Best Peruvian Cookbooks

Often hailed as the next cooking taste sensation, Peruvian food is rich in flavor, zest, and heat. Once you find excellent alternatives to some of the harder-to-source Peruvian staples, you’ll be making unique dishes that are easy to put together from a culture that uses fresh, local ingredients to their best.

If you’re looking to make stunning ceviche, creamy, piquant chicken dishes like aji de gallina, or delicious cold entrees such as causa with its blend of potato, salmon, eggs, and olives, we’ve put together this list of essential Peruvian cookbooks.

• Peru: The Cookbook
• The Fire of Peru
• Ceviche: Peruvian Kitchen
• The Big Peruvian Cookbook
• The Food and Cooking of Peru
• Andina: The Heart of Peruvian Food
• The Peruvian Vegan Cookbook
• The Peruvian Kitchen: Peruvian Cookbook for Beginners
• LIMA Cookbook
• The Art of Peruvian Cuisine
• The Ultimate Peruvian Cookbook

The Best Peruvian Cookbooks To Try

Peruvian cooking draws on some surprising traditions to create a food culture with family in mind, with many dishes created in just one pot (great for those who like to keep their dishes to a minimum!). 

You’ll create rich and delicate dishes using the best raw ingredients and spices with bold, earthy flavors. Often pairing hot food with cold, sour and sweet, starchy and light foods, Peruvian food uses contrast to make every meal a robust taste sensation.

Peruvian cuisine’s long multicultural history that draws on Western and Eastern foods makes it an excellent example of fusion cuisine. The Andes have many varieties of potatoes, sweet potatoes, and tubers, making them the perfect starchy base for many Peruvian recipes.

While some meals will use foods specific to the region, the influence of other cultures on Peruvian cuisine makes these foods easily adaptable, and many Spanish dishes have their roots in Peruvian cooking!

Peruvian food allows you to expand your cooking repertoire with some inventive new dishes from a culture that delights in combining fresh, essential ingredients including fish and shellfish, beef, plantains, legumes, and rice into winning, flavorful recipes. Whether you’re a seasoned home chef who’d like to try making anticuhos de corazon with beef heart or have never dared to try making ceviche with raw fish, these cookbooks will guide you through the art of Peruvian cooking.

Peru: The Cookbook

The most famous of the Peruvian cookbooks is an essential cookbook for the home chef looking to broaden their skills. Written by Peru’s most popular and acclaimed chef, Caston Acurtio, with photography by Andy Sewell, this definitive tome is packed with vibrant Peruvian recipes for the home cook.

Whether you want to make popular staples such as ceviche or would like to expand your knowledge of Peruvian cooking with dishes like aji Amarillo, Peru: The Cookbook will be your guide. It has a massive range of recipes packed with stunning photographs and precise steps to ensure you don’t feel unsure or overwhelmed. You could not do better than this as an introductory book to Peruvian cooking.

The Fire of Peru

An excellent addition to the kitchen bookshelf, this guide from restaurateur and chef Ricardo Zarate brings everything from earthy, rustic stews for the family to Peruvian cocktails. Zarate’s cookbook leans into the fusion aspect of Peruvian cooking and modifies foods for North American ingredients and tastes.

The Fire of Peru draws on all the influences of Peruvian cuisine, including the input from Japanese, Chinese, and European immigrants. It creates a cookbook that will appeal to a broad range of tastes and is tailored to a US audience. Features appetizers, mains, and drinks, with beautiful photography and accounts of Peruvian food traditions, and gives you the chance to create classic dishes and modern twists.

Ceviche: Peruvian Kitchen

Peruvian Chef Martin Morales has several Peruvian restaurants in London. His cookbook Ceviche is a stunning addition to world coffee-table cookbooks, with lush photography and traditional recipes packed with facts and history of Peruvian cuisine.

Recipes range from easy-to-make basics using only a handful of ingredients to more complicated dishes requiring a bit more preparation. A positive aspect of this book is that Morales walks through several substitutes for harder-to-find Peruvian ingredients, making it very useful for US chefs. With delicious recipes curated by a master chef and designed for the home kitchen, Ceviche is a best-selling Peruvian cookbook for an excellent reason.

The Big Peruvian Cookbook

This cookbook is the How-To guide for Peruvian cooking that will be your mainstay if you’re new to the techniques and flavors of this South American cuisine. Author Moreno Cuadra has put together a guidebook to the taste of Peru, with its blend of Incan food traditions with Asian and European influences.

The Peruvian Kitchen has the classic recipes you’ll want to become confident with Peruvian cooking and guides you through buying the right ingredients with helpful color photographs. The vibrant photography also serves as a valuable guide to how your final dish should look. Authentic recipes will give you the vibrant taste of home-cooked Peruvian meals, and you’ll also gain insight into the food culture of everyday food in Peru.

