A good Mexican cookbook does more than list recipes. It explains why a salsa is roasted rather than boiled, which chile goes into which mole, and how the cooking of Oaxaca differs from the cooking of Sonora or the Yucatán. The best ones were written by people who spent years in markets and home kitchens across Mexico, and they read as much like a guide to the country as a set of instructions.
The shelf is crowded, though, and the books differ widely: some are encyclopedias, some focus on a single region, some are built for weeknights, and a few are about baking or the Mexican-American kitchen. This guide picks eight that cover those needs, sets out what each publisher says the book contains, and helps you choose the one to start with.
Julia’s earns a commission on purchases made through links on this page, at no cost to you. Recommendations are based on what a Mexican kitchen looks for in a cookbook, publisher information and published reviews, which we cite.
Quick verdict: which Mexican cookbook to buy
If you want one book that teaches Mexican cooking properly, start with Diana Kennedy’s The Essential Cuisines of Mexico: three of her classic books in one volume, from the writer her publisher calls the leading authority on Mexican food. If you want a single reference that covers the whole country, choose Margarita Carrillo Arronte’s Mexico: The Cookbook. If you are newer to Mexican cooking and want dinners you can make on a weeknight, start with Pati Jinich’s Mexican Today.
The rest of this page explains why, and which of the other five belongs on your shelf next.
Five Mexican cookbooks side by side
Five standout books, one for each kind of cook, with the details each publisher gives. All eight books are described in full below.
| Cookbook | Best for | Scope | Length | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, Diana KennedyBest overall
|
Learning traditional cooking in depth | Classic and regional, three books in one | 544 pages, paperback | View on Amazon |
Mexico: The Cookbook, Margarita Carrillo ArronteBest reference
|
One book covering the whole country | Every region, hundreds of recipes | 704 pages, hardback | View on Amazon |
Mexican Today, Pati JinichBest for beginners
|
Weeknight family cooking | Everyday home cooking, classic and updated | 320 pages, hardcover | View on Amazon |
Oaxaca, Bricia Lopez with Javier CabralBest regional
|
Moles and one region in depth | Oaxacan home cooking, about 140 recipes | 320 pages, hardcover | View on Amazon |
Authentic Mexican, Rick BaylessBest for regional basics
|
Regional dishes with clear technique | Six regions of Mexico | 384 pages, hardcover | View on Amazon |
Cover images from Amazon. Page counts and formats are for the editions linked; other editions differ.
The best Mexican cookbooks, book by book
These eight books run from the classic authorities to a star chef cooking at home, with one book each for regional depth, baking and Tex-Mex. For each, we give what the publisher and published reviews say it covers, who wrote it, and who it suits. We have not cooked our way through every recipe in them; where we describe a book’s strengths, we say whose view that is.
1. The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, Diana Kennedy – The Classic Foundation
If you buy one serious Mexican cookbook, make it this one.
Diana Kennedy was born in England in 1923 and moved to Mexico in the late 1950s, and she spent the rest of her life there studying its food; she died in Michoacán in 2022, at 99, according to the Associated Press. Her publisher describes her as the leading authority on Mexican food, and the Mexican government awarded her the Order of the Aztec Eagle, which her publisher describes as its highest honor.
This volume brings together three of her best-known books, The Cuisines of Mexico, Mexican Regional Cooking and The Tortilla Book, and adds more than thirty new recipes, according to Clarkson Potter. That makes it a complete course: tortillas and masa, salsas, soups, tamales, moles, regional dishes and desserts, written with Kennedy’s famous insistence on doing things the traditional way. The current paperback edition runs to 544 pages.
It is not a quick-weeknight book. Kennedy expects you to find the right chiles, toast and grind your own spices and take your time, and her notes explain why. Chicago Tribune food writer William Rice, quoted by the publisher, put it this way: “Diana Kennedy’s books on Mexican cooking are different. They demand to be devoured.”
