Chef’s Kiss: Cookbooks To Take Your Holiday Meals From Bland To Bussin’!

Just the other day, someone on Facebook said, “I’m tired of eating the same old thing. God ain’t made no new animals yet?”

As hilarious as the status was, it’s very accurate. Our taste buds are ready to try new dishes ASAP, especially with social gatherings and Christmas happening this month. Trying new recipes is a great way to bond with family and friends this holiday season, and Amazon has several books to help you get things cooking!

Feeding the Soul (Because It’s My Business): Finding Our Way to Joy, Love, and Freedom  

Before Tabitha Brown was one of the most popular personalities in the world, sharing her delicious vegan home cooking and compassionate wisdom with millions of followers across social media, she was an aspiring actress who in 2016 began struggling with undiagnosed chronic autoimmune pain. Tabitha grounds her lessons in stories about her own life, career, faith, and family in this funny, down-to-earth book, built around the catchphrases that her fans know and love. Rich with personal stories and inspirational quotes, and sprinkled with a few easy vegan recipes, Feeding the Soul is a book to share this holiday!

Orchids and Sweet Tea: Plant-Forward Recipes with Jamaican Flavor & Southern Charm  

Shanika Graham-White shows you that plant-forward meals can be delicious, bold, and flavorful. You just have to be willing to be creative and treat food as art. Whether you’re a home cook or a skilled chef, the more than 120 recipes in this book will help you make everyday comfort food recipes to nourish your family as well as unique, artful dishes for special occasions that call for more flair. This beautiful book celebrates the idea of turning old and new favorites into healthier options that everyone can enjoy while honoring a plant-forward approach to eating.

Orchids and Sweet Tea: Plant-Forward Recipes with Jamaican Flavor & Southern Charm (Amazon)

Cooking on Purpose: Life Lessons Learned From the Kitchen  

How do you mix business with pleasure? In Cooking on Purpose, author and executive chef of The Kitchen Table Catering Company, Diana Riley, shares her secret: by persistently walking in one’s God-given purpose. Having tried several times to give up her dream, Riley realized through valuable experience, challenging obstacles, and a supportive family that she was meant to cook, not only for herself, but for others.

Now, Riley is sharing her gift of cooking with everyone as she walks us through her journey to becoming an entrepreneurial chef and discovering her divine purpose, while pairing each chapter with recipes to her delicious signature dishes.

Cooking On Purpose (Diana Riley)

Things My Grandma Told Me Things My Grandma Showed Me    

A cookbook and memories shared by rapper, actress, teacher and chef Mia X. It details growing up in New Orleans and cooking with her grandmother’s profound quotes and good recipes. The book takes readers on a journey about her challenges with teen motherhood, a No Limit Records recording artist, and abusive relationships.

Things My Grandma Told Things My Grandma Showed Me (Amazon)

LaBelle Cuisine: Recipes to Sing About 

For Patti LaBelle, cooking isn’t simply about food—it’s about love. Raised in a family of fantastic Southern cooks, she has kept the lessons she learned in her beloved parents’ and aunts’ kitchens close to her heart but now, she is ready to share these delicious family heirlooms.

Combining mouthwatering and accessible recipes with charming personal reminisces of her remarkable life—from learning to cook by observing her parents to whipping up meals for her band after dazzling shows—LaBelle Cuisine will fill your heart as well as your stomach. With a colorful variety of dishes as appetizing as Say-My-Name Smothered Chicken, Wicked Peach Cobbler, Fierce Fried Corn, and more, this cookbook is something to sing about.

LaBelle Cuisine: Recipes to Sing About (Amazon)

Black Girl Baking: Wholesome Recipes Inspired by a Soulful Upbringing 

For Jerrelle Guy, food has always been what has shaped her―her body, her character, her experiences and her palate. As seen on Netflix’s High on the Hog,  the book leads you on a baking journey using the five senses, retelling and reinventing food memories while using ingredients that make her feel more in control and more connected to the world, and the person she has become.

Black Girls Baking (Amazon)

Bress ‘n’ Nyam: Gullah Geechee Recipes from a Sixth-Generation Farmer  

From Hot Buttermilk Biscuits and Sweet Potato Pie to Salmon Cakes on Pepper Rice and Gullah Fish Stew, Gullah Geechee food is an essential cuisine of American history. It is the culinary representation of the ocean, rivers, and rich fertile loam in and around the coastal South.

In this groundbreaking and beautiful cookbook, Matthew Raiford pays homage to this cuisine that nurtured his family for seven generations. In 2010, Raiford’s Nana handed over the deed to the family farm to him and his sister, and Raiford rose to the occasion, nurturing the farm that his great-great-great grandfather, a freed slave, purchased in 1874. In this collection of heritage and updated recipes, he traces a history of community and family brought together by food.

Bress ‘n’ Nyam: Gullah Geechee Recipes from a Sixth-Generation Farmer (Amazon)

Can I Mix You a Drink?   

Can I Mix You A Drink? is a high-end liquor guide inspired by Grammy Award-winning Platinum artist T-Pain and his hit songs. Each section blends recipes for  innovative drinks and classic cocktails with humorous anecdotes that only T-Pain can deliver.

Can I Mix You a Drink? (Amazon)

Rodney Scott’s World of BBQ: Every Day Is a Good Day: A Cookbook

Composed by a Black pitmaster and James Beard Award–winning chef,  Rodney Scott celebrates an incredible culinary legacy through his life story, family traditions. In this modern American success story, Rodney details how he made his way from the small town where he worked for his father in the tobacco fields and in the smokehouse, to the sacrifices he made to grow his family’s business, and the tough decisions he made to venture out on his own in Charleston.

Rodney Scott’s World of BBQ: Every Day Is a Good Day: A Cookbook (Amazon)