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The Texas Mexican Plant-Based Cookbook will be published August 21, 2025.
Plant-based cuisine is becoming more and more important for restaurant menus, and a new cookbook will make it easier for Mexican/Latin restaurants to add such dishes. The Texas Mexican Plant-Based Cookbook by chef and author Adán Medrano offers over 90 kitchen-tested recipes that reconnect cooks with the ancient, plant-based culinary traditions of Indigenous Mexican American families in Texas and northeastern Mexico. Drawing on the deep cultural knowledge of communities such as the Coahuiltecan, Comecrudo, and Karankawa peoples, The Texas Mexican Plant-Based Cookbook is both a culinary resource and a cultural revival.
Texas Tech University Press will publish the cookbook on August 21, 2025, and it is now available for pre-order. (Click here to read a three-part el Restaurante interview with Medrano.)
"Over 90 delicious recipes demonstrate that food is all about stories, history, and heritage," says Medrano. "In each dish, there is an opportunity to reclaim our identity and celebrate our ancestors."
The cookbook introduces vibrant dishes such as:
- Roasted nopalitos in chile guajillo;
- Mesquite agua fresca; and
- Serrano chile spinach enchiladas.
With over 90 nutrient-rich, low-fat, and low-calorie recipes, the cookbook speaks to both health and heritage. By focusing on whole, plant-based ingredients like squash, cactus, mesquite, sunflower, and pecans, the book provides tools for combating the modern health crises of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and cardiovascular disease—conditions that disproportionately affect Mexican American communities.
Medrano, a descendant of the Coahuiltecan people, brings decades of culinary research and storytelling to each page. Drawing from archaeological records dating back over 15,000 years, he maps out the Indigenous roots of Texas Mexican cuisine and shows how these time-honored foodways were altered by colonization and systemic disenfranchisement. Now, in a time of increasing awareness around food justice and sustainability, Medrano invites readers to learn more about, and strengthen, the traditional Indigenous Texas Mexican home cooking known as comida casera.
Each recipe is accompanied by a rich headnote that shares its origin, cultural significance, and role in community life. The book also educates readers about iconic ingredients and their agricultural history, from pre-Columbian staples like acorns and black walnuts to post-Conquest additions such as rice and watermelon.
This book is the first in the new book series by, "Indigenous Foodways of Texas and Northern Mexico."
About the Author: Adán Medrano is a chef, food writer, and filmmaker whose work focuses on the culinary traditions of Texas Mexican American communities and the indigenous foods of the Americas. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Medrano is the author of two previous books and producer of the award-winning documentary Truly Texas Mexican.
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