Why we like it
- Three classic Kennedy books in one volume, plus 30+ new recipes
- Written by the writer her publisher calls the leading authority on Mexican food
- Covers tortillas, salsas, tamales, moles and regional dishes
- 544 pages in paperback, easy to keep open on the counter
Key specifications
| Author | Diana Kennedy |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Clarkson Potter (Penguin Random House) |
| Year | 2009 (this paperback edition) |
| Pages | 544 |
| Format | Paperback; ebook also available |
| Recipes | Not stated (adds more than 30 new) |
| Focus/region | Traditional and regional cooking across Mexico |
| Best for | Cooks who want to learn the foundations properly |
Why we recommend it
This is the book a working Mexican kitchen would point you to for how things are meant to be done: the reasoning behind each technique, from someone who spent decades gathering recipes from home cooks across the country.
Skip it if you want colorful photos and short recipes. It is text-heavy, and some ingredients take effort to find outside Mexico.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Authoritative and thorough
- Three books for the price of one volume
- Explains why, not just how
Cons
- Few photographs
- Demanding for beginners
- Some ingredients hard to source
2. Authentic Mexican, Rick Bayless – Regional Cooking, Clearly Taught
Rick Bayless is the American chef most closely tied to regional Mexican cooking. He and his wife, Deann Groen Bayless, opened Frontera Grill in Chicago in 1987, and his PBS series Mexico: One Plate at a Time has introduced a generation of viewers to the food of Mexico’s regions. PBS lists James Beard awards including National Chef of the Year in 1995, and he won the first season of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters.
Authentic Mexican was his first book, written with Deann, and this is the 20th anniversary edition from William Morrow (2007, 384 pages). Its description says the couple traveled more than 35,000 miles investigating six distinct regions of Mexico. Its recipes range from poultry, meat, fish, rice, beans and vegetables to eggs, the corn-masa snacks known as antojitos, tacos, enchiladas, tamales and moles, ending with desserts and drinks.
Where Kennedy writes as an authority, Bayless writes as a teacher. The book is organized to teach the regional repertoire, which makes it a good second book after Kennedy, or a gentler first one.
Why we like it
- Organized around the regional cooking of six areas of Mexico
- By a chef whose career is built on regional Mexican food
- Written by a chef who teaches Mexican cooking on television
- 20th anniversary edition, 384 pages
Key specifications
| Author | Rick Bayless with Deann Groen Bayless |
|---|---|
| Publisher | William Morrow (HarperCollins) |
| Year | 2007 (20th anniversary edition) |
| Pages | 384 |
| Format | Hardcover; ebook also available |
| Recipes | Not stated |
| Focus/region | Six regions of Mexico |
| Best for | Cooks who want regional dishes with clear technique |
Why we recommend it
It suits cooks who like to understand a dish before they make it, and who want the regional picture laid out. Our guide to regional Mexican cuisines is a good companion to it.
Skip it if you mostly want quick dinners. This book is about the full regional repertoire, not weeknight shortcuts.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Strong regional framework
- Detailed technique
- Long-standing classic, now in an anniversary edition
Cons
- Recipes can run long
- Few photographs
- Recipe count not published
3. Mexico: The Cookbook, Margarita Carrillo Arronte – The Whole Country in One Book
The big one: a 704-page hardback from Phaidon that tries to cover the cooking of all of Mexico.
Margarita Carrillo Arronte is a Mexican chef who, according to Phaidon, has spent more than 25 years researching, studying, teaching and cooking Mexican cuisine. The book opens with an introduction to Mexican culinary history, ingredients and techniques, then moves through hundreds of recipes from every region, from street food and salsas to moles, seafood and sweets. Phaidon’s own figures for the recipe count vary between more than 650 and more than 700, and a section of recipes from well-known Mexican chefs closes the book.
A Publishers Weekly review quoted by Phaidon calls it a “mammoth” collection. With that many recipes in one volume, each is necessarily concise, so this is a book to dip into when you want to know how a particular dish is made rather than one that walks you through technique.
Published in 2014, it is also the heaviest book here. Plan to keep it on a shelf by the kitchen rather than prop it open on the counter.
