Cooking

Raw edibles

At the start of the game, without any infrastructure, the player only has access to foraged or hunted food that can be eaten raw in order to maintain the player's satiety . However, the player should not rely on these for overly long, as once harvested, naturally occurring foodstuffs are either gone for good, or require a long time to regrow.

The following table lists all the food items that can be eaten raw:

Item	Satiety	Category	Notes
Honey1 (per 0.1 liter)	30	Fruit	Liquid. Never spoils.
Cherry, lychee	40	Fruit
Cranberry	60	Fruit
Saguaro fruit	60	Fruit	Restores 1 hp upon consumption.
Apple, blueberry, red currant, white currant, black currant, mango, orange, peach, pear, pomegranate, or pineapple slice	80	Fruit
Breadfruit	200	Fruit
Mushroom	80	Vegetable	Some mushroom types may be poisonous and deal damage upon consumption.
Bell pepper2, carrot, olive, onion, parsnip, or turnip	100	Vegetable
Cassava (processed)	100	Vegetable	Inedible without prior processing.
Cabbage	300	Vegetable
Pumpkin slice	140	Vegetable
Pumpkin (whole)	480	Vegetable	Since version 1.19, it is no longer possible to eat a whole pumpkin.
Flax grain	30	Grain
Amaranth, rice, rye, spelt, or sunflower grain	60	Grain
Walnut seed	40	Protein	Never spoils.
Termite	60	Protein
Peanut	160	Protein
Lump of fat3	200	Protein	Never spoils.
Vintage Beef	280	Protein	Rare ruin loot. Restores 2 hp upon consumption. Never spoils.
Milk (per 0.1 liter)	15	Dairy	Liquid.
Fish	220	Protein

¹ Consuming honey used to restore health in older versions. It no longer does as of version 1.16.
² Bell peppers are unobtainable in survival gameplay as of version 1.16.
³ Lumps of fat are a valuable crafting material that should be eaten only in emergencies.

Mushrooms

Mushrooms are special in that they may be beneficial or harmful to the player when ingested, and some of the harmful ones are very easily mistaken for safe ones.

Following is a list of specifically poisonous mushrooms for easy checking:

Name	Notes
Bitter bolete	-3 hp
Death cap	-50 hp (!)
Devilstooth mushroom	-2 hp
Earth ball	-8 hp
Elfin saddle	-7 hp
Fly agaric	-6.5 hp
Funeral bell	-40 hp (!)
Gold-drop milkcap	-2.5 hp
Jack'o'lantern mushroom	-6 hp
Pink bonnet	-10 hp

Basic cooking

Raw red meat in a fire pit

The first opportunity for making better food comes with the firepit . A small number of foraged or hunted ingredients can be placed directly into it for processing. Additionally, it can be used for baking dough into bread in a pinch, but the result will be of lesser quality than when using an oven.

The following table lists all the food items that can be processed in the firepit:

Item	Satiety	Category	Notes
Cooked cattail or papyrus root	100	Vegetable
Cooked bushmeat	120	Protein
Cooked poultry	200	Protein
Cooked redmeat	280	Protein
Cooked fish	200	Protein
Charred flax bread	100	Grain	Requires prior processing.
Charred amaranth, cassava, rye, spelt, or sunflower bread	210	Grain	Requires prior processing.
Charred rice bread	220	Grain	Requires prior processing.

Advanced cooking

Advanced cooking techniques can greatly increase the food value of ingredients, and can potentially achieve several thousands of satiety points in a single food item. Additionally, it allows the player to make meals out of multiple ingredients, which can potentially supply multiple nutrition groups at he same time. Whenever possible, it is recommended that the player uses advanced cooking techniques.

Cooking meals

See also: Meal

Cooking a stew in a fire pit.

Each ingredient should be placed in separate slots, and equal amounts of all ingredients must be added.

Cooking a meal is an advanced cooking method that increases the food values of all ingredients used and provides additional benefits and convenience. Cooked meals can be kept fresh for very long times in sealed crockpots; eating meals will outright halt satiety loss for a time; eating warm meals will warm the player up; and the player will never waste any food from a meal when it provides more satiety than they need. Instead, they simply leave a partially-eaten serving that can be finished at a later time.

To begin, craft at least one bowl and one cooking pot using the clay forming mechanic, and fire them like all ceramics in a pit kiln . Placing the fired cooking pot into the firepit input slot (upper left) will open up an additional four-slot inventory above the input slot, in which ingredients can be combined into one of the five available meal types. The meal type players create is determined by which two "required" ingredients are placed into the cooking pot first.

