If you understand which foods GAPS includes but still wonder how to prepare them, Monica Corrado’s The Complete Cooking Techniques for the GAPS Diet is the companion I recommend. Its strongest contribution is teaching kitchen skills you can use repeatedly: preparing meat stock, working with cultured dairy, understanding vegetable fermentation, and preparing nuts, seeds, and coconut for cooking.
The book brings the four parts of Corrado’s original cooking series together, with additional guidance in the second edition. She explains the purpose of a preparation before moving into ingredients, equipment, and instructions. That connection matters. You can follow a recipe more confidently when you understand what the ingredients and steps are meant to do.[1]
Find the second edition of The Complete Cooking Techniques for the GAPS Diet.
Why I Include It With My GAPS Books
Corrado’s book is one of the resources in the GAPS coaching kit I use. My family started GAPS in July 2024, and preparing food at home is a substantial part of that experience. A useful cooking reference needs to help with the work behind a meal, including the ingredients that another recipe simply assumes you already have.
Dr. Natasha also recommends this book on her official recipes page, specifically when explaining how to prepare nuts, seeds, and legumes. That recommendation fits what the text does well: it gives the practical preparation its own explanation.[3]
Think about a recipe that calls for homemade yogurt, whey, or prepared nut flour. Each ingredient has a method behind it. A book that explains those foundations helps you understand the preparation before you reach the final dish. That is where I find this volume’s value: it connects the separate kitchen jobs instead of leaving you with a list of unfamiliar ingredients.
I keep its purpose distinct from Dr. Natasha Campbell-McBride’s program books. My reviews of Gut and Psychology Syndrome and Gut and Physiology Syndrome explain what each contributes to understanding GAPS. Corrado gives the kitchen work sustained attention. The books serve related, useful purposes.
What You Learn From the Techniques
The four substantial cooking sections make the book useful as a reference. Each takes a familiar-sounding food and opens up the choices behind making it. These are examples of the questions the text helps you work through.[1]
| Kitchen Question | What the Book Explains |
|---|---|
| What am I preparing when I make meat stock? | The choice of meaty bones, equipment, cooking methods, and using the cooked meat, vegetables, and liquid as food. |
| How do yogurt, cultured cream, whey, and soft cheese connect? | Different dairy preparations, starter choices, and the products you obtain when you strain cultured dairy. |
| Why do fermentation instructions vary? | The role of the ingredients, starter, room conditions, vessel, and batch size in a chosen preparation. |
| What needs to happen before I grind nuts or make coconut flour? | The difference between preparing an ingredient and choosing its finished form, with separate explanations of soaking, sprouting, fermenting, and grinding. |
This is the kind of teaching that makes a reference worth returning to. The explanation gives you a reason for a step, and the method shows you where that step belongs. You still follow the complete preparation you have chosen, including its food and stage guidance.
A Pot of Stock Can Be a Meal
The meat-stock section has a particularly useful household perspective. Corrado discusses the cooked meat and vegetables along with the liquid, then gives ideas for using what remains. It helps you think about the whole preparation rather than looking only at the amount you can pour into a cup.[1]
Her chart brings several choices together: the animal and cut, the cooking vessel, the preparation, and the cooking method. The surrounding explanation distinguishes meaty pieces from bones with little meat. That makes the chart easier to use than an isolated instruction to buy “soup bones,” especially if you are trying to work out what to ask a farmer or butcher for.
The discussion of leftovers adds practical value. It shows how the cooked components can become another meal, with the preparation and additions matched to the relevant GAPS phase. For someone cooking regularly, understanding what a batch provides is as useful as learning to make the first pot.
For the current WFLI explanation of the two preparations and their place in GAPS, read my meat stock and bone broth guide. Keep the GAPS introduction guidance with the method you use; finishing Intro alone is not a reason to begin bone broth.[3]
Cultured Dairy With the Connections Explained
The dairy section is valuable because it gives related foods their own attention. Yogurt, kefir, cultured cream, and whey have different preparations. Corrado explains starters, gives methods for several dairy products, and includes questions that arise when the result looks different from a supermarket product.[1]
For example, the yogurt instructions distinguish several starter options and discuss a softer homemade texture. The whey section follows the separation of cultured dairy into liquid whey and the thicker cheese left in the cloth. Once you understand that connection, “make whey” becomes a more understandable kitchen task, with two useful results from the preparation.
I appreciate that these ideas sit together. A beginner can learn what a starter does, find the preparation they need, and see how the finished food may be used elsewhere. The reader still needs to keep the instructions for that particular culture and preparation together. Warm-incubated yogurt and a room-temperature culture are different methods.
