Cookbook Review: Sweet Potato Soul | Listen

As the summer heats up, I’m in the mood for light and refreshing meals, and Jenné Claiborne’s Sweet Potato Soul Vegan Vibes: 100 Soulful Plant-Based Recipes for Healthy Everyday Meals (Rodale Books, 2025) is just the ticket. Claiborne has been a vegan since college, and she clearly knows her stuff, from common misconceptions about amino acids to the acknowledgement that vegan doesn’t always mean healthy. Her cookbook, however, is full of from-scratch vegan dishes that I found appealing across the board as an omnivore.

Although the book starts off with a wealth of information, from pantry essentials and equipment to fun menu suggestions, it also practically begs you to start flipping through and trying to decide which vibrant, delicious-looking recipe you’re going to make. As meat prices go up (along with my age, prompting me to be more and more conscious of focusing on a plant-based diet), I appreciate that this cookbook makes vegan food both unintimidating and inviting. You can go adventurous with Lentil Lover breakfast sausages and lion’s mane crab cakes—or stick close to the familiar with Bodacious baked banana french toast or black-eyed pea curry.