• To cook a single serving of a meal: place one of each required item into two separate cooking pot slots (this defines the meal type). For example, a porridge requires "two grain", so a player must add two individual pieces of grain in any two input slots in the cooking pot. Placing two grain in one input slot of the cooking pot will not create a porridge. Adding "optional" ingredients in the other two input slots of the cooking pot will increase the nutrition value and satiation of the meal depending on which items are added. When a valid meal recipe (combining correct ingredients) is placed into the input slots, a message will appear in the cooking pot dialog box informing players about what type of meal will be created after cooking.
• To cook multiple servings of a meal: increase the number of ingredient items added to all slots equally. The cooking pot allows players to cook up to 6 servings of any meal at a time. When creating multiple servings all the items in the input slots must be increased by the same amount, or the food will not cook!
• To cook meals requiring liquids: liquids like water or honey can be added in 1L increments with a bucket, or 0.1L increments with a bowl - however the 0.1L increments are for now only required for jam made from honey. While holding the container with the mouse, to add one portion, to remove it again.
• To fill a bowl: A bowl holds one meal portion and may be filled from a cooking pot or food storage crock. To fill a bowl, place the container of cooked food onto a solid surface. With the empty bowl in the active hand use on the cooking pot or crock. Bowls and crocks may be filled with meals while the cooking pot is in the firepit. Bowls of food may be carried in player inventories, stored in stationary containers, and placed on shelves. Bowls cannot be filled from crocks on shelves.
• To eat a meal: Food may be consumed from a filled bowl. With the filled bowl in an active hotbar slot, eat using . Players will eat until full, which may leave partial portions of food in the bowl.
• To store meals: Four portions of any cooked meal can be stored in an empty crock. Place the pot onto the ground or table and right click the pot with an empty crock to transfer meals to the storage crock. Storage crocks may be sealed for long term storage using fat or wax in the crafting grid. Crocks may also be carried in player inventories, stored in stationary containers, and placed on shelves.

Meal recipes

Mushrooms can be used as a main ingredient with water to make a soup, or used as ingredients in a stew without water.

Advanced recipes	Meat stew	Vegetable stew	Porridge	Soup	Jam	Scrambled eggs
Required ingredients	2 poultry or red meat or raw fish (cured or fresh)	2 vegetables or soybeans	2 grain	1 vegetable (fresh) + 1L water1	2 fruit + 2x 0.2L honey1	2 egg
Optional protein	0 - 2 protein	0 - 2 soybean		0 - 1 poultry or red meat or raw fish (cured or fresh), or egg
Optional vegetable	0 - 2 vegetable	0 - 2 vegetable	0 - 2 vegetable	0 - 2 vegetable		0 - 2 vegetable
Optional grain			0 - 2 grain
Optional fruit	0 - 1 fruit, 0L - 0.2L honey1		0 - 2 fruit, 0L - 0.2L honey1
Optional dairy						0 - 2 cheese

¹ Liquids can be added to the pot with a bucket (1L portions), jug (0.3L portions), or bowl (0.1L portions). Pick up the liquid container with your cursor and drag it over an empty spot in the cooking pot. Use to add one portion, to remove one portion.

Meal food values

The satiety received from eating meals is equal to the sum of its ingredients. The ingredients added to create the meal determine how much satiety of each class of nutrition the player receives. In addition, the food values of most ingredients are increased via cooking, as shown in the table below.

Pickled variants of listed ingredients can be used, but provide only their tooltip-listed food value, without gaining any bonus from meals.

Ingredients not listed in this table cannot be used in cooking pot meals.

Note: for every 100 satiation filled by consuming a meal, an additional 30 seconds passes before the player's satiety bar starts dropping again for any reason. Consuming a large meal can result in more than five minutes of completely free healing, sprinting, heavy armor wearing, or other strenuous tasks.

Protein	Satiety in a meal	Vegetable	Satiety in a meal	Grain	Satiety in a meal	Fruit	Satiety in a meal	Dairy	Satiety in a meal
Soybean	240	Field vegetable1 or olive	150	Flax grain	120	Blueberry, red currant, white currant or black currant	120	Blue cheese (slice)	200
Egg	200	Cassava	120	Rice grain	280	Tree fruits2 or pineapple slice	120	Cheddar (slice)	240
Poultry, cured or fresh	375	Pumpkin slice	180	Rye or spelt grain	240	Cranberries or saguaro fruit3	90
Redmeat, cured or fresh	420	Cabbage	450	Amaranth or cassava grain	240	Honey (0.2L)	80
		Mushroom3	120	Sunflower grain	240	Breadfruit	250
						Cherry or lychee	60

¹ Field vegetables include carrots, parsnips, onions, turnips, and bell peppers.
² Tree fruits include apples, mangoes, oranges, peaches, pears, and pomegranates.
³ Ingredients that restore player health when eaten raw, such as saguaro fruit, lose this benefit when cooked. However, cooking a poisonous mushroom does not remove its harmful effects - the meal will still damage the player!

Baking

See also: Bread and Pie

Baking is an advanced cooking method that revolves around dough, the creation of which requires some setup. A quern must be available, which requires metal tools to craft. Additionally, a clay oven should be set up for baking, as not all recipes can be baked in the firepit, and the results there are always subpar. Plus, a wooden bucket , a jug or a bowl is needed to be filled with water. Finally, a farm is required to consistently supply useful amounts of grain, as wild crops are nonrenewable, mature extremely slowly, and reset their growth after reaching maturity.

In return, baking is one of the best ways to process grains that exists in the game, with up to a five-fold yield multiplier compared to eating the raw grain.

To create dough , prepare flour by using a quern to grind grain, then mix the flour with water.

1. Open the quern GUI and add grain into the input slot on the left of the quern.
2. Hold interact on the top of the quern to grind the grain into flour, which will appear in the output slot on the right of the quern.
   During later stages of the game, a windmill may be used to drive the quern.
3. In the crafting grid, combine a bucket of water and flour to create dough. Each flour item will consume one unit of water from the bucket (1L).

Two foods can be baked at the moment: bread and pie . Both of them represent a significant advantage over consuming grain as porridge , and fully-filled pies can grant enormous nutrition with long spoilage times. Each serving of pie also halts the hunger meter for 30 seconds, greatly helping players with high hunger rates due to equipping heavy armor or offhand items.

Food Storage

Check the food preservation page to learn how to best store all those delicious meals!

Video Tutorials

Claypot Cooking (no real changes since version 1.12)