An important part of getting healthy is nourishing your body with the best that nature has to offer. As fellow health and fitness enthusiasts, we’ve seen how specifi diet plans like the paleo diet can be uper powerful. Simple and delicious, this diet aligns with the way our ancestors once ate. For those of you considering the Paleo journey or looking to elevate your current paleo meals, having a cookbook handy can be a game-changer. We’ve found that exploring this dietary path is much more enjoyable (and flavorful!) with the right recipes at your fingertips. Today, we’ll share with you some of our favorite paleo cookbooks that have helped us transform our cuisine.
What is the Best Paleo Cookbook?
You are here to find the Best Paleo Cookbook and we did all the necessary research to make life just a little bit easier for you. With so many options and products available, we narrowed the selection down for you to the absolute best 10 paleo cookbooks and reviewed why they’re worth your time and money.
We have also compiled a list of main things to consider before buying cookbooks for paleo which you can find later on in this article, together with some helpful FAQs. So let’s get started with the list of Best Paleo Cookbook.
1. Paleo for Beginners
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| Price: 💲 (fewer 💲 = cheaper) Number of Recipes: 114 Experience Level: Beginner Equipment required: Standard |
John Chatham’s Paleo for Beginners is a best-selling paleo cookbook that has already sold over 150,000 copies. One of the best parts of this book is its 7-day plan to introduce the caveman diet to readers. It also includes instructions on transitioning to this diet. The book offers a great amount of advice on avoiding several common challenges that new paleo eaters may face. Because the author greatly understands these challenges, he offers great tips on how to regularly incorporate these recipes into your daily life. As a highly acclaimed health and diet writer, Chatham establishes his expertise early on, giving readers confidence in his knowledge. We do have to say that this book does fall short in terms of visuals. There is a striking lack of color photographs and some formatting inconsistencies. Regardless, many reviewers noted that the recipes were tasty and they could easily incorporate them into their diet. This cookbook is ideal for people who need to maintain healthy eating and increase their energy level. It also provides some information on using this diet for weight loss. To improve results, we recommend these exercises to complement your paleo diet.
Overall, Paleo for Beginners features 114 delicious recipes for every meal, as well as a helpful list of paleo-friendly food and an extensive restricted food list. Each recipe has simple instructions with easy-to-prepare ingredients for cooks of all experience levels. However, some readers did claim that some of the measurements are off, so you may have to tweak a few of the recipes as you go.
Pros
- Includes helpful tips and advice for those new to the diet
- Uses readily available ingredients
- Recipes have simple instructions
- Provides nutrition and weight loss tips
- Includes lists of paleo-safe foods
Cons
- No color photos included
- Unreliable measurements in some recipes
2. Practical Paleo
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| Price: 💲💲💲💲 (fewer 💲 = cheaper) Number of Recipes: 150 Experience Level: Beginner Equipment required: Standard |
Practical Paleo is a rich resource for healthy paleo eating written by Diane Sanfilippo. The book offers a mix of delicious recipes, family meal plans, and helpful information for newbies transitioning into paleo. It is also an excellent choice for people looking for a healthy way of eating and weight loss. The book features 30-day meal plans that help to address common health conditions such as high blood sugar, thyroid dysfunction, liver and heart disease, hormonal imbalance, and digestive problems. Diane’s book is in its second edition, and she includes a step-by-step guide for beginners transitioning to the paleo diet. However, this book may not be an ideal choice for people already familiar with the paleolithic diet as it does not offer new insight. The book comes with more than 150 recipes to help you prepare mouth-watering meals for you and your family, along with some bonus topics to help you understand how your food choices affect the body. The recipes are easy to prepare, although some ingredients, such as veal, may not be readily available. However, the second edition includes lots of substitute ingredients that will help you stick to the diet. I also have some fantastic paleo fish recipes that you can check out.
Practical Paleo offers lots of nutritional information to help you make wise decisions on food, and many of the recipes are delicious. However, it also includes unnecessary details that make the book bulky, such as dedicating six pages to describe the best way to cut veggies and duplicated meal plans.
Pros
- Excellent meal plans for various health conditions
- Includes easy prep and delicious recipes
- Offers comprehensive diet information for newbies
- Step by step guide on how to transition into paleo
Cons
- Long read with lots of duplication
- May require ingredients that are difficult to get
- Not very inspirational for experienced cooks
3. Nom Nom Paleo
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| Price: 💲💲 (fewer 💲 = cheaper) Number of Recipes: 100 Experience Level: Beginner to Expert Equipment required: Standard |
Nom Nom Paleo is a light-hearted cookbook illustrated with creative cartoon graphics to make cooking the recipes easy and exciting. The cookbook is ideal for paleo beginners and experts alike, and it includes mouth-watering photos of how the recipes should turn out to inspire and get you trying them out.
