Zelda: Breath of the Wild – How to Cook Food

When doing Breath of the Wild cooking, there are lots of things to keep in mind. You need to constantly be cooking any chance you get. To do that you need ingredients and a heat source, but more on that in a minute. In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, you need to keep Link fed to keep his Hearts up and Stamina charged. An unfed Link is a dead Link, so keep his belly full. You can cook a wide array of recipes in this game, and they offer a dizzying array of benefits. There’s food that restores Stamina, there’s buffs to elemental resistances, and so much more. And of course, it’s the best way to heal Link after a fight. Here’s how you can begin cooking in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

First thing though, you need to find a flame. There are campsites and villages all over the Hyrule landscape, head there and you can find campfires, many of which also have Woks on them. These are your primary cooking options, remember where these are for later. To cook, you first need to light the flame. The easiest way to do this is to literally attack the fire with a lit torch. Once you have a flame up, it’s time to cook.

How to Cook in BOTW

The basic premise is very simple, you need a flame. Some recipes can simply be cooked with an open flame. When you open your inventory, you can hold up to five items, this is the first step in Breath of the Wild cooking. Take hold of the items you wish to cook and you can simply drop them into the fire or the pot. Depending on the recipe they will cook from there. Press X to start “holding” items and then do with them what you will.

Some dishes can only be cooked when on an open flame, which means there’s no cooking pot. These recipes are good in a pinch when you need a quick health boost, but the best cooking items in the game need a cooking pot to make. To cook with an open flame, simply grab an item and drop it onto the fire, it will burn and then transform into the cooked item.

You will get a lot of fruit, vegetables, and even monster parts throughout the game. At the start, Link will have to be content eating heated apples and other basic dishes. As time goes on you’re going to be throwing together cakes and risottos, as well as copious amounts of meat dishes. Not every dish need s a protein though, you can get by on a vegetarian diet pretty easily.

Recipe Archetypes

These basic building blocks are the core of most of Breath of the Wild cooking. Each of these basic items can be augmented with any number of fruits, vegetables or meats. You can alter these to your heart’s content and make most of the recipes in the game. Use the ingredients listed below then throw pretty much anything in with it and see what happens.

• Copious – Any four of the same item
• Cream Soup – Fresh Milk, Rock Salt
• Curry – Hylian Rice, Goron Spice
• Cake and Pie – Goat Butter, Cane Sugar, Tabantha Wheat
• Glazed – Courser Bee Honey
• Gourmet – Any Gourmet Meat combined with certain recipes
• Prime – Any Prime Meat combined with certain recipes
• Rice – Rock Salt, Hylian Rice
• Rice Balls – Hylian Rice
• Risotto – Rock Salt, Hylian Rice, Goat Butter
• Salt-Grilled – Rock Salt
• Spicy – Spicy Pepper
• Stew – Goat Butter, Fresh Milk, Tabantha Wheat

Alternate and Experiment

There are literally hundreds of recipes in this game. Feel free to experiment, we’ve included a list of many of the best food items to cook in the game, but there are many more. Many of the recipes are a variety of the same basic theme, using a random central ingredient and then putting it over heat.  There could be a dozen recipes that produce the same item, and the only real difference is that each one may offer slightly more or less Hearts.

In many instances cooking with similar ingredients will net the same or a similar dish. For example, the Fish and Mushroom Skewer can be made with almost any fish and mushroom combination. Regardless of which variant you use in most cases, you will get the same result. It doesn’t seem to matter if you throw in one fish or another for a Fish Rice Ball.

The one alteration is that there are modifiers to certain dish archetypes. There are Hearty and Gourmet variants for many dishes. Some of these might heal a little less, but offer other benefits. We’ve included the more unique recipe combinations for Breath of the Wild cooking in our list below, but rest assured there are many more than this. Although the majority just fall into the category of putting a random couple ingredients together within the same basic theme.

As a practical example, let’s take the Meat and Mushroom Skewer. This recipe has a few variants, with the best version giving you six Hearts of healing power. If you were to add an Apple to that recipe, which normally takes a Hylian Shroom and Raw Meat, you would get a version that only heals for Hearts.

General Tips

• Learn the Archetypes – There are many different items which are minor variations, learn them and experiment.
• Season your meals – Salt-Grilled, Spicy and otherwise seasoned meals have better impact, generally speaking.
• Cook with the Faries –  Having a Fairy around for cooking the dish can massively power up the effect of the cooked product.
• Hearty Meals are worth the time –  Toss a Hearty Truffle or Radish into a recipe to often create the more powerful Hearty variant.
• Be aware of overdoing it – Given that some recipes are more specific, be aware of the risk of throwing too many ingredients in.

Best Food Recipes

Stamina Recipes

Cold or Heat Resistance Recipes

Attack or Defense Boost Recipes

Movement Speed Recipes

Increase Maximum Hearts Recipes

All Other Recipes