Umami is all the rage now and this is a solid entry on the topic. The layout is easy to navigate and the pictures are absolutely drool-worthy. Food porn, anyone?

4 1/2 stars

Never before have I salivated while reading a cookbook, but I did with Raquel Pelzel’s Umami Bomb. A cookbook devoted to adding umami to vegetarian dishes? Why, yes, please!

Umami was first described by a Japanese chemist and food lover, Kikunae Ikeda, at the turn of last century. Translated from Japanese umami means “pleasant, savory taste.”

Pelzel divides her Umami Bomb into eight sections each devoted to one umami ingredient: aged cheese, tomatoes, mushrooms, soy sauce, miso, caramelized onions, smoke, and nutritional yeast. After going through these recipes, I realized that my taste buds love the umami flavors. Add caramelized onions to a grilled cheese sandwich? Yum!

If you’re thinking that the recipes are only for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, think again. She puts soy sauce into her chocolate recipes stating that it makes the taste “brighter.” There’s even a banana split recipe!

The author is a pescatarian so there is a bonus chapter with several fish recipes, but the other chapters are all vegetarian with some vegan or suggestions for turning a recipe vegan. Having become a huge fan of caramelized onions in the past couple of years, I know just how significantly a umami flavor can impact a dish.

The dishes that I’m eager to try include: eggs in puttanesca purgatory, which looks a lot like shakshuka, the Israeli egg dish but with the added spark of olives and caper (big yum); roasted tomato tart with pesto and goat’s milk cheese; mushroom lardons with black-eyed peas and greens; probably every single caramelized onion recipe; and there are others, but my mouth’s watering so we’ll stop there.

I highly recommend Umami Bomb.

I received an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Umami Bomb by Raquel Pelzel
75 (Mostly) Vegetarian Recipes that Explode with Flavor

As I move more and more toward vegan eating I am always on the lookout for new and interesting ways to make meals interesting and perhaps to change things up a bit. This book has some intriguing ways to add flavor intensity that I may and may not have explored before.

The Introduction explains Umami as “the fifth taste” and mentions that is provides “meaty or savory” to the dish. It then lists eight items to use to create umami with each one having a chapter of its own and recipes that include the item the chapter is named for. The ninth chapter deals with fish...not vegetarian at all.

So...here are the eight umami items mentioned in the book.
* parmesan and aged cheeses
* soy sauce
* tomatoes
* mushrooms
* carmelized onions
* miso
* smoke
* nutritional yeast

As I looked through the recipes again I realized that I use most of these items to provide flavor without realizing that I was adding umami. I didn’t really see anything new I would want to try...soy sauce in chocolate cake? Tomato with olives and hot peppers in a paste? Cheese waffles? Just not sure many really caught my fancy. That said, I do think using caramelized onions with beets on toast with a smear of labne or cheese or bean paste and something green might be tasty and using mushrooms more in cooking is something I look forward to doing. Some of the recipes sound like something I might be willing to try while others sound rather bizarre. The chapters that intrigued me the most were the ones on mushrooms, caramelized onions and smoke. I just received my first gift of nutritional yeast and do look forward to trying it at some point in the future.

Thank you to NetGalley and Workman Publishing for the ARC – This is my honest review.

3-4 Stars

Such a fun cookbook! Vegetarian recipes that focus on adding umami flavor through eight umami-rich ingredients. The recipes are not overly complicated and the ingredients used are readily available. The photographs were beautiful! I can't wait to try some of these recipes!

Thank you, Workman Publishing Company and NetGalley!

Workman Publishing Company and NetGalley provided me with an electronic copy of Umami Bomb: 75 Vegetarian Recipes That Explode with Flavor. I was under no obligation to review this book and my opinion is freely given.

This cookbook is designed with the vegetarian in mind, although there is a bonus section with fish recipes. Umami is a taste sensation, a breakdown of protein which results in a heightened sense of taste. The book is uniquely sectioned into categories titled by the main ingredient, like Parm & Other Aged Cheeses, Soy Sauce, Tomatoes, Mushrooms, Caramelized Onions, Miso, Smoke, and Nutritional Yeast.