Michelle Tam is an avid cook and professional nutritionist, and the Nom Nom Paleo Cookbook is an extension of her award-winning blog of the same name. What’s attractive about this book is that it is formatted in a distinctive and informal style that appeals to many people. The recipes are flavorful with Asian food influences and presented in a relatable way with step-by-step photos and comic-style cartoons.
Most of the meals are also budget-friendly to prepare and ideal for cooks of every skill level. But they are also designed as two-course meals that busy people may find time-consuming to prepare.
The recipes can be easily adapted to suit various dairy and gluten-free diets and are suitable for anyone interested in healthy eating. However, Michelle also includes some expensive ingredients in her recipes, such as fresh mussels. Also, some of the recipes may require professional kitchen equipment that the average home cook may not have.
Pros
- Exciting and delicious recipes for all skill levels
- Includes step by step photos and graphics for instruction
- Budget-friendly and readily available ingredients
- Meals are adaptable for any diet
Cons
- Requires some professional cooking knowledge
- Recipes may be rather long
4. The Paleo Cookbook
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| Price: 💲💲 (fewer 💲 = cheaper) Number of Recipes: 300 Experience Level: Beginner Equipment required: Standard |
The Paleo Cookbook is another excellent resource for people getting started in the caveman diet or want healthy meals to their diet. The book is well structured and begins with instructions on how to transition into the diet. It features 11 chapters of 300 exciting recipes that use simple and easy-to-find ingredients. They are also internationally diverse, with Italian, Mexican, Chinese, French, and Asian recipes. The preparation instructions use simple language, and many people have found it easy to prepare the meals even though the book includes few pictures. However, the few photos included are black and white, which has put off many who expected visual inspiration with colored pictures.
The author begins with breakfast recipes and moves down to lunches, main dishes, salads, soups, snacks, and beverages. Although the book advocates people to avoid some food items such as root vegetables, the recipes include carrots, sweet potatoes, and homemade condiments such as mayonnaise. Overall, the book features meal plans that would appeal to many even though they may not be fully into the paleo diet. It is ideal for people to need to change their eating habits for medical reasons or healthy living. Also, substituting some of your food items for clean options, such as using cauliflower in place of mashed potatoes, may help to shed off some weight. If you want to go further, this article will help you find healthy substitutes for your cheat meals so you can snack the clean way.
Pros
- Easy preparation instructions
- Includes simple and readily available ingredients
- Features diverse and international recipes
- Includes cooking tips and nutritional information
Cons
- Lacks visual inspiration with photos
- Some recipes may be bland
5. The One-Pot Paleo Cookbook
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| Price: 💲 (fewer 💲 = cheaper) Number of Recipes: 100+ Experience Level: Beginner Equipment required: Slow Cooker, Sheet Pan, Skillet, Pressure Cooker |
One reason many people do not sustain healthy eating is the time it takes to prepare the meals. To this end, One-Pot Paleo Cookbook by Shelby Law Ruttan is outstanding in this regard as it offers nutritious recipes you can prepare in 15 minutes. Furthermore, you prepare the meals using single cooking vessels such as instant pots, skillets, and sheet pans that help to keep the cooking time down. Shelby Law Ruttan is an avid cook and the author of One-Pot Paleo Cookbook and several other books that focus on clean eating. One-Pot Paleo features 100 recipes presented in six categories and is ideal for every diet rather than strictly paleo. They are her family’s favorite recipes, and the cookbook includes advice on necessary ingredients and cooking equipment. It also includes helpful information on how these recipes can help prevent some chronic health issues and promote healthy weight loss. However, most of the recipes don’t come with pictures which is a minus as most people prefer to have visual variety in a cookbook. While the collection of recipes are simple for anyone to prepare, they may be uninspiring for advanced cooks or people familiar with the paleo diet as they are not new to them.
Pros
- Features recipes with quick preparation times
- Ideal for any weight and health management diet
- Easy to read format for ordinary cooks
- Includes measurement index and ingredient lists
Cons
- Very few pictures with the recipes
- Advanced cooks may want a bigger challenge than that provided in this book
6. The Big Book of Paleo Slow Cooking
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| Price: 💲💲💲 (fewer 💲 = cheaper) Number of Recipes: 200 Experience Level: Intermediate Equipment required: Crock Pot, Instant Pot |
The Big Book of Paleo Slow Cooking by Natalie Perry is a fantastic catalog of 200 delicious slow cooking recipes authored by a leading paleo diet blogger and experienced cook. The recipes are structured to make family-sized meals that serve up to eight people. Although the recipes are for slow cooking, you can opt to use an instant pot when pressed for time.
