What Cook's Illustrated Cookbook should you give?
A reader emailed me the other day asking for a Cook's Illustrated cookbook gifting recommendation, and while I have a lot of reviews sprinkled around my blog, they're not really in one handy spot! So, I thought I'd do a little roundup.
In case you didn't already know this, I am an enormous fan of Cook's Illustrated and I use their recipes alllll the time. They're unfailingly reliable, and I think they make it so much easier to make good food at home (which is key if you're trying to save money by cooking more and eating out less). If you're not a naturally gifted chef (I'm totally not!), good recipes are so worth the investment.
1. The Cook's Illustrated Cookbook
My most-used CI cook book is The Cook's Illustrated Cookbook: 2,000 Recipes from 20 Years of America's Most Trusted Cooking Magazine.
It's huge, comprehensive, and very helpful. I use it multiple times pretty much every week, and it's actually where I found the butternut squash soup recipe I shared recently. I couldn't even begin to count the number of recipes I use from this book.
One bummer: no photographs. It's got plenty of line drawings to illustrate things, but there are no photos.
2. The Science of Good Cooking
For the cooking nerd on your list, I recommend The Science of Good Cooking.
This is a bit more like a textbook than a cookbook...it outlines some foundational cooking concepts (like browning things to pump up the flavor), explains the science behind them, and then gives you several recipes to illustrate each concept.
I am not a scientific kind of person at. all. (!) But I think kitchen science is really fascinating, and I loved this book.
3. The ATK Quick Cooking Cookbook
If you'd like to buy a cookbook with more pictures and faster recipes, the America's Test Kitchen Quick Family Cookbook: A Faster, Smarter Way to Cook Everything from America's Most Trusted Test Kitchen
might be more up your alley.
This is a three-ring binder type of book, contains lots of full color pictures, and all the meals in it can be made in less than 45 minutes.
4. America's Test Kitchen DIY cookbook.
For the homemade enthusiast on your list, the The America's Test Kitchen DIY Cookbook
would be great. This has all sorts of make-it-at-home recipes, ranging from easy to complex (vanilla extract, bacon, root beer, marshmallows, plus many more).
The no-stir granola I love is from this book, by the way.
5. Baking Illustrated
Baking Illustrated
is one of the first Cook's books I ever owned..Mr. FG gave it to me for a birthday gift years ago. The recipes in it are reliable and easy to follow, and there are several sections of great color photography. The German Chocolate cake in here is so good, as are the pizza recipes and the whole wheat bread. Really, everything I've tried has been excellent, and any baker on your gift list would love this.
I personally subscribe to the Cook's Illustrated website every year, and I'd recommend that as a gift, but at the moment, they don't seem to have any way to gift a subscription (although it's quite easy to gift a print magazine subscription).
I've included Amazon links to these books because if you buy one of these books straight through the Cook's Illustrated website, sometimes you end up being signed up for a cookbook of the month type of club, and gosh, I hate that (you know it pains me to criticize CI/ATK, but you gotta call a spade a spade.)
So, buy your books from a third party to save yourself the headache.
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disclosure: Cook's/ATK has not sponsored this post and I pay for my yearly membership with my own moola (some of the cookbooks mentioned were review copies and some were purchased). All enthusiasm for the Cook's/ATK enterprise is 100% natural. Purchases made through Amazon links support this site at no extra cost to you.
Pssst! There's an organic skincare giveaway going on right now and it ends tonight.
My biggest issue with Cooks is that so many recipes are repeated only to have them come up with a new "Ultimate" recipe a few years later.
That said, I would definitely recommend The Cook's Illustrated Cookbook (the red cookbook as I call it) and The Cook's Country Cookbook. For the latter I have the plain cover one which appears to be out of print. I have no idea if it's the same one as the new one seems to be more about the TV show.
Anyway, outside of Cooks cookbooks, if you do any sort of baking the The "King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion: The All-Purpose Baking Cookbook" is my top baking Cookbook and I'd even place it above the Cooks cookbooks.
Right now I've been reading some cookbooks from The Frugal Gourmet. I doubt I'll make any of these recipes but his books are certainly interesting to read.
I hear great things about the King Arthur baking books. I should check some out from my library to see if I like 'em.
PROTIP: They have a LOT of good recipes online for free already. Their bagel recipe is fantastic. Of course, it works better when you have Sir Lancelot flour (which I had to buy in a 50 lb sack the last time I was at their HQ in Norwich.)
I have the Cook's Illustrated Cookbook & the King Arthur Baker's Cookbook & love them both! Hubby & I had an at-home date night last night and made a quick chicken dish from CI. I routinely use the KA book for pizza, bread, biscuits, muffins, etc.
I like the King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Cookbook, myself. They developed all the recipes from the beginning rather than trying to shoehorn whole grain flours into recipes designed for white flours.
CI's older cookbook, The Best Recipe, has pretty much replaced Joy of Cooking and Julia's The Way To Cook as my go-to general cookbook.
I have CI's The New Best Recipe cookbook, and I love it. Most of the recipes that Kristen has posted are in there and it's fun to read about their process of testing and finding the best recipe for _________.
do you use only their brand of flour? I'm wanting to learn to bake this coming year and am definitely a beginner esp with breads and I read some negative reviews on amazon that said subbing another brand of flour had disastrous results. I can find some of their flours where I live but nowhere near all of them plus they're really expensive sometimes.
Personally I do but that's because I live in New England and can drive up to their HQ and buy in bulk. It really is better flour because its protein levels. If you stick with unbleached AP, you should be fine in most recipes. In breads you might want to use a bread flour, though.