Umami Bomb is filled with interesting ideas, like Parm-Bone Broth, made from the rind of a parmesan cheese wedge. In the Parm & Other Aged Cheese section, I would most like to try Crispy Cheddar Cheese waffles, with its combination of sweet/savory, as well as crispy/tender. The Soy section has eye-catching recipes like Soba Salad with a soy-red wine reduction, tofu, and a plethora of vegetables. There are unexpected recipes like Soy Marinara, which gets its sodium from the soy sauce. I would most like to try Sheet Pan Chile-Soy Glazed Brussels Sprouts, roasted to perfection with a flavorful glaze. The chapter is the most varied, with offerings from the expected savory and delicious Fried Rice, to sweet dishes like Toasted Sesame Granola with Coconut, Orange, and Warm Spices. The recipes in the Tomatoes section range from the easy Roasted Tomato Salsa, to the quick Tomato-Cucumber Sandwich with Roasted Tomato Mayo, and finally to main dish entrees like Tomato Pasta Bake with Swiss Chard and Ricotta. Mushroom dishes include a richly flavored Mushroom Dashi, Mushroom Salad Tart, Grilled Pizza with Sausage-spiced Mushrooms, Peppers, and Onions. The Caramelized Onion section has a variety of recipes from appetizers (Caramelized Onions and Spinach Dip), to main dishes like Caramelized Shallot Raita with Curried Rice. Miso recipes include Grilled Asparagus with Miso Butter, Miso Broccoli with Orecchiette and Pan-seared Lemons. Smoke has dishes like Grilled Romaine with Caesar-ish Vinaigrette and Grilled Black Bean Veggie Burgers. The final Vegetarian section is Nutritional Yeast, which is an ingredient that may be unfamiliar to some readers. It is a complete protein and a good source of B vitamins, making it an ideal ingredient for healthy eating. With recipes such as Better Than Movie Popcorn and Kale Pesto Pasta, readers will enjoy the depth of flavor that this ingredient can give a finished dish.

The cookbook itself is brightly colored and eye-catching, but does not have enough pictures of the finished dishes. Umami Bomb is a bit short with only 75 recipes, but there were many dishes that I would make time and time again. Readers who are looking for a vegetarian cookbook with lots of flavor may like Umami Bomb.

Oh my god! amazing. The first chapter is on cheese. A whole section on lovely cheesy goodness. I want to eat everything in this book.

I never really thought that much about umami, I've heard of it but didn't think it was that important., until I read this book. Now I realise that it's what I like, i really, really like umami.

The recipes are uncomplicated and easy to follow. They don't use weird ingredients that you can only buy online and in my case they are all things that I would eat anyway.

Many thanks to the publisher for a downloadable review copy. I'm off to preorder the book in a hard copy version so I can flick through and drool over the pictures while I decide what to make.

I received a copy of this cookbook from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Umami Bomb is a bright, bold cookbook with recipes for the curious palate. This vegetarian cookbook includes recipes with foods that capture the specific smoky-fatty-creamy-meaty-salty-earthiness that is “umami.” The book keeps it real: aged cheese, soy sauce, tomatoes, mushrooms, caramelized onions, miso, smoke and nutritional yeast chapters have exactly what you came for. The beautiful food photography kept me flipping pages and the recipes with surprise ingredients kept me intrigued: Breakfast pasta with aged cheese? Yes, please! Chocolate frosting with a hint of soy sauce? Tell me more! I’d also be interested to try the caramelized onion grilled cheese with miso butter and roasted chile-soy glazed Brussels sprouts, but really every recipe caught my attention. I could have used a few more photographs of some of the more unusual recipes. I think this could be a book for meat-eaters considering vegetarianism, or who just want a meatless Monday idea. For vegetarians, it’ll be a book they’ll want to cook straight through.

