Her father, a watchmaker of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was a personal friend of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and others. Eliza was born in Philadelphia and accompanied her parents to England in 1793. After her return to the United States in 1800, she resided chiefly in Philadelphia. Her first compositions were in verse. In her fortieth year she published her first prose work, a cookery-book, which met with a large sale. Later, after obtaining a prize for her story “Mrs. Washington Potts,” which was published in Godey's Ladies' Book, she adopted literature as a profession.

She was the sister of the English artist Charles Robert Leslie and United States Army soldier Thomas Jefferson Leslie.

For a time, she edited an annual gift book called The Gift, which included contributions from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Parker Willis, Elizabeth F. Ellet, Lydia Sigourney, Charles Fenno Hoffman, and others.

Other works:

• Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats, 1828.
• American Girl's Book, 1831.
• Domestic French Cookery, 1832.
• Pencil Sketches; or, Outlines of Characters and Manners, 1833.
• Miss Leslie's Behavior Book, 1834.
• Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches, 1837.
• The Indian Meal Book, 1847.
• The Lady's Receipt-Book: A Useful Companion for Large or Small Families, 1847.
• Amelia; or, A Young Lady's Vicissitudes, 1848.
• Miss Leslie's Lady's New Receipt-Book, 1850.
• Miss Leslie's Directions for Cookery, 1851.
• More Receipts, 1852.
• Miss Leslie's New Receipts for Cooking . . ., 1854.
• Miss Leslie's New Cookery Book, 1857.