Linger: Salads, Sweets and Stories to Savor: A Cookbook

ONE OF THE BEST COOKBOOKS OF 2025: The Washington Post, The Strategist, Bon Appétit, The Boston Globe, Slate, Serious Eats, and Saveur

“Hetty McKinnon doesn’t write great vegetarian recipes, she just writes great recipes.”

—Nigella Lawson

In her follow-up to the James Beard award-winning cookbook Tenderheart, Hetty Lui McKinnon returns with Linger, a cookbook for those looking to up their salad game. These colorful main-meal salads are inventive and hearty, packed with vegetables and globally-inspired flavors. Linger proves that salads are the most versatile dish, perfect for weeknight dinners, not-sad-desk-lunches, and as a show-stopping celebration meal.

From her salad-delivery days in Sydney to her current career in New York as both a food writer for The New York Times and a bestselling cookbook author, Hetty has long known the power of salads to connect and create community. In Linger, Hetty presents her salads, sweets and stories in twelve vibrant, loosely-seasonal menus -- each of which have their own playlist -- that are the perfect blueprint for gathering and entertaining.

Over 100 recipes, including:

• Caprese Salad with Grilled Pineapple
• Mapo Tofu salad
• Cauliflower Larb
• French Onion Salad
• Curry Potato-and-Pea Dumpling Salad
• Potato Salad Tartine
• Vegan Dan Dan salad
• Roasted Spiced Carrots and Crispy Tofu with Agrodolce
• Tomato and Kimchi Pasta Salad • Butternut with Lentils, Olives, and Pickle Sauce
• Plus sweets like Hong Kong Milk Tea Tres Leches and Matcha and Ginger Custard Tart!

HETTY LUI McKINNON is a Chinese Australian cook and
food writer. She is the author of five bestselling cookbooks, includ-
ing her genre-defining Community; Neighborhood; Family; To Asia,
With Love; and, most recently, Tenderheart, which won a James
Beard Award and an IACP Award in 2024. Hetty is a regular con-
tributor to New York Times Cooking and ABC Lifestyle and writes
the popular weekly newsletter To Vegetables, With Love. Born and
raised in Sydney, she now resides in Brooklyn, New York.