Why we like it
- Hundreds of recipes from every region of Mexico
- Introduction to history, ingredients and technique
- By a chef with decades of research behind her, per Phaidon
- Chefs’ section with recipes from leading Mexican cooks
Key specifications
| Author | Margarita Carrillo Arronte |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Phaidon |
| Year | 2014 |
| Pages | 704 |
| Format | Hardback |
| Recipes | 650+ (Phaidon gives figures from 650 to 700+) |
| Focus/region | All regions of Mexico |
| Best for | Cooks who want a single, broad reference |
Why we recommend it
If you want to look up almost any Mexican dish and find a version of it, this is the book. It is the closest thing to an encyclopedia of Mexican home cooking in English.
Skip it if you want to be taught. The recipes are short by design and do not explain technique the way Kennedy or Bayless do.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Enormous range
- Introduction to ingredients and technique
- Chefs’ section included
Cons
- Brief recipes assume experience
- Large and heavy
- Recipe count varies by source
4. Oaxaca, Bricia Lopez with Javier Cabral – Moles and Mezcal from One Region
Oaxaca is the region many cooks think of first when they think of Mexican food, for its moles, its corn and its mezcal, and this is the most approachable book devoted to it.
Bricia Lopez runs Guelaguetza in Los Angeles with her siblings. Her father, Fernando Lopez, opened the restaurant in 1994, and in 2015 the James Beard Foundation named it one of its America’s Classics, describing it as the center of Oaxacan life in Los Angeles. The book, written with Los Angeles food writer Javier Cabral and published by Abrams in 2019, collects about 140 recipes from the family’s cooking.
It covers the staples first, including masa, then antojitos such as tamales and tacos, soups, salsas, the moles the restaurant is known for, and mezcal cocktails and aguas frescas. Chef José Andrés, quoted by the publisher, calls the Lopez family “true culinary ambassadors for Oaxacan food”. If moles are what you want to learn, our guide to what mole is sets out the basics before you start.
Why we like it
- About 140 recipes from a James Beard America’s Classics restaurant family
- Covers masa, antojitos, salsas, moles and drinks
- Focused on one region in depth
- 320 pages, hardcover, published 2019
Key specifications
| Author | Bricia Lopez with Javier Cabral |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Abrams |
| Year | 2019 |
| Pages | 320 |
| Format | Hardcover |
| Recipes | About 140 |
| Focus/region | Oaxaca |
| Best for | Cooks who want to learn moles and Oaxacan home cooking |
Why we recommend it
Choose it if one region interests you more than a survey of the whole country, or if you have eaten at a Oaxacan restaurant and want to cook those dishes at home.
Skip it if you need a general first cookbook. It is deliberately about one region, and some Oaxacan ingredients, such as particular dried chiles, take seeking out.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Deep on one region
- Restaurant family’s own recipes
- Drinks chapter included
Cons
- Not a general survey
- Some ingredients hard to find
- Moles are long projects
5. Mexican Today, Pati Jinich – Everyday Mexican, Old and New
The friendliest starting point on this list, from a cook millions know from public television.
Pati Jinich was born in Mexico City and worked as a political analyst in Washington before turning to food. She hosts the PBS series Pati’s Mexican Table, whose work PBS says has earned several James Beard Awards, and she is resident chef at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, D.C. This is her second cookbook, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2016, a 320-page hardcover.
The book is built around everyday home cooking. Its publisher describes easy, generous recipes for everyday meals: classics, regional recipes she brought back from the past, such as Miners’ Enchiladas and Drunken Rice with Chicken and Chorizo, and family favorites she has updated. Library records list guacamoles, salsas, tacos, enchiladas and guisados among them. The focus is everyday family cooking rather than restaurant projects.
Why we like it
- Everyday family recipes rather than restaurant projects
- Guacamoles, salsas, tacos, enchiladas and guisados
- Revived regional dishes alongside the classics
- By the host of PBS’s Pati’s Mexican Table
Key specifications
| Author | Pati Jinich |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |
| Year | 2016 |
| Pages | 320 |
| Format | Hardcover |
| Recipes | Not stated |
| Focus/region | Everyday Mexican home cooking, classic and updated |
| Best for | Beginners and busy weeknight cooks |
Why we recommend it
If you are new to Mexican cooking, or cook for a family on weeknights, this book gives you dishes you will make again and again without a special shopping trip each time.
