100 Easy Vegan Recipes for the Southern Flavors of Smoke

This book was as amazing as I was expecting it to be. As an omnivore, I found all the recipes to be accessible, inspiring and delicious! Im making a serious attempt at moving towards a vegan lifestyle, and this book has certainly made that journey more exciting. Im so excited to see what Jenne comes up with next!!

The first item using the store Prime that ever arrived on TIME. I’m so happy! Thus far, amazing recipes. Beautiful layout and pictures to match. I’ve only had it a day but have made two and they turned out great! If you watch her YouTube, you’re going to be even happier with the book! Great job, Jenne!

I purchased this wonderful cookbook and my husband and I have been COOKING UP A STORM and LOVING EVERY BITE! We’ve cooked 10 recipes already! We even ordered one for our daughter, who is doing a 31 day “ vegan challenge”. Thanks for these awesome recipes❤️

I am very new to vegan life and the sweet potato soul book is amazing! When I can feed a family of 5 with several recipes without telling them its vegan and zero complaints, I am winning, lol! Hope she will be putting out a new book in the future.

I'm a true fan. It's a great book for learning about living a vegan lifestyle. Even better, I can fit these recipes into my home for the people who aren't. Very tasty recipes. And the ingredients are easily found.

What a surprise yesterday when I received this book! I have been practicing a vegan lifestyle for more than 8mos now and this book was one of the first I purchased - yes I have been waiting for a LOOOONG time to get it! My wife is on the fence but this book and Jeene's blog inspire her to eat well and easy. Recipes are not complicated, have substitutes, and the book has alot of knowledgable information on produce. Also includes facts and practical thoughts on things that are debated today when you mention you are vegan - protein specifically. I love the book and will be changing up my grocery list so that I can try some of the produce and seasonings called for in the book. If you want to learn how to make good healthy food from the ground - buy this book!!

I bought this book, because so far there has been no disappointment with any recipes I've tried from her youtube channel. I can say the book has lived up to the hope I had for it. So far I've tried the sweet potato parsnip bisque, (because it's cold out and soup is the answer) and the southern buddha bowl, both have been delicious. They were both full of a delightful and fresh flavor while still being wonderfully filling. I haven't had grits in so long, and I can hardly wait to try her low country grits recipe sometime soon.

I’ve only looked at the recipes so far and I have noticed that many of the recipes use a form of fat and sometimes lots of it. Of course the recipes are going to be delicious. They look scrumptious! These recipes may not be right for folks who are looking to lose weight. I’m glad I bought the book and I will be able to adapt some of the recipes.

I was very happy to receive the book. The recipes appear to be simple and require ingredients that most vegans and vegetarians already have. The pages are inviting and give you a home feeling. I'm super excited about using this cookbook.

I am a long time vegetarian, a southern girl, and a great fan of soul food ... so Sweet Potato Soul immediately appealed to me!

The first thing to know: this is a beautiful cookbook, with great food photos. The recipes are laid out one to a page, with ingredients and 1-2-3 directions, just the way I like.

I really loved the introduction on southern food. Jenne Claiborne even details pantry items for southern cooking, southern fruits and vegetables, spices, baking staples, sweeteners. There is a short section on varieties of sweet potatoes!

I also loved her Five Healthy Rules I Live By (p. 19, longer details in book!):
1. Avoid all animal products.
2. Eat your colors.
3. Don't count calories or protein.
4. Go 80/20. (unprocessed/processed)
5. Make everything delicious.

Now on to the recipes! In Sweet Potato Soul you will find:
Breakfast
Salads and Soups
Greens and Sides
Mains
Sweets and Drinks
Pantry Staples and Sauces

I have three things I look for in cookbooks:

Are the recipes vegetarian (or can I tweak them to be veggie friendly)?
Yes, this is a vegan cookbook!

Are the ingredients readily accessible at any grocery store?
Yes, the ingredients in this book are delightfully accessible foods that should be available anywhere.

Are the recipes straightforward and easy to make on a busy work night (i.e. 30 - 60 minutes tops)?
Most of the recipes are pretty straightforward. Some do include multiple steps. For instance, Low Country Grits (which looks amazing!) does require the cook to also make either Creole Red Bean Sausage or Smoky White Bean Sausage ... so not a great work night recipe.

