything from smoothies to grain bowls. Plus, each chapter contains a “mix-and-match” guide to give you plenty of options when building your bowl.

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3. Healthyish

This cookbook is designed for people with a busy lifestyle—these recipes are made with simple ingredients found at the grocery store, and with as few pots and pans as possible. Some of the recipes in the cookbook include Spiced Chicken and Chickpea Flatbreads with Cucumber–Dill Tzatziki and a Single-Serving Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cookie.

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4. Keto Soups and Stews

If you’re following the Keto diet, this cookbook is full of hearty soups and stews, lighter fare, and even a few keto bread recipes. The soups are divided further into specific categories, such as vegetarian, freezer-friendly, and more.

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5. Damn Delicious Meal Prep: 115 Easy Recipes for Low-Calorie, High-Energy Living

Get the hang of meal prep with this cookbook, full of meals and snacks that you can make on the weekend to set yourself up for success during the week. One reviewer said that, “The recipes are fresh, delicious, and easy to prepare. They keep well in the refrigerator and provide quick, healthy meals for those days when I am just too busy or too tired to bother cooking.”

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6. Healthy Spiralizer Cookbook

Have a spiralizer sitting in your kitchen drawer that you’re not using? This cookbook has a variety of recipes using spiralized vegetables and fruit, as well as a chapter for condiments, sauces, and dressings that you can put on your spiralized meals.

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7. Healthy Meal Prep Instant Pot Cookbook

With 75 recipes, this cookbook will help you make the most of your Instant Pot. Starting with the basics of how the Instant Pot works, you’ll get guidance for every step, including preparation, planning, and storage to make your meal prep a success.

healthy cookbooks

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8. Run Fast. Eat Slow.

This cookbook, developed by Olympic marathoner Shalane Flanagan and chef Elyse Kopecky, is a New York Times bestseller created to help runners perform at their best. It focuses on whole foods and indulgent flavors that are both nourishing and tasty while emphasizing that in order to run at your best fat is essential and calorie counting and restrictive dieting does more harm than good.

healthy cookbooks

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9. The Everyday Ayurveda Cookbook

Ayurveda, the health system of India, employs more than just dietary changes to enhance your health and wellbeing—translated loosely it means the “science of life” and through the pages of this book you’ll learn how to eat well with the seasons. You’ll also learn about the healing properties of certain spices—think: turmeric, cardamon, and ginger—as well as guidelines like eliminating nightshades and eating plentiful neutral fruits and green seasonal vegetables.