Skip it if you want regional depth. Jinich’s later book, Treasures of the Mexican Table, travels further; this one stays close to home.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Approachable for beginners
- Practical everyday recipes
- Classics plus revived regional dishes
Cons
- Less regional depth
- Recipe count not published
- Older than her newer books
6. Tu Casa Mi Casa, Enrique Olvera – A Star Chef Cooks at Home
Enrique Olvera is probably Mexico’s best-known chef. He opened Pujol in Mexico City in 2000, which Phaidon notes has ranked on the World’s 50 Best Restaurants list, and he runs Cosme in New York among other restaurants. He also appeared in Netflix’s Chef’s Table.
This book, though, is not about restaurant cooking. Phaidon calls it his first home-cooking book: 100 basic Mexican recipes on 240 pages, written with Luis Arellano, Gonzalo Gout and Daniela Soto-Innes, with a foreword by Peter Meehan. Phaidon describes it as a core collection of basic Mexican dishes, meant to bring traditional and contemporary Mexican flavors into everyday cooking wherever you live.
Reviewers liked how practical it turned out to be. Eater called it “an homage to good Mexican home cooking”, and The Globe and Mail praised its “clear, straightforward instruction with lessons peppered throughout”, both quoted by Phaidon.
Why we like it
- 100 home recipes from the chef behind Pujol
- A core collection of basic Mexican dishes
- Praised by Eater and The Globe and Mail for clarity
- 240 pages, published 2019
Key specifications
| Author | Enrique Olvera, with Luis Arellano, Gonzalo Gout and Daniela Soto-Innes |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Phaidon |
| Year | 2019 |
| Pages | 240 |
| Format | Not confirmed; check the listing |
| Recipes | 100 |
| Focus/region | Mexican home cooking, Mexico City perspective |
| Best for | Cooks who want modern, polished home recipes |
Why we recommend it
Choose it if you want a chef’s precision applied to everyday Mexican food rather than tasting-menu dishes.
Skip it if you want breadth. A hundred recipes is a focused collection, and Mexico: The Cookbook covers far more ground.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Chef-level clarity, home-level recipes
- Focus on basic dishes
- Well reviewed
Cons
- Only 100 recipes
- Format not confirmed
- Modern take rather than strict tradition
7. My Sweet Mexico, Fany Gerson – Pan Dulce, Candies and Paletas
Most Mexican cookbooks give desserts a short chapter at the back. This one is devoted to sweets.
Fany Gerson graduated from the Culinary Institute of America and worked in restaurants including Eleven Madison Park in New York before founding La Newyorkina, her Mexican frozen-treats business, in 2010. King Arthur Baking notes that My Sweet Mexico was a James Beard Award nominee for baking and pastry. Ten Speed Press published it in 2010, at 224 pages, with photography by Ed Anderson.
The chapters, listed in Spanish and English, cover drinks, convent sweets, corn-based sweets, heirloom candies, pan dulce (the sweet breads sold in every Mexican bakery), fruit, desserts, frozen treats and modern Mexican sweets. Reviewers singled out the cajeta ice cream, pastel de tres leches and calabaza en tacha, candied pumpkin. The Austin Chronicle’s reviewer cautioned that it “isn’t a book for beginners”, since many recipes need time and effort.
Why we like it
- Entire book on Mexican sweets, breads and drinks
- Pan dulce, candies, paletas and ice creams
- By a CIA-trained pastry chef
- James Beard Award nominee, per King Arthur Baking
Key specifications
| Author | Fany Gerson |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Ten Speed Press (Penguin Random House) |
| Year | 2010 |
| Pages | 224 |
| Format | Hardcover |
| Recipes | Not stated |
| Focus/region | Mexican sweets, breads, candies and drinks |
| Best for | Bakers and dessert lovers |
Why we recommend it
If you want to bake conchas, make cajeta or freeze your own paletas, no other book on this list goes as deep. It also covers the history behind each sweet.