To give you an idea of the delicious variety of recipes in this cookbook, here are a few that particularly appealed to me: Sweet Potato Skillet Home Fries, Sweet Potato Pie Smoothie, Bourbon BBQ Tempeh Sandwiches, Georgia Watermelon and Peach Salad, Coconut Corn Chowder, Jalapeno Hush Puppies, Spicy Fried Cauliflower "Chicken," Happy Hearts "Crab" Cakes, New Orleans Style Red Beans and Rice, Cajun Blackened Tofu Sandwich, Smoky Black Eyed Pea Cakes, Georgia Pecan Pie, Ginger Kissed Peach Cobbler ... and this is just a small sampler!

I rate this vegan cookbook five stars and highly recommend it to anyone who loves southern cooking, vegan cooking, or vegetarian or "Meatless Monday" cooks who want to add more plant based southern food to their diet!

In an Introduction which details the author's background, and a description of Southern food, we are given short but informative subsections such as
Five Healthy Food Rules I Live By
What To Expect From This Book
Tools to Stock Your Soul Kitchen
Southern Pantry Staples
Varieties of Sweet Potatoes
How to Slice Sweet Potatoes
Greens
Creole Seasoning
Flours Sweeteners

After that, we have the recipes which are listed in the following categories:
Breakfast
Salads and Soups
Greens and Sides
Mains
Sweets and Drinks
Pantry staples & Sauces

Then Acknowledgments
and
Index

Each recipe section takes one page and lists ingredients, cooking directions, and a homey or helpful blurb

Okay, i loved this book! I'm not even from the south. With only a few exceptions (purple sweet potatoes, coconut sugar, miso, tamari, dulse, nori, flaxseed meal, etc), the ingredients are easily-found especially if you live in or near a large city. Happily most of the recipes use regular items.

The dishes are sometimes veganized versions of old favorites such as sweet potato hummus, stalwarts such as pecan pie, and fusions such as Cajun Blackened Tofu Sandwich, cream cheese pound cake (made with soy milk) or Spicy fried cauliflower "chicken.".

This is a book for folks who want that down home cooking while eating vegan. You shouldn't have to give up on your culture to eat vegan. The book is vegan. It is not gluten-free cooking or even healthy non-sugar cooking.

Highly Recommended. I got this book free from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review

SUMMARY:
Mixing vegan with Southern cuisine in her new cookbook, cooking instructor, blog creator, and vegan chef, Jenne Claiborne, proves taste, soul, health and tradition can truly be combined. Named after her blog and YouTube channel, Sweet Potato Soul shares recipes, knowledge, personal stories and a bit of spiciness. Recipes for breakfast, salads, soups, sides, sauces, mains, desserts and drinks are included in a well organized manner. Coupled with beautiful photography, diners won’t miss the meat at all!
A PENNY FOR MY THOUGHTS:
Surprised to find such a tempting cookbook filled with vegan recipes, it was perfectly pleasing both visually and content-wise. Already being mindful of what I eat and heading towards a more vegan lifestyle, I was thrilled to find the recipes easy to prepare, the ingredients easily accessible, the information helpful and the meals nourishing, healthy and delicious. Favorites already, Sweet Potato Hummus and Sweet Corn Succotash are Southern and so delectable- they will be staples in our house from now on. So enjoyably appetizing!
RATING:
5 (out of 5) pennies
*I received a complimentary copy of Sweet Potato Soul from Blogging For Books for my honest review*

Claiborne came to NYC from Atlanta and Boston to become an actress. Between auditions, she held several jobs, including one at Manhattan's celebrated vegan Peacefood Cafe. A vegetarian and pescatarian, she transitioned to vegan while working at Peacefood Cafe. She was familiar with the lifestyle choice, since her father was raised vegan as a member of the Hebrew Israelite community, and her paternal relatives would show up at events with vegan dishes. This contributed to her philosophy: don't sacrifice taste, don;t sacrifice health.