The book features recipes with flavors from around the world with fantastic after photos to inspire you. Most of the ingredients are readily available and easy to prepare, and you can pair most of the recipes with rice or bread for people who are not on the paleo diet. Also, the recipes are not strictly paleo with some non-paleo ingredients, such as legumes. Further, the meat dishes require you to precook the meat to reduce the cooking time. However, that may be inconvenient for some because the whole idea of slow cooking is to prepare your meals without supervising the cooking process. Overall, most reviewers note that the recipes are delicious, with the Buffalo Chicken Dip being a favorite for many.
Pros
- Recipes make family-sized servings
- Flexibility to use faster cooking methods
- Beautifully photographed recipes for inspiration
- Easy and budget-friendly to prepare
Cons
- Some dishes may require significantly more preparation time than the average recipe
- Recipes do not include nutritional information
7. Clean Paleo Family Cookbook
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| Price: 💲💲💲💲💲 (fewer 💲 = cheaper) Number of Recipes: 100 Experience Level: Beginner Equipment required: Standard |
The Clean Paleo Family Cookbook by Ashley McCrary is a clean paleo diet cookbook that features 100 recipes that your whole family will enjoy. Unlike most of the books featured on this list, the recipes in this cookbook are free of any sweeteners, starch veggies, desserts, and treats. On the other hand, the cookbook suffers from poor formatting where the listed ingredients and the preparation information is inconsistent. Other buyers were unhappy with the lack of food photos for every recipe. However, the author puts together delicious recipes and the few pictures included are outstanding. Another positive is that the book follows three forms of the paleo diet to help you figure out which recipes are ideal for you. They include a traditional paleo diet ideal for everyday meals where the recipes include some transitional ingredients. The squeaky clean paleo recipes are suitable for people familiar with the diet, while the keto paleo features fewer carbs but includes sweeteners. If you are considering trying out the keto paleo diet, this simple keto calculator can help you find your nutritional needs to maximize your results.
Pros
- It doesn’t include the restricted paleo foods
- Includes family-friendly recipes
- Easy to follow recipes for any cook
- Versatile recipes to suit everyone
Cons
- Cookbook may have several formatting inconsistencies
- Features few pictures
8. Paleo in 28
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| Price: 💲💲💲 (fewer 💲 = cheaper) Number of Recipes: 130 Experience Level: Beginner Equipment required: Standard |
Paleo in 28 is another excellent introduction to the caveman diet lifestyle, and it offers to help transition any beginner to the diet in 4 weeks. The book’s author is Kenzie Swanhart, a paleo practitioner and author of a food blog where she shares her experiences with the paleo diet. In this cookbook, Kenzie shares 130 delicious and easy-to-make recipes to help you transition to the paleo diet in four weeks. The book is in three sections, and the first part introduces the reader to what the paleo diet is all about. The middle part delves into four weeks of prepared meal plans, and she leaves an extra week blank for you to design a meal plan with your favorite recipes. The third section includes the recipes with ingredients lists to stock up your pantry and helpful tips for preparing the meals. The book is well-formatted, which makes it easy to follow through the recipes and most people were happy with the time it took to prepare the meals. Also, the recipes use few ingredients, which makes preparation time even shorter, and many people noted that the recipes were accurate in measurements and instructions. On the other hand, the book does not offer any new insights for people familiar with paleo diets, and it doesn’t include many after photos.
Pros
- Excellent cookbook for beginners
- Features complete shopping lists and meal plans
- The book is well-formatted for easy reading
- Offers easy and delicious meals
Cons
- Cookbook doesn’t feature many pictures
- Recipes may not cater to those who like strong tasting recipes
9. Whole 30 Food Diet Dessert Cookbook
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| Price: 💲 (fewer 💲 = cheaper) Number of Recipes: 100 Experience Level: Intermediate Equipment required: Standard |
Whole 30 is a 30-day clean eating program that aims to change the relationship you have with food to help you develop a healthy lifestyle. The diet is similar to paleo in that you omit dairy, sugar, grains, and legumes from your diet for 30 days. The benefits are also similar to paleo, and it may help you lose weight, improve medical conditions and overall health, and boost your energy and immunity. While you might think that being on a diet means you can’t satisfy your sweet tooth cravings once in a while, I’ve included this cookbook in my list to show you that you can. The Whole 30 Food Diet Dessert Cookbook by Eva Snow features whole food desserts and snacks to complement the Whole 30 diet meals and help you create snacks to enjoy between meals. The cookbook is ideal for people who’ve already completed the Whole 30 diet and would like to reintroduce some of the restricted food items in measured quantities. Best of all, you can indulge in grain, sugar, and dairy-free yummy treats without ruining the gains you’ve made with the Whole 30 diet. On the downside, the book does not have a visible online presence, and it’s not easy to get any reviews from people who’ve tried out any of the recipes.