Skip it if you have never baked bread. The Austin Chronicle warns that many recipes take real time and effort.
Pros and cons
Pros
- The only dedicated sweets book here
- Wide range, from drinks to frozen treats
- Background on each tradition
Cons
- Not for beginners, per reviewers
- No savory cooking
- Recipe count not published
8. The Tex-Mex Cookbook, Robb Walsh – Texas Mexican Food and Its History
Tex-Mex is a regional cuisine of its own, and in Houston it is the everyday Mexican food. This is the book that takes it seriously.
Robb Walsh is a Texas food writer, and The Tex-Mex Cookbook: A History in Recipes and Photos, first published in 2004, tells the story of Texas Mexican food from the Spanish mission era to the modern combination plate. Walsh’s own site lists more than 100 recipes and about 150 photographs, many of them archival, across 268 pages. The recipes include enchiladas, puffy tacos, fajitas, chili, frozen margaritas and Frito pie.
The history is what sets it apart. Walsh traces where dishes came from and who cooked them, with vintage photographs alongside. Rick Bayless, quoted on Walsh’s site, wrote that the book “celebrates a dynamic regional cuisine that has long been pushed to the sidelines”. For the line between Tex-Mex and food from Mexico, our guide to Mexican food myths is a useful companion.
Why we like it
- Treats Tex-Mex as a regional cuisine with its own history
- More than 100 recipes and about 150 photos, per the author
- Classic dishes: enchiladas, puffy tacos, fajitas, chili
- Paperback, 268 pages
Key specifications
| Author | Robb Walsh |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Broadway Books, now sold under Ten Speed Press (Penguin Random House) |
| Year | 2004 |
| Pages | 268 |
| Format | Paperback |
| Recipes | More than 100 |
| Focus/region | Tex-Mex, Texas Mexican-American cooking |
| Best for | Fans of Texas-style Mexican food and food history |
Why we recommend it
If the Mexican food you crave is the combination plate, chili con carne and sizzling fajitas, this is the book that explains it and teaches it, with the history that most cookbooks skip.
Skip it if you want food from Mexico itself. This is the Mexican-American kitchen of Texas; for Mexico’s regions, start with Kennedy or Bayless.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Rich history and archival photos
- Classic Tex-Mex recipes
- Affordable paperback format
Cons
- Not about cooking in Mexico
- Older book, published 2004
- Black-and-white photos mostly
How to choose a Mexican cookbook
Mexican cooking covers a whole country’s worth of regions, and no single book does everything. These five questions narrow the field.
1. Do you want to learn, or to cook tonight?
Kennedy and Bayless teach: long headnotes, the reasons behind each step, and recipes that assume you will spend time at the stove. Jinich and Olvera are built for cooking on a normal day. If you are starting out, one of each is a good pair.
2. Survey or single region?
A survey book, such as Mexico: The Cookbook or Authentic Mexican, shows you the range of Mexican food. A regional book, such as Oaxaca, goes deep on one place. Our guide to regional Mexican cuisines will help you decide which region to explore first.
3. How you eat
Vegan and vegetarian cooks will find fully plant-based books in our vegan Mexican cookbook guide. Bakers will want My Sweet Mexico. If your idea of Mexican food was formed in Texas, start with Walsh.
4. Photos or text
The classic authorities are text-heavy, with few photographs. Newer books such as Tu Casa Mi Casa are more visual, which helps when you have never seen the finished dish.
5. What you can buy
Every Mexican cookbook leans on dried chiles, masa harina, Mexican oregano and a few other staples. Check the pantry list before you commit to a book; our guide to Mexican pantry staples covers what is worth buying online.
