These Are the Gifts Foodies Will Love This Holiday Season

There’s no easier or cozier way to feed a group of friends and family on a cold winter night than with a hot pot. This set from West Coast Sichuan food legend Fly by Jing comes with everything you need to get the party started: a cheery variable temperature hot pot, chopsticks, spoons, and a savory soup base to get you simmering and communally cooking in style.

Never be subject to the whims of Starbucks and other Big Coffee again: This pumpkin pie-spiced latte syrup from California-based Sonoma Syrup Co. will let you spike your home brewed coffee as you wish all year long.

Not only is Vietnamese cuisine some of the most dynamic, refreshing, sprightly, and satisfying food on the planet, it’s also packed with healthy produce, fresh herbs, and lean proteins. Legendary cookbook author Andrea Nguyen is based in Santa Cruz where she created this plant-forward collection of recipes after a health scare. It’s one of the most inspiring, healing, and delicious collections of recipes we’ve ever cooked from. Jumpstart your 2025 right in the kitchen with this indispensable book!

Peek in most modern kitchens in the West and you’ll find one of these grills, even in French, Italian, mod Mexican, and ranch Californian restaurants. Chefs use them for that high-heat, Yakitori-style method to grill meats and vegetables precisely in minimal space. It’s easy to spark up a few coals and get the perfect char without going to the trouble of setting up a full-blown barbecue outside. Round out your grilling arsenal and grill all year long!

Sometimes you don’t want to bust out the full-bore, industrial sized blender (though you should have one of those) when all you want is a smoothie to go. Which is where the Beast mini blender comes in handy. It’s cute, compact, and the blending chamber doubles as a to-go smoothie container you can sip from with the included straw. 

There’s so much to love about Giada De Laurentiis’s Giadzy brand—so many great Italian finds, and not to mention their gluten-free pastas are so delicious and actually taste like the regular stuff. There are plenty of unique gifting options from Giadzy, but the Best of Italy box really has it all. The gift box is packed with so much: pasta, olive oil, Italian spices, an Amaretti cookie tin, and whole peeled tomatoes.

Whether you know it or not, your red wine could probably benefit from decanting. And no, simply uncorking a bottle and letting it sit there does in no way “let it breathe.” You’re going to need to pour the wine into a wider vessel to get some oxygen in the wine, open it up, and soften the tannins. This is technically designed for hearty reds but will do the trick with all wines and is much easier to wrangle than those super wide dramatic decanters that you see sommeliers wielding deftly. A great pick for the wine lover in your life. 

For folks without hoods over their stoves there’s hope. While it can’t compete with a powerful ducted system that not only sucks up steam, aerosolized grease, and smoke and vents it tidily outside, it can cut down on some of the smell and direct the smoke to a window.

From California Olive Ranch’s annual harvest, the 2024 Olio Nuovo showcases two varietals: 70% Arbequina and 30% Sikitita. It has flavor notes of “robust aromas of floral, slightly sweet earthy vegetables, and herbs with a robust finish reminiscent of cinnamon.” It’s recommended to use as a finishing oil in steaks, pastas, and soups.

Chef Ryan Pollnow is known for his handmade pastas, but there’s no dish more famous on his San Francisco menu than the Roman-style cacio e pepe. This bundle includes the pantry staples (and recipe card!) you need to make the dish, including Flour + Water Foods Organic Spaghetti, Jacobsen Disco Di Sale, a Tellicherry Peppercorn Grinder, and a recipe for Pollnow’s “blender cheat” cacio e pepe.

Started by four friends enjoying vermut—the Spanish version of apertivo revolving around tinned fish, chips, olives, and dry or sweet vermouth—Lata is an L.A.-based online shop selling all the trendiest tinned fish. The team handpicks a selection of four products and delivers them straight to your doorstep. You can pick from a single gift box, or opt for one of their six-month discovery sets for a real splurge.

It may be pricier than other graters but it is easier to use, faster, and better looking than any other cheese grater out there. The round bottom fits easily into whatever bowl you’re grating into, the wooden grip allows you to firmly hold it in place with your non-dominant hand, and the wide barrel grates twice as much cheese as competitors. An objet d’art and ergonomic upgrade? You’ll thank us!

Yes this is the one. For a reason. The one on all of the chefs at all of the good restaurants, on Top Chef, and yes on The Bear. It’s by Hedley and Bennett, made in Los Angeles, and donning one in the kitchen will make you feel like you’re tapping into culinary greatness. They come in about 1,000 colors and prints, so you’ll be sure to find one to fit your (or any giftee’s!) style. 

