Thug Kitchen: The Final Verdict

My opinion on Vegan cooking remains largely unchanged after cooking a handful of recipes out of Thug Kitchen. I do, however, feel more knowledgeable about it. That’s the best I can say, given I did not enjoy some of the flavors from the recipes I sampled this month. I even neglected doing the last recipe this week because I just wasn’t sure it would live up to my expectations after two of three disappointments.

The book is packed with recipes and information usable in at least understanding vegan cooking, which is definitely their mission. They explain the more unusual ingredients such as ‘nooch’ that are not typically seen in other diets, how to use them, and where you can look for them. For this reason, it is an excellent introduction. For someone like me, however, who has no actual desire to become Vegan, there isn’t much here to drag me into the lifestyle.

For that reason, I am not sure I’d recommend it going forward. The one recipe I really enjoyed was the tofu scramble. At the very least, the book introduced me to their online community and podcast which I do still enjoy despite it being vegan based. They do their best not to use the ‘cursed word’, which definitely helps them online.

If you are considering a vegan diet, this may be a good place to start if you want to understand what you might be getting into. If you’re a curious cook, like me, maybe look elsewhere.

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