Where to Start with Becky Excell
Becky Excell is a food writer, recipe developer, and the creator of the award-winning blog Gluten Free Cuppa Tea, one of the most popular gluten-free food blogs in the UK. While studying law at the University of Manchester, she was diagnosed with IBS and told to remove gluten from her diet. Rather than accept a life of bland substitutes, she began recreating the dishes she missed and sharing the results online. Her blog, launched in 2013, has attracted more than 30 million views. Nigella Lawson dubbed her the “queen of gluten free.” She won Observer Food Monthly’s Food Personality of the Year Award in 2022 and BBC Food and Farming’s Digital Creator of the Year in 2023. Her cookbooks, all published by Quadrille, are consistently Sunday Times bestsellers. Her major works include How to Make Anything Gluten Free (2021), How to Bake Anything Gluten Free (2021), Quick and Easy Gluten Free (2022), and Budget Gluten Free (2024). She is a dedicated Coeliac UK ambassador.
Start here
How to Make Anything Gluten Free
Becky Excell · 224 pages · 2021 · Easy
Themes: gluten-free cooking, everyday meals, fakeaways, weeknight dinners
The cookbook that proves gluten-free cooking does not mean settling for bland substitutes or a limited rotation of safe meals. Becky Excell spent years perfecting recipes that taste exactly like the originals, and this Sunday Times bestseller collects more than 100 of her best savory and sweet creations.
Why Start Here
This is Excell’s first cookbook, and it represents the broadest showcase of her cooking philosophy: take the meals people actually crave, from chicken chow mein and pad thai to pizza and fish and chips, and make them gluten-free using supermarket ingredients. The book covers brunch, quick lunches, comfort food, “fakeaways” (homemade versions of takeout favorites), and weeknight dinners. Each recipe is labeled with practical tags like 30-minute, one-pot, dairy-free, and vegetarian.
What makes this the right starting point in Excell’s catalog is scope. Her later books specialize (baking, meal planning, budget cooking), but this one covers the full range of everyday cooking. If you only buy one Becky Excell book, this is the one that will change how you eat day to day.
What to Expect
A beautifully photographed 224-page cookbook with over 100 recipes. The focus is on practical, no-fuss cooking using widely available ingredients. Excell includes dairy-free, vegetarian, and low FODMAP labels throughout, making it useful for people managing multiple dietary needs.