A starter shelf of Mexican cookbooks
Most cooks do best with two books: one to learn from and one for everyday cooking. Here is how we would pair them.
| If you are… | Start with | Then add |
|---|---|---|
| New to Mexican cooking | Mexican Today | Authentic Mexican |
| Ready to cook seriously | The Essential Cuisines of Mexico | Oaxaca |
| Wanting one big reference | Mexico: The Cookbook | The Essential Cuisines of Mexico |
| Into modern, chef-driven food | Tu Casa Mi Casa | Mexican Today |
| Vegan or vegetarian | Mexico: The Cookbook (vegetables chapter) | A book from our vegan Mexican cookbook guide |
| A baker | My Sweet Mexico | Mexico: The Cookbook (sweets sections) |
| A Tex-Mex fan | The Tex-Mex Cookbook | Authentic Mexican |
The kit and pantry these books assume
Whichever book you choose, the recipes will ask for a few tools and ingredients again and again. Our guide to Mexican cooking tools covers the essential kit: a comal for tortillas and toasting chiles, a molcajete for salsa (see the best molcajete for how to spot a real one), and a blender for moles. For tortillas from scratch, tortilla making tools covers the press and the warmer, and the best masa harina for tortillas covers the flour itself.
On the pantry side, Mexican pantry staples lists the dried chiles, spices and other ingredients worth keeping on hand, and Mexican chiles explained helps you decode the chile names in any recipe. Cooking for a crowd from one of these books? Taco bar supplies and the home margarita bar cover the serving side.
How we picked these eight cookbooks
We started from what a cook needs from a Mexican cookbook: recipes that work, an author who knows the food first-hand, and a clear sense of which part of Mexican cooking the book covers. We then chose books that between them span the classic authorities, a single-volume reference, regional depth, modern chefs, beginner-friendly home cooking, baking and Tex-Mex, so that each book on the list earns its place rather than repeating another. Every book was in stock on Amazon in the United States when we checked. We took page counts, years, formats and recipe counts from the publishers (Penguin Random House and its imprints, Phaidon, Abrams), from library catalog records and from the authors’ own sites, and author backgrounds from publishers, PBS, the James Beard Foundation and news reports, all recorded in our notes. Where a publisher does not state a recipe count or format, we say so. We describe what publishers and reviewers say about each book; we have not cooked every recipe in them. We left out books whose new copies were in short supply, including some long-loved titles such as Roberto Santibañez’s Truly Mexican, and print-on-demand titles from unknown authors.
Mexican cookbook questions, answered
What is the best Mexican cookbook for beginners?
Mexican Today by Pati Jinich. It is built around everyday family cooking, with easy recipes that mix classics, revived regional dishes and her own updates. Tu Casa Mi Casa is a good second choice for clear, modern instruction.
Who is the most authoritative Mexican cookbook author?
Diana Kennedy is the name most often given. Her publisher calls her the leading authority on Mexican food, and Mexico awarded her the Order of the Aztec Eagle. Rick Bayless is the best-known American authority on regional Mexican cooking.
Is there a good Mexican cookbook for vegetarians or vegans?
None of the eight books here is vegan. Mexico: The Cookbook has a vegetables chapter, Phaidon also publishes Margarita Carrillo Arronte’s The Mexican Vegetarian Cookbook, and our vegan Mexican cookbook guide covers fully plant-based books.
Which cookbook covers regional Mexican cooking best?
For a survey, Bayless’s Authentic Mexican is organized around regions, and Mexico: The Cookbook covers every region. For depth on one region, Oaxaca by Bricia Lopez is the most approachable.
Is Tex-Mex the same as Mexican food?
No. Tex-Mex is the Mexican-American cooking of Texas, with its own dishes such as chili con carne and the combination plate. Robb Walsh’s book tells its history, and our guide to Mexican food myths explains the differences.
Where to start with the best Mexican cookbooks
Start with Diana Kennedy’s The Essential Cuisines of Mexico if you want to learn Mexican cooking properly, or Pati Jinich’s Mexican Today if you want to cook it tonight. Add Mexico: The Cookbook as a reference, and a regional or specialist book, Oaxaca, My Sweet Mexico or The Tex-Mex Cookbook, when you know which direction you want to go. Stock the pantry, find a comal and a molcajete, and the recipes will do the rest.
More specific guides: the best Mexican cookbooks for beginners and the best Tex-Mex cookbooks, plus our review of Phaidon’s Mexico cookbook.
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And if you would rather someone else did the cooking tonight, see the menu or call to order.