diff --git a/ci/requirements/doc.yml b/ci/requirements/doc.yml
index c041b5158e0..e3652fe6c35 100644
--- a/ci/requirements/doc.yml
+++ b/ci/requirements/doc.yml
@@ -8,6 +8,7 @@ dependencies:
   - bottleneck
   - cartopy
   - cfgrib
+  - kerchunk
   - dask-core>=2022.1
   - dask-expr
   - hypothesis>=6.75.8
diff --git a/doc/combined.json b/doc/combined.json
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..345462e055f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/doc/combined.json
@@ -0,0 +1,30 @@
+{
+    "version": 1,
+    "refs": {
+        ".zgroup": "{\"zarr_format\":2}",
+        "foo/.zarray": "{\"chunks\":[4,5],\"compressor\":null,\"dtype\":\"<f8\",\"fill_value\":\"NaN\",\"filters\":null,\"order\":\"C\",\"shape\":[4,5],\"zarr_format\":2}",
+        "foo/.zattrs": "{\"_ARRAY_DIMENSIONS\":[\"x\",\"y\"],\"coordinates\":\"z\"}",
+        "foo/0.0": [
+            "saved_on_disk.h5",
+            8192,
+            160
+        ],
+        "x/.zarray": "{\"chunks\":[4],\"compressor\":null,\"dtype\":\"<i8\",\"fill_value\":null,\"filters\":null,\"order\":\"C\",\"shape\":[4],\"zarr_format\":2}",
+        "x/.zattrs": "{\"_ARRAY_DIMENSIONS\":[\"x\"]}",
+        "x/0": [
+            "saved_on_disk.h5",
+            8352,
+            32
+        ],
+        "y/.zarray": "{\"chunks\":[5],\"compressor\":null,\"dtype\":\"<i8\",\"fill_value\":null,\"filters\":null,\"order\":\"C\",\"shape\":[5],\"zarr_format\":2}",
+        "y/.zattrs": "{\"_ARRAY_DIMENSIONS\":[\"y\"],\"calendar\":\"proleptic_gregorian\",\"units\":\"days since 2000-01-01 00:00:00\"}",
+        "y/0": [
+            "saved_on_disk.h5",
+            8384,
+            40
+        ],
+        "z/.zarray": "{\"chunks\":[4],\"compressor\":null,\"dtype\":\"|O\",\"fill_value\":null,\"filters\":[{\"allow_nan\":true,\"check_circular\":true,\"encoding\":\"utf-8\",\"ensure_ascii\":true,\"id\":\"json2\",\"indent\":null,\"separators\":[\",\",\":\"],\"skipkeys\":false,\"sort_keys\":true,\"strict\":true}],\"order\":\"C\",\"shape\":[4],\"zarr_format\":2}",
+        "z/0": "[\"a\",\"b\",\"c\",\"d\",\"|O\",[4]]",
+        "z/.zattrs": "{\"_ARRAY_DIMENSIONS\":[\"x\"]}"
+    }
+}
diff --git a/doc/ecosystem.rst b/doc/ecosystem.rst
index 63f60cd0090..62927103c7e 100644
--- a/doc/ecosystem.rst
+++ b/doc/ecosystem.rst
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@ Geosciences
 - `climpred <https://climpred.readthedocs.io>`_: Analysis of ensemble forecast models for climate prediction.
 - `geocube <https://corteva.github.io/geocube>`_: Tool to convert geopandas vector data into rasterized xarray data.
 - `GeoWombat <https://github.com/jgrss/geowombat>`_: Utilities for analysis of remotely sensed and gridded raster data at scale (easily tame Landsat, Sentinel, Quickbird, and PlanetScope).
+- `grib2io <https://github.com/NOAA-MDL/grib2io>`_: Utility to work with GRIB2 files including an xarray backend, DASK support for parallel reading in open_mfdataset, lazy loading of data, editing of GRIB2 attributes and GRIB2IO DataArray attrs, and spatial interpolation and reprojection of GRIB2 messages and GRIB2IO Datasets/DataArrays for both grid to grid and grid to stations.
 - `gsw-xarray <https://github.com/DocOtak/gsw-xarray>`_: a wrapper around `gsw <https://teos-10.github.io/GSW-Python>`_ that adds CF compliant attributes when possible, units, name.
 - `infinite-diff <https://github.com/spencerahill/infinite-diff>`_: xarray-based finite-differencing, focused on gridded climate/meteorology data
 - `marc_analysis <https://github.com/darothen/marc_analysis>`_: Analysis package for CESM/MARC experiments and output.
diff --git a/doc/getting-started-guide/installing.rst b/doc/getting-started-guide/installing.rst
index ca12ae62440..823c50f333b 100644
--- a/doc/getting-started-guide/installing.rst
+++ b/doc/getting-started-guide/installing.rst
@@ -8,8 +8,8 @@ Required dependencies
 