I've never owned a CI cook book but my biggest question always is: do the recipes call for ingredients I would "normally" have on hand or do I need to go to some exotic grocer downtown to be able to make the dish??? If I have to spend my time (and money!) doing that or figuring out a viable substitute, then I'm not gonna bother! I am pretty basic cook--nothing fancy or "weird"-just your normal family fare. Your thoughts??
Yes, and also no. Some recipes call for weird items but others claim that basic items are impossible to find and sub out basic stuff. The DIY cookbook has a lot of specialty items if I remember correctly but that's more the nature of the beast (sometimes you just need specialty items.)
My biggest issue is, as a guy allergic to most of the allium family, they have onions in practically every cooked dish in their books.
I'd recommend getting it from your local library and checking it out before purchasing to see if it's up your alley.
I just bought "The New Best Recipe" book from CI as a gift from my sister-in-law.
I hope it's good. I haven't seen it - I only have the big Cook's Illustrated Cook Book (the first one on your list)
I strongly recommend both Cook's and King Arthur as key sources of tried-and-true recipes. Yep, some of them are complicated. The KA recipes tend to product-place a lot, but I always leave out the "extras" like espresso powder and dough enhancers, with a great product resulting anyway. Unlike Kristen, I guess you could call me a "natural" in the kitchen - but it comes from a combination of growing up with an Italian mother* and watching/reading Cook's and King Arthur, paying close attention to their explanations of the science of cooking.
*NB: Italian households, renowned for their food-pushing, seem to have a rule, "Follow the recipe the first time, maybe, and never again afterward." There was a lot of riffing.
Thank you for the reviews, Kristin! I have #1 & love it & was thinking of getting either that or one of the others as a gift for a family foodie. #2 & #5 are on my personal Christmas list! Also, maybe the website subscription... 🙂
I have the DIY book out of the library right now! So fun to look and read through!
As someone who is a science nerd, I'm intrigued by the Science of Good Cooking. I must see if my library has it 🙂
I was very excited when I heard it was coming out, but I ended up not buying it - there was very little new in it. I judge that if one is new to the science of cooking, this book is a great place to start; but if one has been following the field for a while, this book is likely familiar territory.
My recommendation is that if this book is familiar territory, get Harold McGee's On Food And Cooking. (If you have McGee already, then The Science of Good Cooking is almost certainly familiar territory.)
Me = not terribly well-versed in cooking science. Baking science...that I know more about. So for me, the Cook's book was interesting. I suppose maybe I'm ready for McGee now!
Would the CI baking cookbook or the King Arther's baking book be ok for a 13 yr old who is learning to bake and seems to have a real interest in it? I'm a better cook than baker, but I'm getting renewed interest in baking and have even been baking bread for our little family for about the past 3 months. Don't even want to go back to store bought!
Such a useful post! Thank you!
Has anyone tried the healthy cookbook they have? think it's a notebook type green colored one. I'm also not a fan of 'exotic' ingredients whch is why Igot so fed up with the weight watchers cookbooks - not buying an expensive spice to use in one recipe that I don't know if will be good or not...
I have! I didn't include it in the roundup because I don't use it all that often, but I'd say it's good as far as healthy cookbooks go. My beef with it (and a lot of other healthy cookbooks) is that there was a fair amount of focus on cutting fat, which isn't really a big goal of mine. I'm more concerned with what kind of fat we're eating and also with how unprocessed food is.
thanks! I need to watch everything I think but then I've been overdoing everything. I don't want to waste my time on bland food - I like the concept of 'healthy' but am more into trying to eat less processed stuff - not so much the canned beans but the canned cream soups and so many quick recipes call for that stuff.
Use pureed steamed cauliflower and a dash of coconut milk to replace canned cream soups, with a slurry of corn starch to thicken things up if necessary. I made a KILLER alfredo sauce that way!
thanks!
CI are my go-to gift for newly graduated or newly wed, and they are almost the only cookbooks I ever use.
There is just something exciting and satisfying about following a recipe and knowing it will be successful and yummy!
I stumbled upon them when we had been invited to become innkeepers with my folks. I thought it would be wise to expand my expertise beyond chocolate chip cookies. 🙂
Our favorite is their make-ahead book.
I have several CI cookbooks, as well as the online subscription - they are my go-to cookbooks. I go most frequently to the "best 30 minute" CI cookbook- our fave meat loaf recipe came from there, as well as a yummy skillet tamale pie recipe. I did somehow end up in their "cookbook of the month" thing at one point, but it was easily resolved- I won't make that mistake again.
Didn't know about the DIY cookbook - will have to add that to my wish list! 🙂
I have the Cook's Illustrated Perfect Vegetables cookbook and LOVE it!!! We love veggies and this book shows the best way to cook each one. You really should get this one next 🙂
Also, I REALLY appreciate all these reviews being in one place. Thanks!
i thought Cook's Illustrated had a celiac cookbook/gluten free ????
They do now, but when I wrote this post, the gluten-free cookbook wasn't out yet.
Have you tried their slow cooker cookbooks yet? Would love your take on them.
I haven't...I have kind of a cheap, small slow-cooker, so I haven't ventured into that world too much.
Check and see if your library has a copy. Then you could try it out for free before buying!
Hello, it’s 2025, and your site is SO helpful, I ended up purchasing around 7 different Cook’s illustrated after my laptop died and I lost all online recipes 🙂
I have always enjoy the science behind things and these books are so fascinating. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. God bless!