People ask me for the best Portuguese cookbooks all the time, and here’s the honest problem with most of the lists already out there: they treat Portugal like it’s one cuisine, and the Azores barely get a mention — if they get one at all. I grew up on one of those islands and I want to see a balance. So this list is mainland Portugal AND the Azores, the continental classics next to the island cooking that raised me, and every single book on here is one I actually own, open, and cooked from.
How I Picked These
A quick word on how this list came together, because I think it matters. A book made the cut if it kept showing up across the roundups other Portuguese food sites and readers already trust. I wanted to include books that filled in a region or an angle the bigger lists miss. For a couple of newer or more personal picks — because I’ve genuinely cooked from it and would hand it to someone else, not just because it’s sentimental to me. These are books that I own and actually reach for! Full disclosure: my own two books are on this list too, for the same reason every other book is — I’ll tell you exactly why, not just that I wrote them. that’s the test every book on this list of best Portuguese cookbooks had to pass.
My Picks for Best Portuguese Cookbooks
1. My Portugal by George Mendes
My Portugal sits somewhere between a cookbook, a memoir, and a chef’s love letter to the country that shaped him. Chef George Mendes blends traditional Portuguese recipes with dishes inspired by his celebrated culinary career, creating a collection of 125 recipes that ranges from rustic home cooking to elegant, restaurant-quality cuisine. More than a cookbook, it’s filled with stories, memories, and the people and places that influenced him—including a road trip through Portugal that helped shape the book itself. While it offers a more contemporary interpretation than some of the other cookbooks featured here, that’s precisely its strength. Chef Mendes demonstrates how Portuguese cuisine can evolve through the hands of a world-class chef while remaining deeply rooted in its heritage. As he prepares to open an exciting new restaurant in Boston, My Portugal continues to reflect the passion, craftsmanship, and deep respect for Portuguese traditions that have defined his remarkable career.
2. My Lisbon by Nuno Mendes
If I judged cookbooks purely on looks, My Lisbon would be right near the top — the photography is frame-worthy. But what makes it work is that the pictures aren’t just decoration, they help build a real portrait of the city. Nuno Mendes was born and raised in Lisbon, and across 372 pages he weaves recipes together with essays, memories, street scenes, and the little habits and celebrations that make up the city’s food culture. Those short story snippets between recipes are some of my favorite parts — you get everything from Lisbon’s love of snacking, to sardine grills, to beachside bolas de Berlim. So I wouldn’t hand this to someone who just wants to recreate an avó’s recipes exactly. But if you want to understand Lisbon through its food, this is the one.
3. Traditional Portuguese Cooking by Maria de Lourdes Modesto
This is my food bible. Maria de Lourdes Modesto spent close to 20 years collecting and researching recipes, and settled on around 800 based purely on how authentic they were and how well they represented where they came from. The recipes are organized geographically — Beira Alta, Beira Baixa, Trás-os-Montes, Alentejo, the Algarve, the Azores, Madeira, even Estremadura — not just “Northern” and “Southern” Portugal the way a lot of books flatten it. The photographs aren’t only of food either; they show the people, the traditions, the landscapes. It’s not the sleekest or most modern cookbook on the shelf, and that’s exactly why I love it. When I want to know what a dish traditionally was, before anyone’s modern take on it, this is the book I trust first. I purchased this book while visiting Portugal, and carried it with me on the plane home as precious cargo. It’s that special!
4. The New Portuguese Table by David Leite
David Leite grew up in a Portuguese-American family in Massachusetts and spent months at a time living in Lisbon while he researched this book — and you can feel that on every page. He covers the historical regions along with Madeira and the Azores, but instead of just reprinting the old recipes, he pairs the classics with dishes that show where Portuguese food is headed today, olive-oil-poached cod right alongside the traditional family dishes you’d expect. There are nearly 100 full-color photographs, and this is the book I reach for when I want to see how far you can push Portuguese flavors and still have them taste like home. It feels Portuguese. It just doesn’t feel stuck in the past.
5. Authentic Portuguese Cooking by Ana Patuleia Ortins
Ana Patuleia Ortins grew up at the intersection of two food cultures — her father was Portuguese, her mother Italian-American — and that mix shows up in some of the smaller details, without ever taking away from how overwhelmingly Portuguese this book is. It’s substantial too: more than 185 recipes across 400 pages, covering continental Portugal, Madeira, and the Azores, pulled from her own family, from friends, and from trips back to Portugal and the Azores — her husband’s family is Azorean, too. What I really appreciate is that she names the specific regions instead of treating the islands like an afterthought. If you want Portuguese-American cooking with a strong connection back to Portugal itself, this is one of the more comprehensive choices out there.
6. Azorean Cooking: From My Family Table to Yours by Maria Lawton
I can’t review my own book the way I review the others on this list — but I can tell you what it means to me.
