Top 5 Best Cookbooks to Learn How to Cook

You probably know her for her funny online presence and modelling career - not to mention being married to John Legend - but did you know that Chrissy Teigen is also a masterful cook? Who better to learn from than the women you’d love to be BFFs with. Teigen’s book is called “Cravings” and that should give you an indication of what you’ll find inside. There’s not rabbit food here– though she maintains a supermodel body, Teigen clearly loves to eat and doesn’t hold back when it comes to consuming comfort food.

Ina Garten is basically #lifegoals with her idyllic house in the Hamptons, parade of delightful dinner guests and enviable relationship with her beloved husband Jeffrey. You may not conveniently have a well tended vegetable garden in your backyard, so it might be impossible to completely replicate her fab lifestyle, but you can at least copy some of her most popular recipes. “Barefoot Contessa at Home” was her fifth book, and was released in 2006. Garten’s books all look more like coffee table books than more technical cookbooks, offering large glossy photos of each recipe for your inspiration, and this must-have is no different.

#3: “The Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook” Meredith Corporation

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You probably recognize the iconic gingham printed cover of this classic cookbook from the shelves of your grandmother’s kitchen. This “new” cookbook has been around since the 1930s, though there have been numerous revisions to add more current recipes. With over 1400 recipes, “The Better Homes and Gardens New Cookbook” covers pretty much anything you could want to learn, and most importantly goes over the basics of cooking techniques. This book gained popularity because of the simplicity and ease of its recipes, and nearly a century later it is a great one for beginners.

New York Times food writer Mark Bittman created this seminal cookbook in 1998, and its title is no exaggeration. One of the ideas behind this book was to give home cooks the basics and teach them to expand upon them on their own. Bittman offers simple recipes and then gives suggestions on how they can be altered in dozens of ways. Since this book is meant to be all encompassing, it covers kitchen tools and techniques as well as the more standard cookbook fare. The 10th anniversary edition was released in 2008 with tons of new content, and now there’s even an app you can download that covers much of the same material as the books.

In 1936, a book was released that would change the face of middle class American cooking- and it wasn’t written by a chef or professional. Irma S. Rombauer was just a regular homemaker who was going through a rough time after her husband’s death. She paid to have the book published privately, but it went on to sell over 18 million copies. What made the book unique was Rombauer’s first person voice, which lent a narrative thread to it. There have been many changes made to the book in editions published over the years, so be sure to do your research when choosing a copy. Some swear by the original content, while some prefer the more modern versions. Do you agree with our list? What cookbook taught you to cook? For more educational top tens published every day, be sure to subscribe to MsMojo.