Household air pollution from biomass cooking fuels is a major public health crisis, contributing to high child mortality and disproportionately harming women. The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), launched in 2016, sought to address this by providing free liquified petroleum gas (LPG) connections to over a 100 million low-income women in India. Puzzlingly, despite near-universal LPG access, many beneficiaries have continued using traditional cookstoves called chulhas alongside these new cylinders. This study examines the sociocultural factors shaping household fuel decisions under PMUY, particularly focusing on the role of women’s preferences, household bargaining structures, and local contextual factors in sustaining chulha use. Using a mixed methods approach, it draws on original qualitative fieldwork interviewing women in rural Rajasthan and quantitative analysis of survey data from the 2018 Rural Sanitation and Solid Fuel Use Survey. Qualitative findings about the role of time, taste, convenience, cost, and household structure informed hypotheses that were then tested through regression analyses. Findings revealed that women’s intrinsic preferences, especially those in favor of the taste of chulha-cooked food, play an important role in driving chulha persistence, challenging the view of them as passive beneficiaries of PMUY. Furthermore, elders, rather than men, emerged as the primary household members influencing chulha use, while women accommodated their preferences for reasons ranging from submission to care. Finally, rather than simply cost and income, the study highlights many contextual factors that interact to produce household fuel decisions, like the availability of firewood, opportunity cost of women’s time, and differences in cooking experiences by food type. These results contribute to a broader understanding of women as engaged recipients of direct goods transfers under welfare programs in India. To the study of clean cooking fuels, they emphasize the importance of engaging with women’s preferences and the realities of household cooking needs, rather than assuming a universal desire for fuels like LPG.