You know what can add extra stress to the holidays? Finding the perfect gifts for your loved ones.
Holidays
The 14 Best Gifts for Home Cooks, from America’s Most Trusted Experts on Cooking
America’s Test Kitchen has been inspiring home cooks for 30 years. Here's our gift guide for the cooks in your life.
By Published Oct. 10, 2023.
We’ve got you covered.
For three decades, America’s Test Kitchen has earned the trust of millions of home cooks—through our magazines, cookbooks, and public television shows. Fifty full-time (very meticulous) test cooks, editors, and product testers spend their days tweaking every variable to find the very best recipes, equipment, ingredients, and techniques.
We don’t accept advertising. We turn down freebies. And we send our recipes out to a network of about 40,000 home cooks for their approval before we publish them.
So yes, you can trust our products and recommendations.
It’s our mission to inspire and empower home cooks. Here are some of our favorite gift ideas that do just that.
Sign up for the Notes from the Test Kitchen newsletter
Our favorite tips and recipes, enjoyed by 2 million+ subscribers!
America's Test Kitchen will not sell, rent, or disclose your email address to third parties unless otherwise notified. Your email address is required to identify you for free access to content on the site. You will also receive free newsletters and notification of America's Test Kitchen specials.
For the Home Cook Who Wants It All
Our All-Access Digital Membership
Some cooking websites claim to have nearly a million recipes. We guarantee you most of those recipes were cooked through just once, if at all.
An All-Access Digital Membership includes more than just 14,000 thoroughly tested recipes. It also comes with thousands of unbiased product reviews, test kitchen discoveries and shortcuts, and thousands of recipe videos—ones not found on YouTube. Plus, a community of half a million home cooks who already subscribe. (And oh, you get our members-only app, which is rated 4.8 stars in the Apple App Store.)
For the Perpetual Student
Membership to America’s Test Kitchen Online Cooking School
Think of our All-Access Digital Membership as a private cooking library. Our Online Cooking School is ATK’s elite university. From beginners who want to master basics to experienced home cooks looking to hone more advanced techniques, the America’s Test Kitchen Online Cooking School has classes for everyone.
We have video cook-throughs and step-by-step guides on subjects from stir-frying or rolling pie crust to making homemade pastas or baguettes that’d make a Parisian swoon. These master classes are a postgraduate course on great cooking.
For the Food Science Geek
One-year print subscription to Cook’s Illustrated magazine
The winner of a 2023 National Magazine Award, Cook’s Illustrated features reliable recipes, explorations into food science, and thoroughly researched stories that set new standards for what a cooking magazine can be.
Every issue—completely ad free, by the way—is packed with information that helps home cooks understand the whys and hows of cooking. So not only will you bake the best chocolate chip cookies you’ve ever tasted, but you’ll also understand the science behind what makes them so good.
For the Regional Food Lover
One-year print subscription to Cook’s Country magazine
Do you like traveling the country? Road trips? Eating at that hole-in-the-wall sandwich stand that serves the most amazing po’boy ever? You’ll want Cook’s Country arriving in your mailbox.
Cook’s Country magazine is a celebration of cooking in America, featuring kitchen-tested, at-home versions of great regional recipes and a spotlight on the stories behind them. If there’s someone on your list who wants to eat their way around the country from the comfort of their own kitchen, this is the gift for them.
For the Consummate Host
This cookbook is about making many people very happy, all at once.
Know someone who treats holiday feasts like their own personal Super Bowl? Or someone looking to host more movie nights and casual get-togethers in the new year? Home cooks will find everything they need to host a get-together so memorable that everybody will want to do it again soon (including the host!).
Featuring unique menus from 25 America’s Test Kitchen test cooks, in Gatherings you’ll enjoy playful themes, personal recipes and stories, and practical tips for making any gathering go smoothly.
For the Kitchen Appliance Aficionado
Kitchen Gear: The Ultimate Owner’s Manual cookbook
This book is for anyone who watches Bill Nye, The Science Guy, or falls down a rabbit hole watching Mythbusters or How It Works videos on YouTube. It’s for kitchen gear geeks who want to become more confident, adventurous, and capable cooks.
