From Ceviche to Arepas: The Best Latin American Cookbook for You

1. Gran Cocina Latina, Maricel E. Presilla – The Reference for the Whole Region

Best overall

If you buy one book on this page, buy this one. Gran Cocina Latina won the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook of the Year for 2013, along with an International Association of Culinary Professionals cookbook award, according to its publisher, W. W. Norton. Few books in any cuisine carry both.

Maricel Presilla is a historian and a restaurateur, and Norton says she spent more than thirty years visiting each country she writes about. It shows in the scope: more than 500 recipes that run from the base sauces, adobos and sofritos, through to flan and tres leches cake, covering Spanish-speaking Latin America from Mexico to Argentina and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean.

Publishers Weekly called it “this bible of Latin American food” and “fascinating, informative, and stunning.” Its review also notes that Presilla adapts old methods for home kitchens, such as using a food processor for a yuca bread. In The New York Times, Pete Wells called it “a serious but accessible study,” as quoted by Norton.

The one thing to know before you order is the size. The listing gives 912 pages. This is a book for a counter or a kitchen table, and you will dip into it rather than read it through. Brazil falls outside its stated Spanish-speaking scope, so look to the next pick for that.

Why we like it

• James Beard Cookbook of the Year, 2013, per Norton
• More than 500 recipes, per Norton and Publishers Weekly
• Builds from base sauces up to full dishes
• Written by a historian who also runs restaurants

Why we recommend it

It has the strongest record of any book we found on this subject, and it teaches the sauces and staples underneath the dishes. If you want a single reference that will last, this is the one.

Skip it if you want quick weeknight dinners or a book you can hold in one hand at the stove.

Pros and cons

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2. The Latin American Cookbook, Virgilio Martínez – 600 Recipes From 20 Countries

Best for range

Where Presilla’s book teaches, this one surveys. Phaidon says it holds more than 600 home-cooking recipes from 20 countries, from Mexico down to the far south, and its list includes Brazil, Guyana, Suriname and Belize.

Virgilio Martínez is the Peruvian chef behind Central, and Phaidon says that restaurant has been named Latin America’s best several times. He is also a co-founder of Mater Iniciativa, which documents Indigenous Latin American foods. Food and travel writer Nicholas Gill is credited alongside him. Don’t expect restaurant food, though. The recipes are the traditional, popular kind: empanadas, tamales and arepas, next to less familiar dishes such as Nicaraguan squash stew and Ecuadorian Easter soup.

Publishers Weekly said it “will appeal to readers interested in exploring the diversity of Latin American cuisine,” and noted that each recipe comes with cultural background, along with a glossary for less common ingredients such as aji amarillo. It also includes some adventurous recipes, lamb’s head soup among them. The trade-off for this much coverage is depth, since no single country can get the attention a whole book would give it.

Why we like it

• 20 countries named by Phaidon, Brazil among them
• More than 600 recipes, per Phaidon
• Cultural background with each recipe, per Publishers Weekly
• Glossary for unfamiliar ingredients

Why we recommend it

If you want to wander from country to country and find dishes you have never heard of, this covers more ground than anything else here. It is also the one to choose over Presilla if Brazil matters to you.

Skip it if you want every step explained. A book with this many recipes in 432 pages has limited room for each.

Pros and cons

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3. Latinísimo, Sandra A. Gutierrez – Home Cooking by Ingredient

Best for everyday cooking

Sandra Gutierrez’s book takes a useful approach for anyone standing in a kitchen with a bag of something. Penguin Random House says Latinísimo has more than 300 everyday dishes from 21 countries, with many variations, grouped by main ingredient: beans, corn, yuca, quinoa and nearly two dozen more. A pantry section covers the basics.

That organization also shows how one ingredient changes as it moves across borders. Gutierrez is a journalist, food historian and cooking instructor, and the publisher notes her Les Dames d’Escoffier M.F.K. Fisher Grand Prize for food writing.

Publishers Weekly’s page shows no review of this one, but its publisher, Knopf, quotes several others. The Boston Globe called it “a cookbook-shelf essential,” and The Washington Post described it as “part reference book, part living history, part cookbook.” Saveur called it an “astonishing, encyclopedic tome.” Those lines come from the publisher, so read them as the chosen highlights.

