The 10 best cookbooks of 2023. This is a book designed to break you out of your salad rut. It may even challenge your notion of what a salad can be. Sheela Prakash, whose byline you might recognize from Kitchn, Epicurious and Food52, shares recipes for salads that work as side dishes, main attractions or even dessert. There’s a picnic-ready carrot slaw enlivened with Dijon mustard, and a surprisingly flavorful warm cabbage salad boosted by caramelized shallots and nutty Gruyere. Center-of-the-plate salads include garlicky white beans tossed with caramelized fennel. A nice bonus: Every recipe is accompanied by a photo.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Food Network: The 15 Best Vegetarian Cookbooks of 2023. One thing all these books have in common: they delight us with their stories, tantalize our tastebuds and stoke our curiosity with vibrant recipes chockful of flavor, texture and techniques that are guaranteed to make your vegetarian dishes the star of your table… It can be challenging to drum up enthusiasm for salad, but with this compendium of flavorful, seasonal recipes, your interest won’t wane at any point during the year. Approachability and flexibility are the name of the game for author Sheela Prakash, so you’ll find helpful tips and tricks for making the most of what’s in season and learn the art of properly seasoning your salads beyond salt and pepper. Lest you think that salads can’t take center stage, you need only to turn to dishes like Brown-Buttered Brussels Sprouts and Orecchiette Salad and Smashed Potato and Chorizo Sheet Pan Salad for proof of their crave-worthy main-dish potential. There are also a handful of whimsical, dessert-inspired fruit salads, such as Strawberry-Rhubarb Salad with Lavender Honey and Brûléed Citrus Salad.” —Food Network
“The 23 Best Cookbooks of Spring 2023. It may be easy to think of summer as the best time for salads, but for Sheela Prakash, every season can be salad season if you know how to build a great one. In this book, Prakash, a cookbook author and contributing editor at The Kitchn, teaches you the fundamentals of salad making, like how important it is to season and taste your ingredients as you go, and she will inspire you to think outside of the sad box of salad greens you may be accustomed to. The bittersweet radicchio salad dressed in a punchy vinaigrette of pomegranate molasses, orange juice, and olive oil got me through the dreariness of winter when all I wanted was something crisp and juicy while the caramelized fennel and white bean salad has become a favorite lunch staple of mine. There are no sad desk lunches in Prakash’s world, just fabulous salads no matter the season.” —Bon Appétit
"If you know the Department of Salad at all, you know that our world would completely stop spinning if lemons became extinct. So I was thrilled when I came across this surprising and impossibly delicious salad in Sheela Prakash’s upcoming book, Salad Seasons: Vegetable-Forward Dishes All Year, which we featured in the last bulletin. (If you haven’t placed her recipe for Spring Carrots with Burnt Saffron Butter and Labneh in your “to-make” file, you really should.)" —Emily Nunn, DEPARTMENT OF SALAD
“‘Salad season can be all seasons—that is, if you know how to build a great one,’’ Sheela Prakash writes in the introduction of her new cookbook, Salad Seasons. The book makes the delectable and convincing case that salad can — and should — be eaten all year round.” —EATER
"I love salads, but the truth is that I have a rotation of two or three that I make on repeat, and they're getting kind of old and boring. Salad Seasons cannot arrive sooner. It's by a long-time and beloved recipe developer for Simply Recipes—I love her Roasted Sweet Potato Salad and the best Cast Iron Skillet Pizza I've ever made. I won't be bored of salads for a while. Some of the recipes I'm most looking forward to making are Crispy Rice Salad with Miso-Buttered Mushrooms and Spring Pea and Orzo Salad with Bacon Gremolata." —SIMPLY RECIPES
“Sheela has an incredible knack for creating nourishing, good-for-you recipes that don’t sacrifice a single ounce of pleasure. I’m fully here for this new salad bible, bursting with colorful inspiration that gets me excited to put a veg-focused dinner on the table. Salad Seasons is exactly the upgrade my weekly meal plan has been craving.” —Camille Styles, founder of lifestyle site CamilleStyles.com
“Mustardy Carrot Slaw? Parmesan Rind Croutons? Blackened Broccoli Rabe Caesar? I want all of this in my life right now. It’s all too easy to get stuck in a romaine rut, but I know with this book by my side in the kitchen I’ll feel inspired to reach new salad heights. I love how the recipes are broken up by season; it’s a great reminder that winter is salad season, too.” —Jenna Helwig, food director at Real Simple and author of Bare Minimum Dinners
“I have said for years, the produce section of the grocery store is the most exciting... and still the most misunderstood and underutilized. Prakash’s Salad Seasons helps home cooks see the greatest potential of produce and enjoy it in simple, yet profoundly inspirational, doable ways.” —Chadwick Boyd, cookbook author, TV host and produce champion
“Whether you grew up thinking that salads started and ended with iceberg lettuce and ranch dressing, or whether you are a longtime devotee of salad-for-dinner, Salad Seasons is a true game changer. With recipes like Farro Tabbouleh with Whipped Tahini, Cacio e Pepe Shaved Brussels Sprouts, and Roasted Garlic Kale Salad with Parmesan Rind Croutons, Sheela takes familiar seasonal flavors and shows us how to add crunch, spice, and pizzazz. Guaranteed, you’ll never call salads ‘boring’ again.” —Emma Christensen, associate general manager at Simply Recipes
“As a decidedly non-salad-enthusiast, it takes a lot for me to get excited about salads, and Sheela’s book does just that. She shares the basic building blocks of creating a great salad — and in every season too! Mouth-watering salads in winter? Sign me up.” — Alisha Ramos, founder of Girls’ Night In