Some highlights you will enjoy: Harlem Caviar: Black Eyed Pea Salad. A good summer meal, since it is served cold. The main ingredients are the peas, celery, onion, a red bell pepper, Dijon mustard, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup. The Cool As A Cucumber Salad includes cucumbers, avocado, dill, lemon juice, and peach. Corn Chowder in enhanced with coconut oil and coconut milk. Her Succotash (msickquatash) has corn or lima beans, but also soy milk, garlic, onion, and coconut oil. And Peach-Date BBQ Jackfruit Sliders uses shredded jackfruit to replace meat on whole wheat slider buns

This book is so good! There are so many reasons I'm glad I bought this book. I only just received my copy and I'm already bursting with ideas on what to make-- the hardest part is deciding what to make first! As a fellow breakfast enthusiast it will probably be one of the amazing breakfast recipes but I'm also leaning towards one of the incredibly creative ways to use black-eyed peas!

There are a lot of vegan cookbooks coming out this year (talk about problems you want to have) and it makes it a little difficult to decide which ones to buy, but this one definitely makes the top of my list for recommendations-- not only because the food is good, but also because the author shares so much of the love and family tradition that makes us all love to share a meal in the first place!

This book is an absolute must-have if a. you love southern cooking and b. you are vegan. But even if you aren't vegan, this book is great if you're hoping to up your nutrition and veggie/fruit intake. I loved Jenné Claiborne even before this her first cookbook, for her taje on vegan cuisine that's focused on easy, healthy and YUMMY. Over 100 vegan soul food recipes add a little dose of veggies and better health to my fave dishes, with a focus on fresh, seasonal ingredients. The recipes are super easy to follow and it's also beautifully illustrated with full-color photography.My fave recipe: Coconut Collard Salad and Fried Cauliflower Chicken! The best!!!! And my oh my... Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls!!! These dishes truly are cravy-worthy!!

Great cookbook for vegans OR non-vegans! Lots of delicious and (mostly) healthy recipes that are also full of flavor. Every recipe I've tried has been really tasty, and really not hard to make at all. The Pecan Sweet Potato Granola is absolutely delicious and I've been making it every Sunday since I bought the book (it makes my house smell incredible). I would recommend this for anybody looking to get out of a cooking rut and try some new things, if southern-style cuisine is not something you cook often or ever.

Upon receiving this cookbook in the mail, I was immediately ready to give these recipes a try. I've made the Cream Chesse Pound Cake and the Jackfruit Jambalaya. With the pound cake, I purchased one item (cream cheese) because I already had the other ingredients. I did a bit more grocery shopping with the jambalaya but all the items were easy to find. What I've cooked up so far has been delicious and I look forward to working my way through these fun recipes!

This is simply the most exuberant cookbook it's ever been my pleasure to lay eyes on! There's joy in the photography, and there's joy in the anecdotes ... and when you cook this food? There's joy--there's love! She's approaching these recipes, not someone obsessed with "health food" but as someone who loves food ... and for food to be truly healthy, it must make you joyous. This book will improve your life--whether you're vegan, vegan-curious, vegan adjacent ... just buy it. Give this woman money! I love her.

I thought I'd try some recipes from the book before I buy it. The first one was the sweet potato and green bean casserole. The proportions of the foods did not fit the dish size she directed us to use. No way did 3 sweet potatoes and a pound of green beans plus all the other ingredients fit the 9x9 pan. I'm not thrilled with the flavor and the cooking time didn't cook the green beans enough, but I'll give it a second try. Also, it wasn't clear when she said " add the beans" whether she meant the white beans, the green beans or both. I had to reread the recipe several times to figure out what she was talking about.
It is a lovely looking book and I want to try more recipes from it.

I'm really enjoying this cookbook! Great recipes and photos! I'm also following a low FODMAP diet and I find that a lot of the recipes are easy to modify and are still just as tasty without, say, garlic and onion! A pleasant surprise!

I just made the Cool-as-a-Cucumber salad and it's soooo good! Just the right blend of sweet and hot plus crunchy. Looking forward to checking out the other recipes in this great-looking vegan delight. Thanks for all the recipes!

This book has changed the way I cook and the way I view vegan food. I am a vegetarian and found it hard to find delicious and filling meals that I wanted to repeat or feed my family. The ingredients are easy to find and the recipes or easy to follow. Even my meat loving husband loves the food I cooked from this book. I bought one for my sister and will soon buy one for my best friend.