Why we like it

• More than 300 dishes from 21 countries, per the publisher
• Organized by ingredient, which suits real shopping
• Pantry section for the basics
• Praised by The Boston Globe, Saveur and The Washington Post, per the publisher

Why we recommend it

It is the friendliest of the three big books for regular cooking, and the newest. If Gran Cocina Latina looks like too much, start here.

Skip it if you like to browse by country. The ingredient structure scatters each country’s dishes through the book.

Pros and cons

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4. Peru: The Cookbook, Gastón Acurio – 500 Peruvian Home Recipes

Best for Peruvian food

If you want one book on Peruvian food, Gastón Acurio is the name to know. Phaidon says he owns more than 44 restaurants worldwide and names Astrid y Gastón as his flagship. NPR’s Morning Edition called him “basically the godfather of Peruvian cuisine,” as Phaidon quotes it.

The book collects 500 traditional home-cooking recipes. Publishers Weekly praised the way it groups recipes by a Peruvian sensibility rather than Western courses, with a full section for ceviche and another for street food, and it singled out dishes such as tacu tacu and carapulcra. It called the book “a treasure chest of Peruvian cuisine.”

The same review names the main weakness: the book “lacks cultural explanations of the dishes.” You will get plenty of recipes and little of the story, so a reader who wants history should pair it with one of the surveys above. Keep a good lime squeezer nearby for the ceviche chapter.

Why we like it

• 500 recipes from one country, per Phaidon
• Full ceviche section, per Publishers Weekly
• Street-food section
• Author with an international restaurant group

Why we recommend it

If you have eaten at a Peruvian restaurant and want to cook that food at home, this is the fullest single-country book on this page.

Skip it if you want stories with your recipes. Publishers Weekly flagged the lack of them, and it is the book’s clear gap.

Pros and cons

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5. Colombiana, Mariana Velásquez – A Clear Primer on Colombia

Best introduction to one country

Publishers Weekly’s closing line on this book is hard to improve on: “For home cooks in search of a primer on Colombian food and culinary tradition, Velásquez is the ideal tutor.”

Mariana Velásquez is a cook, food stylist and recipe developer, born in Colombia and now living in New York City, according to that review. It describes breakfasts, snacks, street food and desserts, including arepas made three ways and pan de arroz, along with mains such as ajiaco and sancocho. There is also a pantry section, hosting advice and profiles of influential Colombian women.

Neither the listing nor the review we read states a recipe count, so we won’t guess. Some dishes carry East Coast influences, so this is one cook’s Colombia and not a strict regional record.

Why we like it

• Called the “ideal tutor” by Publishers Weekly
• Covers breakfast and street food as well as mains
• Pantry section for staples
• Hosting ideas and profiles of Colombian women

Why we recommend it

It suits anyone with a Colombian friend, partner or grandmother whose cooking they want to get closer to, and anyone who wants a first book on the country.

Skip it if you want a strict record of each Colombian region. Some recipes bring in the author’s New York life.

Pros and cons

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6. Mallmann on Fire, Francis Mallmann with Peter Kaminsky – South American Live-Fire Cooking

Best for live fire

Argentina’s great contribution to this list is fire. Francis Mallmann’s earlier Seven Fires appears in our best grill cookbook guide, so here we picked this follow-up. His publisher, Artisan, describes him as a well-known South American chef and notes that he was the subject of Netflix’s Chef’s Table.

The book has 100 recipes. Artisan’s description runs from lamb and chicken hung on strings by a fire to coal-roasted squash, a mixed parrillada and desserts from the chapa and from wood-fired ovens. It moves between Patagonia, Paris, Brooklyn and Brazil, so this is not a strictly Argentine collection.

Publishers Weekly was mixed in a useful way. It called the book “one hundred solid recipes for the outdoor grill and griddle” but found the writing a touch romantic, with “a poetic sensibility that could stand a little more wander and a little less lust.” We think that is a fair warning for anyone who wants plain instructions.

Why we like it

• 100 live-fire recipes, per Artisan
• Grilling, griddling and wood-oven cooking
• Praised for solid recipes by Publishers Weekly
• Written with veteran food writer Peter Kaminsky

Why we recommend it

If you own a grill or fire pit and want to cook something other than burgers on it, this is the most distinctive way into South American fire cooking on this page.

