The Ultimate Side Dish Cookbook: 1001 Delicious Recipes for Vegetables, Rice, Grains, and Beans

Kaylin Jackson: Buy it! So many recipes

United States on Aug 20, 2023

M. O.: Tried 5 different recipes so far, and read through much of the book already. They are super easy to cook and turned out great! I love the “Why this recipe works” section because it tells me why I need to do certain steps. For example, pat the vegetables dry so they crisp etc, things I might consider skipping doing if they didn’t tell me. I am someone that likes to know the “why.” I also feel it is training me to understand the basics of cooking in a way that instructions alone wouldn’t.

The only con is that sometimes I think the “why this works” section includes instructions that aren’t repeated in the actual recipe portion so you have to go back to make sure you don’t miss something. For example, when baking frozen artichokes you have to heat the pan in the oven before putting the artichokes on the pan to make the water evaporate quickly. It isn’t listed in the instructions and if I hadn’t read the “why this works” section I may have missed it

United States on Apr 28, 2023

Susan-Jean Workman: Bought this as a gift for my brother as he loves to cook but finds there aren't enough side dishes in most cook book.he has really liked this book and has enjoyed trying out alpt of the options.

United Kingdom on Apr 19, 2023

Anne Napier: Just things different for a change. I will go to it for something made easy.

Australia on Jan 24, 2023

Luciana Godri: I love their books, theirs recipes, their TV shows and videos. But this book is a must have!
I ordered first at kindle and decided it was too good for having just in a digital format. Amazing.

Brazil on Jul 23, 2022

Alys Hicks: There are so many recipes in here and they are all interesting. There was at least one think on every page I want to try. It’s great for people who have trouble knowing what to make with there meat/veggie/vegan main dish. All the recipes are tested and I haven’t had one that hasn’t worked yet

United Kingdom on Mar 03, 2022

MLG: I cook once a week for Group A, a family group of five people which includes veggie haters of various persuasions, and once a week for Group B, myself and my daughter, who are veggie lovers and largely follow a meatless diet. When I received this book, I read through it twice because I was so excited about the many recipes that would appeal to either or both groups.
For Group B, my daughter and I, I recently made a meal of Egyptian Barley Salad and Asparagus Salad with Grapes, Goat Cheese and Almonds. For Group A, which unfortunately has been on hold due to the pandemic but is soon going to resume getting together, I look forward to making Roasted Baby Carrots with Browned Butter and Green Beans with Bacon and Onion. There are numerous other recipes which I'm eager to try.
I saw the review by the person who also owns Vegetables Illustrated who pointed out that a number of those recipes were duplicated in this book. I do not own Vegetables Illustrated, but in my experience that is probably a valid critique since America's Test Kitchen does tend to publish books which repeat previously published recipes.
So if you do not already own Vegetables Illustrated, I highly...

United States on Apr 18, 2021

Stephen Rudolph: The America’s test kitchen people know how to cook.great side dishes lots of vegetarian fare .
The recipes can be a little complex but the tastes are 5 star restaurants

Canada on Feb 07, 2021

I Do The Speed Limit: Yeah, I'm disappointed. I don't know why I had high hopes that this ATK book would contain new and different recipes. (Maybe because I fully appreciated their compilation of recipes in their cook book about braising, which came out last year. Maybe because I was enthused about their 20th Anniversary book, which came out a month or so ago.) But really, these side dish recipes are just same-old, same-old, with some tweaks. I found nothing to wow me.

What did I expect from 1001 "perfect" recipes crammed into one huge volume? I shouldn't have expected anything other than ho-hum....and I should have known it would be quite a hassle trying to pick out the "perfect" recipe to make. You know, and I should have known, there is a much better option, a much better tool to find the exact right side dish for a particular situation: The internet! And it's so, so, much easier and exact, and expeditious, to run a simple query on your preferred search engine and be rewarded with exactly what you're looking for. Free. And it does not take up any book case shelf space.

There is so many recipes, that nothing stands out. I know that a lot of people love this type of listing, and a lot of...

United States on Nov 15, 2019

Food, Glorious Food!: I own the Cooks Illustrated Vegetables Illustrated book and loved it so much I purchased The Side Dish Bible as soon as it was released.

You may be interested in my Vegetables Illustrated review (currently the top review on that page) which I rated as a five star book. This book will not get a five star rating. I will explain why, but first, before we get down to the nitty gritty, lets do a sweep through this book to see what it does have to offer.

Firstly, it contains 1001 recipes compared to the Vegetables illustrated book at 700+

The chapter headings are as follows:
Basics You Can Count On
Roast Your Vegetables
Potatoes Every Way
Up Your Vegetable Game
Fries and Crispy Sides
Perfect Rice and Great Grains
Best Beans and Lentils
Slice up a Salad or Slaw
Dinner Party Winners
Potluck Favorites
Not Your Mothers Casseroles
Get Fired Up
Use Your Slow Cooker or Pressure Cooker
Almost A meal
Holiday Classics
The Bread Basket

As with Vegetables Illustrated, each recipe begins with a short paragraph “Why this recipe works” As I mentioned in my review for Vegetables Illustrated, I don’t find the “why this...

United States on Nov 08, 2019