Pros
- Excellent whole food dessert and snacks recipes
- Easy to make treats for your sweet tooth
- Grain, dairy, and sugar-free nutritious snacks
- The cookbook features color photos for every recipe
Cons
- Cookbook information is not readily available online
- Ideal only for people on the Whole 30 diet
10. Quick Prep Paleo
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| Price: 💲💲💲💲 (fewer 💲 = cheaper) Number of Recipes: 75 Experience Level: Intermediate Equipment required: Instant Pot, Slow Cooker Pot, Single Pot, Standard |
The Quick Prep Paleo by Mary Smith is exactly what it says it is, a cookbook with simple whole food recipes that take 15 minutes or less to prepare. The recipes come with outstanding color photos to inspire you and utilize various cooking methods, from instant pots and slow cookers to single-pot meals. The cookbook features 75 flavorful and delicious recipes that use readily available ingredients. What I like most about this cookbook is that the recipes require 15 minutes to prepare and serve. The quick prep time makes it ideal for busy people or couples with young kids who don’t have a lot of time on their hands. Plus, you don’t have to be on the paleo, Whole 30, or any other diet to enjoy the meals presented in this cookbook. Another benefit is that the meals are ideal for the whole family and you don’t have to prepare separate meals for the kids. Mary Smith is the creator of Mary’s Whole Life, a popular Instagram page that offers tasty recipes ideal for people with food allergies.
Pros
- Full-color photos with every recipe
- Recipes are quick and simple to prepare
- Requires minimal hands-on preparation time
- Ideal everyday quick meals for the whole family
Cons
- Recipes are not very uniquely different from other cookbooks
- Small cookbook compared to the average
Verdict
To sum up, out of the top 10 Best Paleo Cookbook, our absolute top pick is Paleo for Beginners.
If you have the money, you can go for Nom Nom Paleo which is our premium pick.
However, there’s nothing wrong with going for the budget option, which we found to be the The Paleo Cookbook.
Our other reviews you may find useful in your research:
What You Should Know Before Buying paleo cookbooks
Experience
Depending on where you are on your paleo journey, it is important you pick the cookbook which matches your experience. If you are starting up you will need more explanation and guidance, on the other hand, if you already an experienced paleo devotee you will want to avoid basic information and dive into the more advanced and stricter diets. For the book to serve you well you need to take that into your consideration.
Ingredients
Consider the ingredients used in the cookbook. Do you have any allergies? Do you like the ingredients used? Do you have access to fresh ingredients required where you live? Most of the books purchased online these days will allow you to peek at the content. Usually, near the table of contents, you can find the ingredients list. Review the list and make sure it is acceptable for your taste and lifestyle.
Equipment
Before making your decision, it is a good idea to check that you have the necessary appliances in your kitchen to enjoy the cookbook properly. This knowledge will make you aware of what limitations you will have and you can set aside a budget to purchase additional equipment if you need to.
Questions and Answers About paleo cookbooks
What is the paleo diet?
Paleo diet is reverting to the caveman diet consumed before the agrarian revolution. The food we consume today is mainly made up of farmed crops such as grains, which never used to be part of the caveman diet in ancient times. Therefore, going paleo consists of cutting out refined sugars, some carbohydrates, legumes, grains, dairy as well as processed foods and meat containing antibiotics and hormones. Basically, if the caveman did not have it, then you cannot have it either.
Is paleo expensive?
As active sportsmen, we can vouce and agree that the paleo diet can be a little bit heavy on the wallet, especially when relying heavily on a lot of meat and fish. This is mainly due to the fact that you need to buy fresh produce which cannot be stored for a longer duration. Meal planning and batch cooking can help reduce the cost of this diet.
Is the paleo diet sustainable?
The paleo diet is much more sustainable than most other diets due to mainly the avoidance of processed foods and dairy. The sustainability of this diet also depends on the meat to plant ratio, the most common ratio being 40:60 Meat:Vegetables.
Can you exercise on paleo diet?
Absolutely! On the paleo diet, we highly recommend exercising. In the Paleolithic era humans didn’t consider it an exercise, because they were on move a lot gathering food or traveling from and to their village. The general rule is to include at least 2.5 hours of moderate activity during the week as well as a couple of days of strength-building activities. A great practice is to include as many exercises in your normal day-to-day life, for example, a bike ride to work or a quick walk to the bus station.
What you can eat on paleo?
In summary, everything that could have been acquired by our hunter-gather ancestors. This consists of Eggs, Nuts, and Seeds, Fruits, Veggies, Grass-fed Meat, Seafood, or Natural oils (Coconut, Olive, Walnut, or Flaxseed). This also means all processed food and dairy is prohibited.