 - Python (3.9 or later)
 - `numpy <https://www.numpy.org/>`__ (1.23 or later)
-- `packaging <https://packaging.pypa.io/en/latest/#>`__ (22 or later)
-- `pandas <https://pandas.pydata.org/>`__ (1.5 or later)
+- `packaging <https://packaging.pypa.io/en/latest/#>`__ (23.1 or later)
+- `pandas <https://pandas.pydata.org/>`__ (2.0 or later)
 
 .. _optional-dependencies:
 
diff --git a/doc/user-guide/io.rst b/doc/user-guide/io.rst
index 07de0619c73..1eb979e52f6 100644
--- a/doc/user-guide/io.rst
+++ b/doc/user-guide/io.rst
@@ -1033,6 +1033,59 @@ reads. Because this fall-back option is so much slower, xarray issues a
        instead of falling back to try reading non-consolidated metadata.
 
 
+.. _io.kerchunk:
+
+Kerchunk
+--------
+
+`Kerchunk <https://fsspec.github.io/kerchunk/index.html>`_ is a Python library
+that allows you to access chunked and compressed data formats (such as NetCDF3, NetCDF4, HDF5, GRIB2, TIFF & FITS),
+many of which are primary data formats for many data archives, by viewing the
+whole archive as an ephemeral `Zarr`_ dataset which allows for parallel, chunk-specific access.
+
+Instead of creating a new copy of the dataset in the Zarr spec/format or
+downloading the files locally, Kerchunk reads through the data archive and extracts the
+byte range and compression information of each chunk and saves as a ``reference``.
+These references are then saved as ``json`` files or ``parquet`` (more efficient)
+for later use. You can view some of these stored in the `references`
+directory `here <https://github.com/pydata/xarray-data>`_.
+
+
+.. note::
+    These references follow this `specification <https://fsspec.github.io/kerchunk/spec.html>`_.
+    Packages like `kerchunk`_ and `virtualizarr <https://github.com/zarr-developers/VirtualiZarr>`_
+    help in creating and reading these references.
+
+
+Reading these data archives becomes really easy with ``kerchunk`` in combination
+with ``xarray``, especially when these archives are large in size. A single combined
+reference can refer to thousands of the original data files present in these archives.
+You can view the whole dataset with from this `combined reference` using the above packages.
+
+The following example shows opening a combined references generated from a ``.hdf`` file stored locally.
+
+.. ipython:: python
+
+    storage_options = {
+        "target_protocol": "file",
+    }
+
+    # add the `remote_protocol` key in `storage_options` if you're accessing a file remotely
+
+    ds1 = xr.open_dataset(
+        "./combined.json",
+        engine="kerchunk",
+        storage_options=storage_options,
+    )
+
+    ds1
+
+.. note::
+
+    You can refer to the `project pythia kerchunk cookbook <https://projectpythia.org/kerchunk-cookbook/README.html>`_
+    and the `pangeo guide on kerchunk <https://guide.cloudnativegeo.org/kerchunk/intro.html>`_ for more information.
+
+
 .. _io.iris:
 
 Iris
diff --git a/xarray/backends/plugins.py b/xarray/backends/plugins.py
index a62ca6c9862..f4890015040 100644
--- a/xarray/backends/plugins.py
+++ b/xarray/backends/plugins.py
@@ -204,6 +204,9 @@ def get_backend(engine: str | type[BackendEntrypoint]) -> BackendEntrypoint:
         if engine not in engines:
             raise ValueError(
                 f"unrecognized engine {engine} must be one of: {list(engines)}"
+                "To install additional dependencies, see:\n"
+                "https://docs.xarray.dev/en/stable/user-guide/io.html \n"
+                "https://docs.xarray.dev/en/stable/getting-started-guide/installing.html"
             )
         backend = engines[engine]
     elif isinstance(engine, type) and issubclass(engine, BackendEntrypoint):