The Food and Cooking of Peru

Homecooking the Peruvian way, this recipe book is an introduction to the delicious staples of traditional Peruvian cooking. Using accessible ingredients with easy-to-follow recipes, this is a perfect authentic cookbook for home chefs looking to branch into a new cuisine.

Author Flor Arcaya de Deliot shares staples for her native cuisine with recipes that are everyday Peruvian meals. Some steps will assume some base knowledge of Peruvian foods, such as the chiles and beers. If you love cooking, this will make an excellent introductory cookbook for traditional, typical Peruvian meals and includes a resource directory for harder-to-find Peruvian ingredients.

Andina: The Heart of Peruvian Food

From Martin Morales, who wrote Ceviche, comes another Peruvian cookbook, which focuses on the food of the Andes region. It’s filled with gorgeous recipes supported by lush photographs, opening up a world of new cooking styles.

The recipes in Andina are complex and better suited to the more experienced home cook but will give excellent results. This cookbook is less for those looking for easy home-cooking recipes and instead intended for cooks ready to try more advanced recipes for restaurant-quality meals. Beautifully packaged with sophisticated recipes, stunning illustrations, and photos, this is a gorgeous addition to genuine Peruvian cooking.

The Peruvian Vegan Cookbook

While Peruvian food may be well-known for its use of beef, fish, and shellfish, vegans can be happy to know that the abundance of fresh vegetables and fruits means that there are alternatives for them. With so much variety and flavor available, authors Elias Lopez and Enid Soto-Lopez were able to create vegan alternatives to traditional Peruvian dishes.

Designed to be simple to follow and use easily-available ingredients, the recipes in The Peruvian Vegan Cookbook will not require advanced cooking knowledge. A small but satisfying collection of plant-based recipes using traditional Peruvian flavors, this little cookbook has tasty and easy-to-make recipes suitable for the beginner vegan cook looking to branch out into new cuisines. All recipes have photographs to help make following the steps easier.

The Peruvian Kitchen: Peruvian Cookbook for Beginners

Designed to be less overwhelming for new cooks wishing to learn more about international cuisine, The Peruvian Kitchen focuses on introductory recipes of traditional Peruvian foods. Ranging from savory entrees to sweet desserts, Carla Hale offers simple recipes that will teach your how to prepare easy and delicious basic Peruvian meals.

While the recipes are not authentic, they are easier for uncertain cooks to follow. Limiting the steps and using easy-to-find substitutes for Peruvian ingredients makes a basic, short introductory cookbook to whet the appetite and build cooking skills.

LIMA Cookbook

Written by prestigious Peruvian chef Virgilio Martinez, who has one of the most recognized restaurants in Lime (Central) and two more LIMA restaurants in London, this cookbook is packed with vibrant, healthy recipes that add a contemporary twist to traditional dishes.

With a focus on fresh local foods such as fish, meat, and vegetables, Peruvian cooking is the up-and-coming ‘It Food,’ and Michelin-starred chef Martinez walks you through preparing some of the finest Peruvian meals. LIMA is filled with stunning recipes and great photos, emphasizing modern, upscale versions of authentic dishes. Classic flavors are mixed with new ingredients, and the recipes can sometimes be complex, and this is more for high-end restaurant recipes than simple family dishes.

The Art of Peruvian Cuisine

Part of a fundraiser of the “Aprendaos Juntos” program by the Custer Foundation, The Art of Peruvian Cooking collects recipes from prestigious Peruvian chefs who have worked with Tony Custer to compile this cookbook. Recipes include entrees, mains, and desserts, and a full range of large color photos accompany the text, making for a beautiful coffee table book.

Peruvian cooking draws on a fascinating mix of cultures, showcasing this rich fusion in the collection. The recipes are easy-to-follow and aim to use ingredients that can be easily sourced or substituted. While some ingredients might be harder to source in rural areas, staples such as aji Amarillo or huacatay are relatively easy to order from online suppliers. Recipes and ingredients have been written for a North American audience, making them simple to follow.

The Ultimate Peruvian Cookbook

A simple, introductory cookbook for those home cooks looking to venture into a new cuisine, the 111 recipes curated by Slavka Bodic are picked with the US in mind. Hence, the ingredients and measurements listed are easy to find locally.

Delicious recipes mean you can cook satisfying home meals based on easy-to-find ingredients. Popular traditional recipes and some more amazing meals for special occasions are included. With salads, entrees, soups, desserts, drinks, breakfasts, and main courses listed, you will find a mix of uncomplicated recipes to introduce you to the basics of Peruvian cooking 

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