The third single, "We Run This", was released on February 21, 2006, and peaked at number forty-eight on the Billboard Hot 100 and charted moderately well internationally.

It received a Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album, ultimately losing to Kanye West's Late Registration.

[19] Rich Juzwiak of Stylus Magazine gave the album an A rating, stating "Her adventurous and, yes, massive, persona is allowed to wander wherever it wants on The Cookbook, be it avant or common.

[19] However, Ben Sisario of Blender wrote, "For every killer raise-your-hands hook there is a snoozer of an SWV-esque torch ballad, and she can't seem to tell the difference."

"[31] Los Angeles Times writer Natalie Nichols found that "her souffle of hip-hop, soul, R&B, funk and dance music falls a bit flat".

"[27] Entertainment Weekly's Margeaux Watson viewed that "she's clearly lost without Timbaland", calling him "the main ingredient of her original flavor".

[32] Pitchfork's Ryan Dombal found the album "Even more bipolar than usual", with Elliott "jolting from uber-hypeness to soul-crushing balladry.

Fortunately, supported by an array of producers both grizzly and green, her invaluable unpredictability is alternately harnessed and given new life on this album, despite its uneven and transitional nature.

[33] In his consumer guide for The Village Voice, critic Robert Christgau gave The Cookbook an A− rating,[29] indicating "the kind of garden-variety good record that is the great luxury of musical micromarketing and overproduction".

[34] Christgau called it a "benchmark album" and commented that "Elliott showcases the musical health of African American pop [...] Elliott's disinclination to give it up to gangsta's thrill cult or black pop's soft-focus porn, plus her proven ability to work a good beat when she gets one, leads her naturally to a collection that ebbs and flows, peaks and dips, and pokes fun at any canon of taste you got".

[36] On September 15, 2005, the album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over 500,000 copies in the United States.

[37] On January 22, 2022, the album was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for sales of over 1,000,000 copies in the United States.

[38] The Cookbook peaked in the top thirty in Australia, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway and Switzerland.