This one started as a love letter to my family, long before I thought anyone outside my family would read it. I was afraid the recipes I grew up with would disappear. After I lost my mother, I realized how many of them only existed in memory, not on paper — and if I didn’t do something, my daughters and the generations after them might never know them.
It became a collection of more than 50 recipes, centered on Azorean cooking and the foods that shaped my own family. I cried a lot writing it. I hadn’t realized until then that food isn’t just food — a smell, a pot on the stove, one bite of something you haven’t tasted in years, and suddenly you’re back with a person, a kitchen, a whole part of your life. That’s why almost every recipe opens with the story of why it matters to me. Many came straight from my mother, though they’re only a fraction of what I’ve collected over the years. I still wanted them to actually work in someone else’s kitchen, so I made every recipe myself, more than once, with the tips I picked up along the way — and I took every photo in the book myself.
I wrote it thinking nobody would see it. I was just trying to preserve something for my family. Instead it took on a mind of its own. I self-published it, and somehow this very personal project reached Portuguese and Azorean families far beyond mine. People still tell me how a recipe reminded them of their mother or grandmother — that’s the best compliment I could ask for.
This book was never really about teaching someone to cook. It was about keeping a piece of my family alive. The recipes matter, but the memories are why the book exists. Everything that came after started here.
7. Taste Portugal: 101 Easy Portuguese Recipes by Maria Dias & Lisa Dias
Taste Portugal is one of the more approachable books on this list, especially for someone who wants traditional Portuguese food without overly complicated recipes. Maria Dias and her daughter Lisa Dias created the book from their work on Tia Maria’s Portuguese Food Blog. As the title suggests, the book contains 101 Portuguese recipes designed specifically for everyday cooks, using simple ingredients and basic kitchen equipment. Their goal is also very much about preserving Portuguese food traditions and helping another generation learn recipes that could otherwise disappear from families. A large portion of the book focuses on dishes from mainland Portugal, with a lot of representation from the northern regions, and there is also a surprisingly large selection of desserts. What I like most about this book is how easy the recipes are to follow. They don’t feel intimidating or written exclusively for experienced cooks, which makes this a particularly good choice for someone just starting to cook Portuguese food at home. For someone who wants familiar Portuguese dishes, plenty of sweets, and straightforward recipes that don’t require restaurant-level technique, this is a very practical addition to a Portuguese cookbook collection
8. For the Love of Portuguese Food by Milena Rodrigues
This might be the most personal cookbook on the whole list. It doesn’t read like someone trying to document a national cuisine — it reads like someone inviting you into their family kitchen. Milena Rodrigues grew up in a Portuguese household and built the book around the homemade foods she remembers, with family stories woven right in. Most of it is hearty, traditional mainland cooking, written with Portuguese descendants in mind — the ones who remember a parent or grandparent making these dishes but never actually learned how. This isn’t the one I’d reach for if I wanted experimental restaurant cooking. It’s the one I’d reach for when I want something comforting and familiar.
9. Recipes from My Portuguese Kitchen by Miguel de Castro e Silva
This is one of the prettiest, easiest books on the list to just flip through — only 65 recipes, but more than 260 photographs packed into 128 pages, plus background on Portugal’s regions, ingredients, equipment, and techniques. The recipes lean traditional and mostly mainland, which makes sense given Miguel de Castro e Silva’s background as a celebrated Portuguese chef. I’ll be honest, I would have loved a bigger Azorean section, especially since the book talks so much about Portugal’s regional diversity. But if you want a beautiful, manageable cookbook with a lot of visual guidance, this is a great one.
10. Portugal: The Cookbook by Leandro Carreira
This book is an absolute beast, and I mean that as a compliment — 448 pages, more than 550 recipes, mixing the classics with contemporary ones. Carreira researched food from all over the country, including some highly regional, even disappearing recipes, and it shows: there are recipes from different regions, including the Azores, some traditional and some genuinely experimental. That’s the real strength here — you could go through 550-plus recipes and I don’t think you’d come up empty. It can be a lot if you just want a small beginner cookbook. But if you really love Portuguese food and want one massive reference to keep coming back to, this is one of the strongest choices out there.
11. The Taste of Portugal by Edite Vieira
The Taste of Portugal feels like a cookbook and a food-history book rolled into one. Edite Vieira traces Portuguese food from medieval times right up through the modern era, weaving in history, anecdotes, folklore, and regional traditions alongside the recipes. Most of it leans toward mainland Portugal, including some very regional dishes you don’t see in every Portuguese cookbook. There are Azorean recipes too, and I’ll admit, a few of them were new to even me. I do wish there were more photos of the finished dishes. But I enjoy this one almost as much for reading and learning as I do for actually cooking from it.