Skip it if you cook on a stove indoors. This is an outdoor book, and much of it depends on a real fire.

Pros and cons

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7. The Chilean Kitchen, Pilar Hernandez and Eileen Smith – Seasonal Chilean Home Cooking

Best for Chilean food

Chilean books were thin on the ground in our search, and this is the one we could find new and in stock from Amazon. Skyhorse says it holds 75 seasonal recipes, arranged by season with a separate tea-time section, and names dishes such as caramelized onion empanadas, grilled steak soup, pickled chicken thighs and dulce de leche thousand-layer cake.

Pilar Hernandez grew up in a traditional central Chilean home and runs the recipe blog En Mi Cocina Hoy. Eileen Smith is a bilingual travel and food writer from New York who has lived in Santiago since 2004, and the publisher lists her work in NPR’s The Salt, Fodor’s and Lonely Planet.

This pick rests on the publisher’s and authors’ details. Publishers Weekly’s page shows no review of it, and we don’t have a named review to cite. At 208 pages it is one of the two shortest books here.

Why we like it

• Organized by season, plus a tea-time section
• 75 recipes, per the subtitle and Skyhorse
• Authors with real ties to Chile
• Adds a country the other single-country picks don’t cover

Why we recommend it

If you have a connection to Chile, or you have worked through Peru and Colombia and want somewhere new, this is a modest, well-focused book on the country.

Skip it if you want a named review behind your purchase. We can only point to the publisher’s and authors’ details here.

Pros and cons

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8. Arepa, Irena Stein – One Daily Bread, Done Thoroughly

Best for Venezuelan arepas

Some books earn a place by doing one thing. Irena Stein is a Venezuelan native and the owner of Alma Cocina Latina in Baltimore, and this hardcover from Ryland Peters & Small is about the corn cake its subtitle calls Venezuela’s daily bread.

Baltimore Magazine reported that the book took five years to make, with Venezuelan chef Eduardo Egui developing the dishes and 50 arepa recipes that run from a basic cheese arepa to lamb cutlets with yogurt and mint. Chef David Zamudio added a few appetizers and desserts. The same article says it topped Food & Wine’s list of the best new summer cookbooks of 2023. We read that claim in the magazine, not on Food & Wine’s own page.

Baltimore Magazine’s piece is a local feature, not a critical review, and Publishers Weekly’s page shows no review, so this pick rests on the publisher’s and author’s details. An arepa cooks on a flat griddle, so our guide to the best comal for pupusas applies here too.

Why we like it

• 50 arepa recipes, per Baltimore Magazine
• Written by a Venezuelan restaurant owner
• Basic versions alongside creative fillings
• A few appetizers and desserts

Why we recommend it

If your household already eats corn tortillas every day, arepas are a short step, and this is the most focused book on them that we found.

Skip it if you want a general Venezuelan cookbook. Arepas are the point here, with a little on the side.

Pros and cons

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9. Pan y Dulce, Bryan Ford – The Latin American Baking Book

Best for baking

The surveys here can only give baking part of their pages. Bryan Ford’s Pan y Dulce gives it all 400. His publisher, Voracious, describes 150 recipes in sweet, savory and gluten-free chapters, covering México, Central America, South America and the Caribbean: pan Cubano, medialunas, alfajores, conchas, pan de coco, golfeados and guava pastelitos.

Ford is a Honduran-American baker and the author of New World Sourdough, which appears in our sourdough book guide. Publishers Weekly called this a “comprehensive volume showcasing 150 sweet and savory baked goods.”

That review also points out that the step-by-step instructions are very detailed, and it closes with “Ambitious home bakers will be thrilled.” We take that as a hint about the audience. A beginner can learn from the detail, but this looks like a project book more than a quick-bake book.

Why we like it

• 150 baking recipes, per Voracious and Publishers Weekly
• Sweet, savory and gluten-free chapters
• Spans the whole region
• Author of New World Sourdough

Why we recommend it

None of the other books here is about bread and pastry alone. If the pan dulce case is the first thing you look at in a panadería, buy this one.

Skip it if you want dinners. Apart from empanadas and a few similar savory bakes, this is a book for the oven.

Pros and cons

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