Ina Garten’s Cooking for Jeffrey was 2016’s bestselling print cookbook, selling more than 400K copies since it hit shelves in October, according to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks roughly 80% of print sales. It was a good year for cookbooks all around—unit print sales in the category were up 6% in 2016 over 2015.
As in years past, heavy hitters dominated the top half of the list, many who also made appearances in 2015. Garten was joined in the top 10 by fellow Food Network star Ree Drummond, whose The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Dinnertime: Comfort Classics, Freezer Food, 16-Minute Meals, and Other Delicious Ways to Solve Supper!, the top seller in 2015, nabbed the #4 spot. Thug Kitchen, the runner up in 2015, fell one spot to #3, selling just shy of 200K copies.
Other big names on the chart included supermodel Chrissy Teigen’s Cravings at #2, which sold roughly 270K copies, Anthony Bourdain’s Appetites, his first cookbook in a decade, sold 120K copies, landing him at #9.
Last year also saw a surge in sales for cookbook tie-ins to kitchen gadgets, which three titles in the top 10. Meredith Laurence's Air Fry Everything hit #5, The Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker Cookbook by Laurel Randolph came in at #8, and Ali Maffucci’s Inspiralized rounded out the top 10 for the year.
Rank | Title | Author | Publisher | Print Unit Sales |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Cooking For Jeffrey | Ina Garten | Clarkson Potter | 406,599 |
2 | Cravings | Chrissy Teigen | Clarkson Potter | 276,326 |
3 | Thug Kitchen | Rodale | 197,108 | |
4 | The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Dinnertime… | Ree Drummond | Morrow | 174,837 |
5 | Air Fry Everything | Meredith Laurence | Walah! | 156,495 |
6 | The Food Lab | J. Kenji Lopez-Alt | Norton | 150,930 |
7 | Skinnytaste Fast And Slow | Gina Homolka | Clarkson Potter | 135,156 |
8 | The Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker Cookbook | Laurel Randolph | Rockridge | 123,632 |
9 | Appetites | Anthony Bourdain | Ecco | 122,699 |
10 | Inspiralized | Ali Maffucci | Clarkson Potter | 104,408 |
source: Nielsen BookScan.