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Cooking under Pressure
The 20 th Anniversary Edition of the classic cookbook from the leading authority on speed-cooking, Cooking Under Pressure by Lorna Sass offers a mouthwatering array of extraordinary dishes that can be prepared in minutes—from classic ossobucco to chocolate cheesecake—using a pressure cooker. A James Beard Award–winning cookbook author and food writer who has written for the Washington Post, New York Times, Food & Wine, Woman’s Day and other publications, Lorna Sass shows you how to turn out meals in one-third the time of conventional methods without sacrificing moisture, flavor, aroma, or nutritional content. Newly updated and revised for contemporary tastes and more efficient machines, Cooking Under Pressure is the cookbook that inspired a whole generation of home cooks to dust off their pressure cookers.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published November 15, 1989
224 people are currently reading
229 people want to read
About the author
Lorna J. Sass
23 books7 followersLorna Sass is fondly known as "the Queen of Pressure Cooking." She is also a widely published food writer and an award-winning cookbook author. Check out her new blog: www.pressurecookingwithlornasass.word...
Lorna became interested in pressure cooking during the mid-eighties when most Americans had either never heard of this magical appliance or were afraid of it! Her COOKING UNDER PRESSURE, published in 1989, became a best-seller with over 250,000 copies in print. The 20th-Anniversary revised edition of COOKING UNDER PRESSURE came out on November 3,2009.
Lorna followed COOKING UNDER PRESSURE with 3 other pressure cooker books: GREAT VEGETARIAN COOKING UNDER PRESSURE (VEGAN!), THE PRESSURED COOK, and PRESSURE PERFECT.
During the nineties, Lorna wrote numerous vegan cookbooks, recognizing that a vegan approach to food created a much smaller carbon footprint. This was decades before cookbook authors were writing about the connection between food and sustainability. Her RECIPES FROM AN ECOLOGICAL KITCHEN was published in 1992! Her NEW VEGAN COOKBOOK was nominated for an IACP Award and her latest title in this category is SHORT-CUT VEGAN.
Her fourteenth cookbook, WHOLE GRAINS EVERY DAY, EVERY WAY, published in 2006, was awarded the prestigious James Beard Award in the "healthy focus" category. Her latest cookbook, WHOLE GRAINS FOR BUSY PEOPLE, focuses on quick-cooking recipes for cooks on the go.
Lorna has often found herself ahead of her time. While studying for her PhD in medieval literature at Columbia University, she wrote four historical cookbooks that were published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art--decades before anyone was studying food history!
Lorna's food articles have been published in dozens of prominent newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Gourmet, and Bon Appetit. In addition to her own blogs, she has blogged for The Huffington Post and Green Fork, and wrote a monthly recipe column for localharvest.org.
She is a member of Slow Food, The Author's Guild, and the Women's Culinary Alliance and an alumna of Les Dames des Escoffier, an organization of the top women in the food industry.
Lorna's current passion is to make healthy food available to all, and she is especially eager to help people grow their own food on rooftops and in community gardens in NYC.
Lorna became interested in pressure cooking during the mid-eighties when most Americans had either never heard of this magical appliance or were afraid of it! Her COOKING UNDER PRESSURE, published in 1989, became a best-seller with over 250,000 copies in print. The 20th-Anniversary revised edition of COOKING UNDER PRESSURE came out on November 3,2009.
Lorna followed COOKING UNDER PRESSURE with 3 other pressure cooker books: GREAT VEGETARIAN COOKING UNDER PRESSURE (VEGAN!), THE PRESSURED COOK, and PRESSURE PERFECT.
During the nineties, Lorna wrote numerous vegan cookbooks, recognizing that a vegan approach to food created a much smaller carbon footprint. This was decades before cookbook authors were writing about the connection between food and sustainability. Her RECIPES FROM AN ECOLOGICAL KITCHEN was published in 1992! Her NEW VEGAN COOKBOOK was nominated for an IACP Award and her latest title in this category is SHORT-CUT VEGAN.
Her fourteenth cookbook, WHOLE GRAINS EVERY DAY, EVERY WAY, published in 2006, was awarded the prestigious James Beard Award in the "healthy focus" category. Her latest cookbook, WHOLE GRAINS FOR BUSY PEOPLE, focuses on quick-cooking recipes for cooks on the go.
Lorna has often found herself ahead of her time. While studying for her PhD in medieval literature at Columbia University, she wrote four historical cookbooks that were published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art--decades before anyone was studying food history!
Lorna's food articles have been published in dozens of prominent newspapers and magazines, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Gourmet, and Bon Appetit. In addition to her own blogs, she has blogged for The Huffington Post and Green Fork, and wrote a monthly recipe column for localharvest.org.
She is a member of Slow Food, The Author's Guild, and the Women's Culinary Alliance and an alumna of Les Dames des Escoffier, an organization of the top women in the food industry.
Lorna's current passion is to make healthy food available to all, and she is especially eager to help people grow their own food on rooftops and in community gardens in NYC.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
October 15, 2017
A classic for pressure cooking, updated for new electric pressure cookers like the InstantPot. Great background on the principles of cooking under pressure (ie when it’s appropriate to use this cooking method) and how to convert many of your current favorites from the stovetop or slow cooker to pressure cooking.
One amazing tip I learned and use every day: to make vegetable or chicken broth, get into the habit of keeping kitchen scraps. As recommended, I now keep two ziplocks in the freezer: one of meat scraps and bones (cooked and raw) and another for vegetable scraps (especially onion and carrot ends and peels). Whenever I need more broth I just dump both bags in the InstantPot with a handful of spices and top up with water. No extra shipping trip, no chopping, just fresh dark tasty broth in about an hour!
One amazing tip I learned and use every day: to make vegetable or chicken broth, get into the habit of keeping kitchen scraps. As recommended, I now keep two ziplocks in the freezer: one of meat scraps and bones (cooked and raw) and another for vegetable scraps (especially onion and carrot ends and peels). Whenever I need more broth I just dump both bags in the InstantPot with a handful of spices and top up with water. No extra shipping trip, no chopping, just fresh dark tasty broth in about an hour!
August 29, 2022
If you weren't raised using a pressure cooker, you could probably benefit with more info than included in the manufacturer' tiny pamphlet.
April 27, 2025
Really love these recipes, we cook from this book (or make variations) all the time.
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June 30, 2007Is it weird to put a cookbook on goodreads? I think I got this at a garage sale, but I love it. It has made cooking in china a dream, and I'm finally learning to cook meat. I'm considering devoting myself to trying every recipe. Or maybe just buying some of her other books.
April 25, 2008
This is an okay cookbook - certainly very useful for the reference information on cooking beans and grains, in particular. I think the recipes in her Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure are better, though.
May 26, 2012
Is it just me or do most of these recipes seem like they would be quicker to just make outside the pressure cooker? I guess it is helpful for using tougher cuts of meat, and the desserts sound yummy, but a lot of the recipes seem like too much effort.
August 9, 2016
I've only really used this to show me how to reconstitute dried beans and the like.
July 25, 2013
This is a pressure cooking bible. I love my pressure cooker!
June 20, 2015
My go to PC book!
The recipes in this book are excellent! I frequently preach the "good news" of pressure cooking at my office and have gifted copies of this book to co-workers.
The recipes in this book are excellent! I frequently preach the "good news" of pressure cooking at my office and have gifted copies of this book to co-workers.
Read
December 31, 2016This book is fantastic. Lots of great ideas - the risotto alone is worth the price.
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January 13, 2018The book wasn't for me. I am not interested in the ingredients.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews