Registered dietitians will be the first to tell you that nothing makes cooking easier than having an arsenal of healthy cookbooks to pull from. In particular, they rely on titles that contain quick and easy recipes that taste great, don’t take long to make, and capture what it means to eat healthy from a variety of perspectives. Even on their busiest days, they can rest assured that the contents of their kitchen bookshelf will help them find a nutritious meal they can get on the table in no time.
Before we get into the books, let’s talk about what we mean by the word “healthy.” We know that it can represent a lot of different things to a lot of different people, and it can be extremely fraught for some thanks to the influence of the diet industry. At SELF, we use the word to describe food that’s nutritious, filling, and satisfying, while taking into consideration cultural differences, personal preferences, and accessibility of ingredients.
With this criteria in mind, we asked some of our favorite registered dietitians to recommend the healthy cookbooks they swear by for speedy recipes, which can be helpful for cooking beginners (or people who are short on time). Along with some tasty meals, their picks do a good job of representing what healthy eating means to people around the world, while also providing some excellent tips and tools to help minimize your kitchen workload overall. With grocery shopping lists, meal prep tricks, and plenty of tasty breakfast, lunches, and dinners in between, these books are just waiting to help you out.
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