Stovetop or Electric? The Best Pressure Cooker Cookbook for Yours

In a Mexican kitchen, a pot of beans is a daily job and it can’t be rushed, unless you have a pressure cooker. A pressure cooker takes the long-simmered foods of a home kitchen, like beans, stews and tough cuts, and makes them possible on a weeknight. But a pressure cooker is only as useful as the recipes that tell you how long to cook things.

Most books on the shelf are now written for one electric brand, which leaves stovetop owners short of help. This guide looks for books that work across machines first, then adds a few that are excellent for electric owners. It sets out what each publisher and named reviewer says, and it says which picks rest on thinner evidence.

Julia’s earns a commission on purchases made through links on this page, at no cost to you. Recommendations are based on what a restaurant kitchen looks for in a cookbook, publisher information and published reviews, which we cite.

Quick verdict: the best pressure cooker cookbook to buy

The other five cover short starter books, cooking for two, time charts for electric owners, Indian cooking and vegan cooking. If you own an Instant Pot and want only books for that machine, our Instant Pot cookbook guide is the better page; none of its books repeat here.

Five pressure cooker books side by side

Five of the eight, one for each kind of cook, with what the publisher or listing gives. All eight are described in full below.

Cover images from Amazon. Page counts and formats are for the print editions linked; other editions differ.

Our picks for the best pressure cooker cookbook, book by book

Only one of the eight has a named review on the edition we link: Publishers Weekly reviewed Kathy Hester’s book. PW’s pages for the other seven showed no review when we checked them by ISBN. Those picks rest on the publisher’s and author’s details, and the Schieving pick rests on the Amazon listing alone. We have not cooked from these books; where we describe a strength, we say whose view it is.

How to choose a pressure cooker cookbook

The first question is the machine you own. The rest follow from how you actually cook.

Stovetop or electric

Check this before anything else. Only the first two picks are written for both kinds of machine (Clark’s publisher says any pressure cooker, and Phipps’s title names stovetop and electric), and the Wiley description says it covers choosing a cooker, including electric models. The rest are electric books. If a recipe is written for one kind of cooker and you own another, use your cooker’s manual for pressure settings and the book for the ingredients and method.

Brand-neutral or brand-named

A book with Instant Pot in the title is usually still a book about electric pressure cooking, but its program names and timing are written for that brand. Settings differ by maker. Some subtitles here say “electric pressure cooker” even with the brand on the cover, and those travel better.

What the recipe tells you

Good pressure cooker recipes give the time at pressure, the pressure level and how to release it. Penguin’s description of the Acevedo book lists exactly those details, and it is a useful checklist for any other book. Release method matters as much as the time, because food keeps cooking while the pressure falls.

Your household size

Check the recipe yields against your cooker’s size. A book for two won’t help someone cooking for a family, and a book of crowd-sized batches can be a poor fit for a small machine. Your manual will state the maximum fill level, so follow it, whatever a book suggests.

The reference pages

Time charts outlast recipes. Once you know how long a pound of beans takes in your cooker, you can make your own version. If you lean toward cooking without recipes, favor a book that promises charts, as the Zimmerman book does.

Food safety: a pressure cooker is not a canner

Because canners and cookers both build pressure, people assume they are interchangeable, and that’s the one mistake with real consequences. The National Center for Home Food Preservation says plainly that “we do not recommend our canning processes for use in electric multi-cookers at this time.” It explains that its processes were tested in stovetop pressure canners, and that safe processing depends on the temperature inside the jars, which can vary with jar placement, steam flow, altitude, power fluctuations and the full heating and cooling cycle. Unless that heat is adequate throughout, it warns, low-acid foods risk botulism.

That warning covers models with a “canning” or “steam canning” setting as well. NCHFP’s one stated exception is the Ball Automatic Home Canner, for acid foods, a dedicated appliance with its own tested process. Its page on pressure canners also says, “The USDA recommends that a canner be large enough to hold at least 4 quart jars.” None of the eight books above is a canning book, so don’t treat a recipe in any of them as a canning process. If you want to can, start with our canning pressure cooker guide.

How we picked these eight pressure cooker books

We searched Amazon’s book listings using general and machine-specific terms, then kept print editions from named authors at established publishers, in stock and new when we checked. We skipped the long run of anonymous-looking self-published titles, and any book already listed on another page of this site. The first three picks aren’t limited to electric machines. Five of the eight are not tied to one brand. Then we read the publisher pages we could open and checked Publishers Weekly by ISBN. We did not cook from them and we don’t quote prices, ratings or recipes.

Pressure cooker cookbook questions, answered

Can I use electric pressure cooker recipes on a stovetop cooker?

Often, as a starting point, but stovetop and electric machines can run at different pressures and heat up differently. Use a book written for both, such as Everyday Pressure Cooking, or check your manual for guidance.

Which book covers both stovetop and electric pressure recipes?

Everyday Pressure Cooking names both in its title. The publisher of Dinner in an Instant says its recipes can be made in any pressure cooker, multicooker or Instant Pot.

Can I use a pressure cooker cookbook for canning?

No. NCHFP does not recommend its canning processes for electric multi-cookers, and none of these books is a canning guide. Use a pressure canner and tested canning processes.

Do Instant Pot cookbooks work in other electric cookers?

Many recipes translate, but program names and timing can differ. Publishers Weekly notes that Kathy Hester’s Instant Pot book has some recipes that can be made with other equipment, usually a pressure cooker.

Is a pressure cooker cookbook useful for beans?

It’s among the most useful things one can teach you. Clarkson Potter says dried beans soften in about 35 minutes in its example, though the time depends on your beans and machine, so follow your book and manual.

Our final pick for your pressure cooker

Start with Dinner in an Instant if you want one book for any machine, and add a cuisine book later if you find you love cooking one kind of dish. If you are still deciding on the pot itself, our pressure cooker guide sorts the machines, and the Instant Pot cookbook guide goes deeper on that one brand. When your beans are ready, our guide to charro beans and refried beans shows what to do with them. And on the nights you don’t feel like cooking at all, Julia’s is at 5402 N Highway 6 in Houston: call to order.