New to the kitchen, or know someone who is? We’ve gathered the best cookbooks for beginners to get you started and give you the confidence to keep cooking. There’s plenty of options for budding new chefs: learn the essentials from Jamie or Nadiya, keep it simple with one-tray roasting tin recipes, or aim for speed with recipes ready in under 15 minutes. These would also make a great gift for students heading to university, ready to cook for themselves for the first time!
If you’re new to cooking, consider other kitchen equipment you might need. Our guide to the best kitchen essentials covers all the basics, from peelers to saucepans. Think about what you want to cook the most. If you want to master a Sunday roast, a meat thermometer and roomy roasting tin will be handy. If you want to try some baking, a wire rack, baking trays and cake tins are essentials.
Once you’ve got the cooking bug, check out all our other cookbook recommendations. Get meat-free inspiration with our best vegetarian cookbooks, make sweet treats from our best baking books, give our best student cookbooks to someone heading to uni, or spend time in the kitchen over the school holidays with one of our best cookbooks for kids – perfect for rainy days.
Best cookbooks for beginners at a glance
- Best for everyday ingredients: Easy 10 by Amy Sheppard, £14
- Best for quick recipes: Donal’s Real Time Recipes by Donal Skehan, £25
- Best for trying out trends: Dinner, Solved by Holly Dingwall, £17.59
- Best for five-ingredient meals: One Pot Wonders by Grace Mortimer, £15.16
- Best cookery bible: Leiths How to Cook, £45
- Best for simple shoppers: 7 Ways by Jamie Oliver, £7.87
- Best for speedy meals: Speedy MOB by Ben Lebus, £17.99
- Best for global recipes: The Roasting Tin Around the World by Rukmini Iyer, £16.99
- Best cookbook for a budget: Eat Well for Less Every Day by Jo Scarratt-Jones, £6.85
- Best for flavoursome meals: Chetna’s 30 Minute Indian by Chetna Makan, £13.84
- Best one pan cookbook: Just One Pan by Jane Lovett, £20.51
- Best for unusual flavour combinations: Nadiya’s Fast Flavours by Nadiya Hussain, £22
Best cookbooks for beginners 2026
Easy 10 by Amy Sheppard
Best for everyday ingredients
A great concept for beginner cooks – centred around 10 everyday ingredients to make 100 accessible, easy dinners. You won’t be stuck for midweek inspiration again! Each chapter focuses on a cheap, familiar ingredient – think cheddar cheese, chicken, potatoes – and shows you interesting ways to use them, helping you build confidence in the kitchen. Sheppard isn’t afraid of timesaving hacks (think risotto made using microwave rice and fishcakes with frozen mash), making this a great option for students, too. Each recipe also has a helpful tips and swaps section, so you can easily customise them.
Must try recipe: 20-minute Chinese chicken curry
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Donal’s Real Time Recipes by Donal Skehan
Best for quick recipes
If you’re new to the kitchen, you might not want to spend hours cooking. This latest release from trusty Donal Skehan is full of recipes that are ready in less than 30 minutes, perfect for midweek cooking. We instantly had a list of recipes we wanted to make and could easily slot into weekly meal planning. Chapters are centred around familiar ingredients, such as pasta or chicken, and we particularly like the clever versions of recipes that traditionally would take much longer, such as beef bourguignon or a sausage ragu.
Must try recipe: cacio e pepe orzo with chicken
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Dinner, Solved by Holly Dingwall
Best for trying out trends
Content creator Holly Dingwall has released her debut cookbook, filled with fast meals for midweek cooking. The 100 recipes are cleverly divided up by time, from speedy recipes that can be ready in 10 minutes (we want to try the banh mi dumpling salad) to 40-minute feasts. It’s filled with easy ideas that will turn popular Instagram trends into achievable dinners you’ll want to return to, like tortellini soup, creamy Tuscan beef and chicken smashed tacos.
There are also clever tips and tricks to simplify the more advanced recipes for beginner cooks, such as using onion chutney to make a cheat’s French onion mac & cheese – so there’s no need to spend time perfectly caramelising the onions. We tried the brothy tomato coconut curry poached cod, which was a doddle to pull together on a Tuesday night, and perfect cosy comfort food.