My 24-hour GAPS yogurt recipe explains the Luvele method I use. My whey-from-yogurt guide follows the separate straining task. Those pages give you complete WFLI methods to use alongside the book’s explanation.
Understanding Fermentation Choices
Corrado’s fermentation section goes beyond presenting a single jar of sauerkraut. It discusses several approaches, including preparations with salt, brine, and different starters, then compares the practical use of jars, bowls, and crocks. Temperature, storage, and the food being fermented receive attention too.[1]
That broader view helps explain why two fermentation recipes can have different instructions. The size of a vessel, the ingredients, and the selected method all belong in the decision. Learning to notice those details is more useful than assuming every jar should follow one timetable.
The vessel discussion is also helpful when planning your kitchen. A small jar and a large crock involve different amounts of food, handling, space, and storage. The book gives those choices context before moving on to its recipes. It encourages understanding the process as well as assembling the ingredients.
For fermentation recipes I share on WFLI, Sandor Ellix Katz’s The Art of Fermentation guides the technique, alongside Dr. Natasha’s GAPS food and introduction guidance. Corrado’s book remains a useful companion for seeing how fermentation connects with the wider GAPS kitchen.
Nuts, Seeds, and Coconut Need Preparation Context
The nuts and seeds section makes an important distinction between preparation and finished form. Soaking, sprouting, or fermenting is one decision. Grinding the prepared ingredient into butter or flour is another. Corrado explains those choices rather than treating a whole nut, a jar of nut butter, and a bag of flour as identical ingredients.[1]
That is useful reading before you begin adapting baked goods. A recipe depends on the ingredient’s form and how it was prepared. Understanding those details gives you a better starting point than replacing one flour with another and hoping the quantities will work.
The coconut chapter makes this especially clear. It includes two shredded-coconut milk preparations and explains using coconut pulp for flour. It also states that homemade coconut flour behaves differently from commercial coconut flour. This is a practical reason to keep the flour-making method with the recipe it supports instead of assuming a cup-for-cup substitution.[1]
There is useful continuity here. The book shows how one preparation can provide an ingredient for another, while retaining the differences between methods. That helps you plan the work and understand why a recipe specifies a particular homemade ingredient.
How to Use It as a Kitchen Reference
I would begin with the food you are actually preparing. Read that section’s explanation before opening the recipe, then check its ingredient and equipment notes. This gives the instructions context and helps you notice any preparation needed before the main task begins.
On a first yogurt batch, for example, read about the starter and the chosen incubation method before measuring. For prepared nut flour, look at what happens before grinding. You can build one useful skill at a time and return for the next preparation when you need it.
The second edition supports this kind of reference use with an ingredient and equipment section at the beginning and an index at the end. The publisher describes its print version as a wire-bound hardcover that lies flat, a sensible format for instructions you want open on a counter.[2] My GAPS kitchen equipment guide gives you the wider context for tools and the jobs they do.
My Verdict
I recommend The Complete Cooking Techniques for the GAPS Diet when you want a deeper understanding of the kitchen preparations that recur throughout GAPS. Its value is in the connections: ingredients, equipment, explanations, techniques, variations, and questions are brought together around the food you are learning to make.
It is particularly useful if another recipe keeps sending you away to learn how to make yogurt, prepare nuts, or understand a ferment. Those foundations deserve a proper explanation, and this book gives them room. If your immediate need is a complete week of meal plans, choose a resource built around that task; this book’s main contribution is teaching the preparations behind the meals.
If you are beginning with the overall program, my GAPS books and coaching-kit guide will help you understand how these resources fit together. If the practical cooking work is what you want to learn next, see Corrado’s second-edition technique book and start with the preparation you need for your next meal.
You can also browse the related titles I share in my GAPS book collection on Amazon.
References
- Corrado, M. The Complete Cooking Techniques for the GAPS Diet: Gut and Psychology Syndrome. Second edition. Selene River Press, 2022. Introduction; Before You Begin; Meat Stock and Bone Broth, especially “More on Meat Stock”; Culturing Dairy; Lacto-Fermentation; Seeds, including the coconut chapter. Book information.
- Selene River Press. The Complete Cooking Techniques for the GAPS Diet, Second Edition. Publisher’s edition and print-format description, checked October 20, 2026.
- Campbell-McBride, N. GAPS Recipes. “Stock on the GAPS Diet” and “Seeds on the GAPS Diet,” including her recommendation of Corrado’s book.
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