A good vegetarian cook book with interesting ideas on how to make meat free meals more interesting and tasty. Recipes are not ground breaking but do seem easy enough to prepare.

A fun read focusing on the fifth taste of umami.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an advance copy of this title in exchange for an unbiased review.

It’s very unfortunate that books that are only available in PDF expire. Although I downloaded it, I can no longer access this title and can’t download again now although it hasn’t expired. May I respectfully request that you make your titles available for a Kindle download so they don’t expire? Thank you.

Confession time: I have not tried any of these recipes yet, but several of them look really interesting and I definitely will give some of them a try once my life quiets down a bit! The layout of this book is very appealing, the photography is very attractive and the organization of the recipes by major flavor characteristic seems to work well.

This cookbook was a really fun read! Umami is something that I have not done a lot of research on and so I was super excited to get some new ideas.

There are a lot of really colorful , really well taken pictures in this book, which is one of my favorite things about cookbooks. And I was able to get some cool ideas from this book. I loved the idea of adding Parmesan rinds to veggie broth, and will be implementing that in the near future. There was also an interesting idea to put a small amount of soy sauce in chocolate cake! I’m still not sure if I will try this idea, but its worth thinking about. I also loved her handy chart for imitating bacon flavor when you don’t want/don’t have bacon.

Though this book is intended for the vegetarian cook, it did have some fish recipes.

In general my attitude towards this cookbook was that it might have a little too much going on, but it was still a fun read. For example some of the desserts sounded too weird. And other people might enjoy it more than me. In the end I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads.

I loved the attention to bringing flavour to vegetarian dishes, whether you're always veggie or just visiting plant-land. I knew I liked parmesan, miso, soy, roast tomatoes, caramelised onions, mushrooms & nooch, but I hadn't linked them as all being in the umami family before.
The recipes are unfussy & portion sizes are for real people. I haven't taken the advice to add soy to chocolate sauce yet, (!) but I will have to try that soon. And if I like it I'll try the chocolate cake with soy in the frosting! That's the kind of book this is - you read some and think 'yup, that sounds so tasty' and others make you think wow, really? I will have to try that out for myself!
Some lovely recipes with an umami twist, one for anyone who needs some new veggie recipes or twists to prove to the nay-sayers that veggie cooking can't stand up against the umaminess of meat dishes.

Great book for anyone who wants to create great tasting vegetarian meals. Great pictures. Tried some of the recipes and they turned out great. Recommend this book.

I'm not vegetarian, but I'm all for trying to make veggies taste better (if only so I can sneak them into dishes with no one being the wiser). This book has plenty of easy to follow recipes and the photos are so yummy looking.

While Umami Bomb is a great concept using normal ingredients such as aged- cheese and smoke, The recipes are great as a substitute for a flavourful meal, but that's just about it. It is hard to justify buying a recipe book that teaches more about swapping umami foods when there're more out in the market that combines umami with other ideas.

Umami Bomb is a colourful collection of recipes that involve ingredients that are known for their flavourful umami properties. From more commonly-known ingredients like tomatoes, mushrooms, and caramelized onions, to more uncommon (to some) ingredients such as soy sauce, miso, and nutritional yeast, Umami Bomb presents how to use them in accessible recipes.

