The 10 Best Korean Cookbooks Every Food Lover Needs To Have On Hand

Shin Kim walks you through the process of making meat-free Korean favorites like kimchi and types of banchan. Plus, 25 of these 30 recipes can be made vegan!

Dubbed "YouTube's Korean Julia Child" by the New York Times, beloved vlogger Maangchi teaches basic technique and step-by-step recipes for everyone—even those who have never made Korean food before.

Sohui Kim's cookbook is all about "sohnmat," a Korean phrase translating roughly to "taste of the hand"—in other words, that effortless, homemade touch that makes everyday food taste better. With over 100 recipes, including crisp mung bean pancakes, seaweed soup, and spicy chicken stew, you'll never run out of new dinner ideas.

What do Los Angeles, New York City, Atlanta, and Chicago all have in common? They all have bustling Koreatown neighborhoods—and therefore, thriving Korean restaurant scenes. This book forgoes a focus on food from the country of Korea for a look at the fresh, contemporary, and inventive recipes of Korean-American cuisine.

Hooni Kim's restaurant Danji won a Michelin star—the first Korean restaurant to receive the honor. Kim's focus is on recipes that contain the "Korean culinary trinity": doenjang (fermented soybean paste), ganjang (soy sauce), and gochujang (fermented red chili paste).

Korean barbecue isn't as simple as just using the right sauces—this explainer walks you through the differences in cooking time, cooking methods, and the must-have ingredients that make Korean barbecue so special. But about those sauces? You'll learn how to make the seven essential dips, too.

Memoir meets cookbook in Hi Soo Shin Hepinstall's portrait of life growing up in Korea. By combining the culinary tradition passed down by her family with lush photography of the country, you really get a sense of what it's like to be there.

If you haven't watched Joanne Lee Molinaro TikTok videos, where she cooks beautiful (and vegan!) Korean food while sharing stories from her life, you need to ASAP. Once you've watched, it'll come as no surprise that this cookbook quickly became a bestseller. Inside are tons of her favorite Korean dishes—some traditional and some reimagined, all interwoven with more heartwarming narratives.

Chefs of all ages will be able to follow along with the recipes features in Robin Ha's "comic book cookbook." The ingredients and cooking steps are laid out in colorful, whimsical illustrations. Plus, among the traditional (and some not-so-traditional) recipes, you'll be treated to anecdotes and cultural insights from Ha.

Yes, there's more than one way to make kimchi! Long before the gut-healthy fermented dish become trendy in the U.S., it was a staple of Korean cuisine—and this cookbook will show you a million (okay, 60) ways to add a little more kimchi to your life.