12. Easy Portuguese Cookbook by Stacy Silva-Boutwell
This is one of the more approachable books in the bunch, especially if you want to understand Portuguese cooking before jumping into anything complicated. One of my favorite parts is the regional cheat sheet, plus a section on the five foundations of Portuguese cuisine — little educational touches that make it more than just a stack of recipes. There are more than 75 recipes, built to be accessible, with ingredient substitutions, regional notes, wine-pairing suggestions, and sample menus. I do think more photos of the finished dishes would help. But if someone was completely new to Portuguese cooking, this is one of the easier places I’d point them to start.
13. And, In the Interest of Full Disclosure — My Newest
At My Portuguese Table feels like a continuation of my first book — I just had more to say, and a lot more food I wanted to share. Azorean Cooking could never hold every recipe or every memory. I always knew there’d be more.
This one goes deeper. More than 75 recipes, and this time I wanted to show the traditions behind the food, not just the dishes themselves. The Azores are still at the heart of it — but our food doesn’t exist on its own. It’s tied to everything else: the Holy Ghost Feasts, our holidays, the fruits and ingredients that only grow on the islands, the way we gather as a family, what a Portuguese breakfast actually looks like. That’s what I wanted this book to capture.
Just like with my first book, I made every recipe myself — more than once — because I wanted to know you could actually follow it at home. I took every photo myself too. And every recipe starts with a little story about why it matters to me. That’s really how I want both books to feel: not like I’m teaching you. Like we’re cooking together.
I don’t think of this as replacing Azorean Cooking. The two belong together. My first book was me holding onto the food and memories of my childhood. This one is what happened after I realized how many of you wanted to hold onto them too.
Favorite Portuguese cookbooks I have to tell you about!
LaSalette Cookbook: Conzinha Nova Portuguesa by Manuel Azevedo
This might genuinely be the most beautiful cookbook I own. LaSalette Cookbook is a completely different experience from a traditional Portuguese family cookbook. Chef Manuel Azevedo calls his approach Cozinha Nova Portuguesa (New Portuguese Cuisine) and that’s exactly what the book feels like. At his LaSalette restaurant in Sonoma, he takes Portuguese flavors and combines them with California’s seasonal ingredients, reflecting Portugal’s traditional food as well as influences connected to its global history. The book itself is enormous and luxurious, around 357 pages in a large-format edition with extensive color photography. I love that it is organized around the seasons because that immediately separates it from most Portuguese cookbooks. The recipes are modern, experimental, beautifully plated, and sometimes completely unexpected. This is a beautiful showcase for what Portuguese cuisine can look like when approached creatively by a chef. Even if I never cooked a single recipe from it, I would still want this book on my shelf.
Little Portugal cookbook by Lauren Covas
Little Portugal brings something to this collection that I think is really important: a distinctly Portuguese-American point of view. Lauren Covas grew up in New Jersey’s Portuguese community and describes herself as a first generation Portuguese-American chef. The book is built around that experience, combining family recipes, Portuguese classics, and her own more contemporary interpretations. At 176 pages, it’s much more manageable than some of the massive reference books on this list. Recipes include familiar Portuguese ideas like roasted octopus, seafood rice, shrimp and garlic, and pork, but there are also combinations involving ingredients and techniques from outside strictly traditional Portuguese cooking. That’s actually what I like about it. It reminds me of the Portuguese-American experience itself: you grow up with one food culture at home while being surrounded by many others, and eventually those influences begin to overlap. The recipes are traditional enough to feel familiar but easy and creative enough to feel approachable for a modern American kitchen. I wouldn’t use it as an encyclopedia of Portuguese regional cooking, but I think it captures something that many cookbooks from Portugal naturally can’t… the feeling of growing up Portuguese in America while still trying to keep that connection to the food alive.
The Food of Portugal cookbook by Jean Anderson
This book has a special place in my collection because it was the first Portuguese cookbook I ever bought. Jean Anderson wasn’t Portuguese, and because of that I originally approached it a little differently than books written by someone documenting their own family food. What won me over is how seriously she treated Portugal and Portuguese cuisine. Anderson was a longtime traveler to Portugal. She had first visited in the early 1960s and had already made more than 50 return trips by the time the book appeared. The Food of Portugal contains more than 300 recipes, along with sections on Portuguese food terminology, wine, history, regions, restaurants, and markets. The book feels heavily centered on mainland Portugal, but in fairness, that’s where much of Anderson’s direct experience and travel were concentrated. What I appreciate is that she never seems to be trying to reinvent Portuguese cuisine or claim it as her own. She approaches it as someone who genuinely fell in love with the country and wanted English-speaking readers to understand it. For a non-Portuguese author, I think she honors the cuisine remarkably well.
Related Reading on Azorean Greenbean
Want to cook your way through a few of these regions yourself? Try my Cozido recipe, a Sunday favorite growing up, or Portuguese sweet rice / arroz doce recipe next — both show up in more than one of these Portuguese cookbooks.
A Note on the Links Above
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases — at no extra cost to you. My own two books link straight to my shop instead, because that’s where I’d rather you buy them anyway.