Must-try recipe: French onion mac & cheese
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One Pot Wonders by Grace Mortimer
Best for five-ingredient meals
Forget long shopping lists and using every pan in the cupboard, make mealtimes easier with Grace Mortimer’s latest book – all the recipes need just five ingredients and, as the title says, they’re made in one pot. It’s amazing how much flavour she can pack in with just a few ingredients, from crispy chicken and leek with parmesan beans to creamy spinach and walnut spaghetti, this is a great book for easy family cooking.
Must try recipe: roasted aubergine lasagne
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Leiths How to Cook
Best cookery bible
This cook school classic has been given a makeover. Now, along with all the trustworthy techniques, you also get stunning photographs and new recipes, making this a must-have manual for every aspiring cook. From butchery to beurre noisette, you can’t do better than to follow these clear instructions and step-by-step photographs.
Must try recipe: Lemon tart
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7 Ways by Jamie Oliver
Best for simple shoppers
For this clever cookbook, Jamie Oliver found out what ingredients we put in our shopping baskets most regularly. Armed with 18 of the most popular everyday ingredients, including broccoli, peppers, chicken breasts, salmon fillets and eggs, Jamie shares new and exciting ways to prepare them. The focus is ‘maximum flavour, minimum effort’, so every recipe is simple to make, and uses no more than eight ingredients that aren’t difficult to find. Expect new twists on classic favourites, such as filo chicken kyiv, broccoli & cheese pierogi, potato lasagne and spiced cauliflower rice pie.
Must-try recipe: Moreish aubergine salad
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Speedy MOB by Ben Lebus
Best for speedy meals
This book from Ben Lebus and the MOB Kitchen team is all about creating flavour-packed dishes in just 12 minutes (we’ve time-tested a fair few of them!). Split into chapters, including brunch, salads, pasta and gnocchi, rice and noodles, ‘flashy’ (for when you want to impress) and ‘sweet stuff ’, it features creative dishes like chorizo cauliflower fried rice, and lots of clever time-saving hacks.
Must try recipe: Cheat’s dan dan noodles
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The Roasting Tin Around the World by Rukmini Iyer
Best for global recipes
Rukmini Iyer’s cookbooks all have a common theme: they’re made in just one roasting tin. This edition in the series features 75 one-tin recipes inspired by her global travels. Examples of Rukmini’s hassle-free, flavour-packed dishes include pork pibil with pink pickled onions (inspired by her time in Central America) and a mash-up of s’mores and rocky road with peanuts, marshmallows and chocolate.
Must-try recipe Korean-style aubergines
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Chetna’s 30 Minute Indian by Chetna Makan
Best for flavoursome meals
We love Indian food but making a curry can sometimes be a lengthy affair with grinding spices, prepping ingredients and marinating, so we were very happy to see this book from former The Great British Bake Off contestant Chetna Makan. All the recipes are ready in 30 minutes or less and really pack in the flavour – from a speedy salmon curry to a creamy and delicately spiced butter chicken, everyone will think you’ve been in the kitchen for hours! Make a midweek curry or choose a few recipes for the weekend and make a feast.
Must-try recipe: Coconut paneer tikka
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Just One Pan by Jane Lovett
Best one pan cookbook
No one actually likes washing up (or they certainly don’t in my house) so recipes which cut down on clean-up are a big plus, add in the time-saving benefits of cooking in one pan and I’m sold! Food writer Jane provides more than 100 genius one-pan recipes in this diverse collection, with everything from traybakes, curries and stews to pastas and tarts.
Must-try recipe: Creamy leek, potato & parmesan chicken thigh tray bake
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Nadiya’s Fast Flavours by Nadiya Hussain
Best for unusual flavour combinations
In Fast Flavours, you’ll find all the recipes from Nadiya’s programme on BBC Two. Packed with speedy makes and clever shortcuts, it’ll help you get dinner in the table in no time. Chapters are divided into things you might fancy as you’re on your way home from work – herby, spicy, cheesy, fruity, sweet etc, taking the hassle out of deciding what to cook. There are fabulous bakes (Nadiya was the 2015 Bake Off queen, after all) and brilliant midweek meals, from tarragon chicken to Bombay veggie burgers.
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