I sincerely appreciated Jenne Claiborne's Sweet Potato Soul Cookbook. It shared some of the history of "soul food" and her background and interest in vegan cooking with cultural influence. While I have not followed her on YouTube or her blog, I found this book a refreshing introduction to her flare and approach to ethnic vegan flavor!!!

I bought this book yesterday and I am already in love. I can see myself making every recipe in the book. The recipes are very simple and down to earth and are not full of hard to find ingredients. I am excited to make some meals and hopefully convert some people in my family to plant based life, and that this will make it easier for my transition. This might be the best vegan cookbook i have purchased so far!

Though I found some of the recipes original it was not something that could not be found on YouTube or other sites. I found that some parts were just fillers to the book, for example a page an a half on tools to stock your kitchen boast a paragraph on wooden spoons. Understanding that a cookbook is meant greet a wide audience I had hoped for more innovative recipes. As "chicken" cauliflower is a staple it feels that food personalities don't move on from their safe zones and that shows from when I buy cook books from pros rather than the food enthusiast. I personally watch her on YouTube and love her presence on screen and it translates to the book in pictures so for me this was lacking and will be moved to the shelf.

I sincerely appreciated Jenne Claiborne's Sweet Potato Soul Cookbook. It shared some of the history of "soul food" and her background and interest in vegan cooking with cultural influence. While I have not followed her on YouTube or her blog, I found this book a refreshing introduction to her flare and approach to ethnic vegan flavor!!!

I bought this book yesterday and I am already in love. I can see myself making every recipe in the book. The recipes are very simple and down to earth and are not full of hard to find ingredients. I am excited to make some meals and hopefully convert some people in my family to plant based life, and that this will make it easier for my transition. This might be the best vegan cookbook i have purchased so far!

I’ve been following Jenné for some time and I must say that all her recipes hit home. She is so genuine in all that she does and I can’t thank her enough for creating this masterpiece!! I can’t wait to make every single recipe and tag her just so she knows how amazing she is!

Though I found some of the recipes original it was not something that could not be found on YouTube or other sites. I found that some parts were just fillers to the book, for example a page an a half on tools to stock your kitchen boast a paragraph on wooden spoons. Understanding that a cookbook is meant greet a wide audience I had hoped for more innovative recipes. As "chicken" cauliflower is a staple it feels that food personalities don't move on from their safe zones and that shows from when I buy cook books from pros rather than the food enthusiast. I personally watch her on YouTube and love her presence on screen and it translates to the book in pictures so for me this was lacking and will be moved to the shelf.

I collect cookbooks, so I was excited to have the opportunity to review one. I’m not vegan, but I have many friends who are. Also, I’ve been trying to mix up my menus lately by adding in some vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free recipes. There are a number of ideas in this book which will likely be on my schedule to make in the near future, though I may tweak some a bit (such as add in chicken).

The beginning of the book gives some ins and outs of vegan cooking, as well as the Southern pantry staples. There’s also an introduction to the various kinds of sweet potatoes. (I never knew there were so many varieties.) The author explains why she moved to a plant-based, vegan diet. Some people may be familiar with her from her blog and YouTube channel. Claiborne’s book shows that it may not be as difficult to incorporate a vegan lifestyle as I once imagined.

The book is divided into sections: breakfast, salads and soups, greens and sides, mains, sweets and drinks, and pantry staples and sauces. There are a number of gorgeous photos throughout, but I wish there had been a photo for every recipe. Most of the recipes contain basic, easy-to-find ingredients. These recipes would be a lovely addition to anyone’s diet, whether a vegan or not.

The following recipes are a sample of those I’ve tried or will be trying in the very near future:

Sweet potato skillet home fries (page 58)
Sweet potato-pecan cinnamon rolls (page 65)
Sweet potato pie smoothie (page 67)
Purple and white potato salad (page 82)
Spicy fried cauliflower “chicken” (page 152)
No-bake stone fruit cobbler (page 171)
Plum verbena sorbet (page 187)

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy from Blogging for Books, but I wasn’t required to leave a positive review.