MìLà already makes the most delicious soup dumplings and now they have dessert dumplings! The brand has partnered with the father of the Cronut, Dominique Ansel, on a dessert dumpling filled with oat milk, chocolate, and black sesame.

If you’ve got a toaster, an air fryer, and an oven, you’ve got two too many appliances. The Breville combo roaster and air fryer kind of does everything, which is why so many home cooks, pro chefs, cookbook authors, and influencers swear by it: It toast, roasts, has convection, and air fries. Plus it’s much more aesthetically pleasing than most clunky air fryers. We know chefs who hardly ever use their ovens because of this appliance. 

Spicewalla makes some of the freshest, adorably packaged, well-blended spice mixes we’ve ever tried (they’ve been in our popular gift subscription box; we use them in our kitchens, we re-stock every year). Their barbecue seasoning set is the ideal flavor-booster pack for the griller in your life. They make a super cute stocking stuffer, too, thanks to the groovy graphics. 

The ice cream lover in your life will absolutely appreciate this gift. Starting at $195 for a three-month subscription, each monthly shipment will include four pints of four different flavors. McConnell’s will ship nationwide.

The tinned fish craze won’t let up and one of our favorite Western brands has lent their class-leading, Szechuan-spicy, zippy zingy, umami-deep chili crisp to smoked salmon from hipster fish cannery Fishwife. Perfect for a party platter, and yes stuffing the stocking of the foodie pescatarian in your life. 

If you’re like us, you like to tote a good bottle of vino along on your camping trips, road trips, beach outings, and to parties, and half the time we want to bring a perfectly chilled bottle of bubbly, rosé, or white wine. This freezable wine tote from the cooling experts at PackIt is super cushioned to protect your wine and comes with gel packs that will keep your wine just right and crisp to get the party started.

With wild vibrance and playful acidity, these cool-climate natural wines inspired by the California coast would be an excellent addition to any holiday table, especially the Foreshadow Pinot Gris, reminiscent of a zippy cranberry relish or savory umeboshi.

A Sunset editor favorite, Bachan’s makes some of the most delicious sauces ever, which you can put on anything from meat to veggies to even cheesecake! The Flavor Explorer Box features the brand’s most unique flavors: Yuzu, Sweet Honey, Hot & Spicy, and Miso.

This is a fun gift for a couple—it makes for a fun date night! The box contains linguine pasta, chocolate hazelnut candy, coffee, focaccia sticks, pesto, chocolate-covered cookies, extra virgin olive oil, bruschetta topping, and wildflower honey.

Located on Willapa Bay, Washington, Ekone is a fifth-generation family-run business that smokes and cans exquisite locally caught seafood. This smoked coho will make a sweet and briny addition to your morning bagel or a holiday tinned fish board. Plus, the cute packaging makes it a stylish stocking stuffer for the pescatarians in your life. 

Truff’s holiday box is a festive red and green combo of Jalapeño Lime Hot Sauce and a Habanero Hot Sauce. They have a difference in heat—the green has a mild kick, while the red is extra hot—so it will cater to different spice levels.

I’m a big fan of the “cheap is expensive” ethos. I’ve replaced too many lesser items before finally splurging on the top of the line, at which point I’ve freed myself from repeat buy-and-discard purchases. I now have a $100 flashlight that’s as bright as a lighthouse and tougher than an anvil and I’ve had it for 15 years. Among other “forever” splurges I own: The Yeti cooler. The Leatherman. The Vitamix Blender. Red Wing boots. And now there’s the Mann Kitchen Pepper Cannon, a sleek, easy to twist, matte black beast of a pepper grinder that in a single silky smooth rotation throws out more perfectly powdered (or roughly cracked, depending on the setting) pepper than 10 cranks will yield on a lesser grinder. It’s stellar at swiftly seasoning steaks and burgers and peppery omelettes and bracing cacio e pepe and beyond. I have retired my four other pepper grinders forever. 

Give them a cozy present, like this tea duo that features holiday flavors: Comfort & Joy (a holiday spice blend) and Peppermint Chocolate.

Spice up dishes with this super popular Calabrian chili oil. It has tasting notes of “garden fresh peppers, floral, and herbaceous, green olive fruitiness.”