Reddit mentions of The Vegetarian Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity with Vegetables, Fruits, Grains, Legumes, Nuts, Seeds, and More, Based on the Wisdom of Leading American Chefs

Something that's really helped me level up my cooking is the vegetarian flavor bible (the omnivore version is just called the flavor bible). It's basically a reference book for complementary ingredients/spices and it's definitely helped me get more comfortable with putting new things together. (mobile link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/031624418X/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/180-0379455-6377468)

I use The Flavor Bible by Dornenberg and Page.

They also have a vegetarian version, but I haven't looked through it.

Have you tried cashew milk? For me that's the most realistic tasting one, especially the chocolate one. I'm not a fan of cheese alternatives either. So I've been making a lot of ethnic food that doesn't require cheese - like Indian, Chinese, Thai w/ coconut milk, Mexican (with guac + chipotle mayo), and Italian with pesto. I find that the biggest thing with vegan cooking is exploring different tastes with spices. It makes you a better cook. Before, when I was omni, I would add cheese to everything because it's the easy way to create taste. But, there are so many other ways to make your dishes feel tasty, rich, and creamy. I just bought the book "The Vegetarian Flavor Bible" and it has so many great tips for making your dishes flavorful without cheese and they have a vegan tip for the cheese ones.

They make a vegetarian one. It's called, surprisingly, the Vegetarian Flavor Bible

:EDIT::

I see you already know this. It's the same authors and it just contains more focus on veggies, nuts, legumes, etc. If you're mainly cooking veggie stuff then I'd go with that.

Seconding /u/ManicBrklyDreamGrl on Food52 and Alton Brown's awesomeness. (Good Eats is fantastic. It covers mostly basic stuff and gets super nerdy.) And Ina Garten almost never fails me.

If you're interested in cookbooks as well, My Paris Kitchen is one of my favorites, as is pretty much anything by Yotam Ottolenghi. And if you're building recipes yourself or you like to experiment, I highly recommend both The Flavor Bible and The Vegetarian Flavor Bible.

If you like to just wing it, I highly recommend The Vegetarian Flavor Bible. I use it all the time when I want to be creative in the kitchen. They recommend flavors which work well together, broad ways to prepare a dish, a few recommendations from the chefs they worked with to put the flavors together and more.

I hate that there isn't a vegan flavor bible, but the vegetarian is already loads better than the original Flavor Bible (I gave that copy to my omni sister). There's still a lot of eggs, cheeses and dairy products, but at least all the meat is out.

But I also highly recommend you look into a few cusine-specific books. Most cusines have vegan books, or at least vegan bloggers who share a lot of recipes in their own flavor worlds. Try looking up: Greek (thegreekvegan), Indian (Harshdeep on YouTube), Persian / Iranian, Ethiopian, Thai, Mexican, etc.

These are some of my favorite cusines to dive into. Once you understand the spices, how the flavors are built up, and then how they prepar various plants, you can leave the recipes behind and make your own foods. I never look up Thai, Mexican or Indian recipes anymore since I am so confident in how the flavors and textures work together. If you want cookbook recommendations for these cusines let me know.

Hello! SO I personally am a vegetarian, but my significant other is a vegan and I eat and cook only vegan at the house, alongside that I work at a 4.8 star restaurant in my town and am inches away from getting soux after climbing up the ranks. The official fine dining training helped me exponentially in refining and learning basic and advanced culinary skills that I can implement at home with a plant based diet. As far as references I would consult a large number of gourmet vegan cookbooks and learn the skills at home yourself, after purchasing books like 'Artisinal vegan cheese'
https://www.amazon.com/Artisan-Vegan-Cheese-Miyoko-Schinner/dp/1570672830

and my all time favorite cook book, the vegetarian flavor bible
https://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Flavor-Bible-Creativity-Vegetables/dp/031624418X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505111621&sr=1-1&keywords=vegetarian+flavor+bible

and learn enough skills in cooking things like seitans and fake cheeses, you can start looking at more contemporary cookbooks about vegetarian cuisine and just sub out the non vegan items with a vegan substitute
I absolutely agree that seeking out a vegan chef and working in their kitchen is the best way to learn good cooking, but in the town I live in, the only vegan restaurant is ran by an asshole so I had to aloft to a omnivorous restaurant, and yes I do have to taste dishes made with meat, but I aspire to veg/vegan place further down the line that could trick any omnivore!

https://www.amazon.com/Gluten-Free-Vegetarian-Soy-Free-Meatless-ebook/dp/B00JDVII60. https://cookieandkate.com/soy-free-vegetarian-recipes/

https://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Flavor-Bible-Creativity-Vegetables/dp/031624418X.