I want to thank Netgalley for letting me read this lovely and fun cookbook for free in exchange for my honest opinion--because, honestly, I really like it. (Isn't a relief when you actually like the ARC you're given?) I liked almost everything about Umami Bomb, starting with the layout and photography, which was bright and eye catching and fun. it made me not only hungry, but also excited to read the book and try the recipes. The recipes themselves sounded incredibly tasty--it turns out that the fifth taste, umami, is pretty much my favorite flavor in anything, so this was a wonderful cookbook concept for me. While many of the specific recipes weren't ideal for me (I am gluten free and try to limit dairy and egg consumption for various reasons, and it seemed like there were a lot of recipes in here that used one or more of the above, including an entire chapter on aged cheese.), many others were, and I feel like I learned so much about umami flavor, sources, and methods of cooking to maximize the flavor. I especially loved the author's method of giving each recipe an 'umami bomb' rating of how many different sources of umami were included. I appreciated the side bars as well, especially the one on seaweed, which I really wish had been expanded into a chapter of its own (I love sea vegetables!). I even appreciated the bonus chapter on fish, which I occasionally eat. My only concern is that many of the recipes sound complex. I'm hoping they are less intimidating to actually make than they were to read. I can't wait to try some of these recipes, though, and to put the principles I've learned and ideas it's given me into practice.
Since I read this on a program on my PC instead of on a portable device, it's not idea for using for actual cooking, so I haven't actually tried any of the recipes yet. For those purposes, I guess I'll have to wait til the book is released and buy a copy for my cookbook library. I look forward to trying many of them, including miso-glazed roasted vegetables, mushroom and hoisin eggplant stir fry, roasted tomato butter, smoked tofu breakfast tacos, honey-soy grilled salmon, and better-than-movie popcorn, among others.
#umamibomb was fun. Thanks #Netgalley !

The beautiful, full page food porn photography is incredible! I’m finding a lot of recipes that seem too sophisticated for my very basic kitchen, but the author provides enough encouragement that I truly want to try. The tacos alone are a revelation.

Rachel Pelzel’s love of food bursts from the bright pages of Umami Bomb.
She explains what umami is and why it is important in adding the satisfaction factor to non-meat dishes.
I still can’t say I fully understand it – why, for example, isn’t soy classified as a ‘salty’ taste? – it tastes salty to me. But, I tried some of Pelzels recipes and ideas and they did go down well.
With straightforward recipes and pictures that explode with colour, ‘Umami Bomb’ is a likeable and useful addition to the kitchen bookshelf.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC.

I'm not sure how to feel about this book. I was expecting it to be more suited to vegans since it's supposed to be vegetarian alternatives to the meaty umami foods like bacon. While I'm not vegan, I am always looking for vegan recipes for various reasons. It's got some vegan recipes but it's not really even vegetarian. There are lots of references to meat and it includes a fish section. The author says she eats mostly vegetarian for environmental reasons, but she has no apparent issues with using lots of animal products like cheese and butter, or with consuming fish and shellfish. Because of that, it's hard to tell who the intended audience is.

I love cooking with umami flavors and as someone who tries to cook vegetarian (for ethical and environmental reasons among others), I was really looking forward to learning some new tricks. I cook gluten free, though, which limited a lot of the recipes, and also try to cook fairly healthy, which limited more. And while I do cook with eggs (from folks we know with back yard chickens) and dairy products, I do try to use less.

Most of the recipes seemed rather complicated and not very healthy. As an example, the very first recipe is for breakfast pasta. It's made with cooked spaghetti, bread crumbs, two kinds of cheese, eggs, butter and spices. Refined flour, eggs and lots of dairy. I'm sure it tastes nice, but I really am more interested in recipes that taste great and are actually nourishing. There are plenty of dishes in the world that do both. Other recipes in the book were fairly healthy, but didn't sound particularly appealing (savory mushroom breakfast porridge is one example).

The chapters (umami flavors) are parmesan and other cheeses, soy sauce, tomatoes, caramelized onions, mushrooms, miso, smoke and nutritional yeast, with a bonus fish chapter. Color photos accompany about 1/3 of the recipes. No nutritional information is provided. Those who are gluten free, vegan, paleo or keto will need to substitute heavily and skip many of the dishes.

This would be a great cookbook for vegetarian folks who are not dieting and have a fair amount of time for cooking, and for folks who follow the Standard American Diet but are trying to eat less meat. Most of the recipes are pretty kid-friendly, though the intense flavors may put some kids off.

All in all it seems like an interesting, fun cookbook, just not a great fit for me personally.

My rating system:
1 = hated it
2 = it was okay
3 = liked it
4 = really liked it
5 = love it, plan to purchase or would buy it again if it was lost

I read a temporary digital ARC of the book for the purpose of review.