Lisa McManus and Hannah Crowley—equipment nerds extraordinaire—are the hosts of ATK’s popular YouTube series Gear Heads and executive editors of the ATK Reviews team. In this book, they share unconventional wisdom gained through decades of exhaustive research and hands-on testing.
Packed with science-backed advice, practical how-to guides, engrossing trivia, beautiful full-color photography, and 100+ recipes that showcase great gear, this book is an indispensable source of collected wisdom you won’t find anywhere else.
For the Cook Who Never Puts Away Their Wok
Never cooked Chinese food before? Eat takeout once a month? Ready for a weekend soup dumpling project? This is the book for you.
A Very Chinese Cookbook is an accessible, detailed, and affectionately irreverent look at Chinese cooking. You may have seen authors Kevin Pang and his dad Jeffrey on our YouTube series, Hunger Pangs (get it?). You’ll find American Chinese classics such as General Tso’s Chicken, Cantonese dim sum favorites like shumai, and Sichuanese street food such as Dan Dan Noodles.
(There’s even a magic trick with a fortune cookie . . . )
For the Perfect Pairer
You’ve put in all the time thinking about the main course. But somehow you’ve neglected the side, and now you may have to defrost that bag of frozen peas.
With this book in hand, home cooks will find impressive, easy-to-cook, quick-to-put-together side dishes. Flip to any page and you’ll find a recipe inspiration, from curried rice salad to our famous Almost No-Knead Bread to perfectly glazed baby carrots.
For the Person with a Sweet Tooth
Find us another company in America that’s baked as many cookies as we have. This book collects all those findings, discoveries, and recipes into one ultimate book: The Perfect Cookie. It contains all-time best versions of cookie jar classics, as well as foolproof recipes for favorite cookies from around the world and some original recipes all our own.
This book is the definitive go-to resource for any cookie or bar a home baker could imagine making. We think it’s the only cookie book you’ll ever need.
For the Little Chef in Your Life
The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs
The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs, a New York Times #1 best seller, was written and designed to empower kids in the kitchen.
More than 740 young chefs tested and approved The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs’ recipes. It includes step-by-step photos of tips and techniques to help kids learn how to cook like a pro, no matter their age. Readers will also hear directly from the young chefs who cooked alongside America’s Test Kitchen test cooks—they provide product reviews and testimonials that will encourage other kids as they learn.
For the Cook Who Never Misses an Episode
The Complete America’s Test Kitchen TV Show Cookbook, 2001-2024
This is a massive book, weighing nearly 8 pounds! But fans of our Emmy Award-winning flagship TV show, America’s Test Kitchen—public television’s most-watched cooking show—will pore over the 1,900 recipes and countless discoveries.
Jam-packed with more recipes than you can wave a whisk at, this book includes every single recipe featured on the show since 2001. (It even includes the lineup of those yet to air in 2024!) The book also includes 58 pages of an up-to-date buying guide of top-rated equipment and ingredient reviews for the full America’s Test Kitchen experience in book form.
For the Precision Chopper
Zwilling 7" Hollow Edge Rocking Santoku knife
Santoku knives are top of the line. They were developed in Japan as a more versatile alternative to vegetable cleavers and quickly became the country’s most popular kitchen knives.
With a short, thin, rounded blade that measures 5 to 7 inches in length, the smaller size of a santoku makes it easier to handle than many chef’s knives. This one from Zwilling impressed our equipment experts with its comfortable handle and its ability to slice through food without resistance. It’s a versatile, durable knife that chops, slices, and dices with ease.
For the Foodie Puzzler
Fig Salad 1,000 Piece Premium Jigsaw Puzzle
A salad of fresh figs and salty ham sounds like a picnic on an autumn day in Italy. Allow our 1,000-piece Fig Salad puzzle to transport you to that fantasy. This mouthwatering puzzle is a delight to piece together—despite the cravings that will come with it.
For the Stylish Cook
Hedley & Bennett x ATK Apron, Egg Yolk
Every home cook needs a stylish, durable apron that looks as good as the food they make. This one, made in collaboration with Hedley & Bennett, comes with functional pockets to hold a cook’s most essential cooking tools, waist ties you can adjust to fit your body, and lightweight fabric that cleans easily when it gets spilled on or splattered. (If Egg Yolk isn’t your color, it comes in three other exclusive color combinations.)