In The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, cooking is one of the most important things to learn about. Not only does cooked food restore your health, but you can also make a variety of meals and elixirs that provide buffs and bonuses to aid you in your journey through Hyrule.

• How to Cook in Tears of the Kingdom
• Buff Types
• How to Balance the Best Ingredients
• The Best Meal Recipes
• The Best Elixir Recipes
• How to Increase Your Hearts

How to Cook in Tears of the Kingdom

Cooking is a simple process. When you have found a cooking pot, either out in the wild or by deploying a Zonai Portable Pot, just follow these steps:

• Open your inventory, select an ingredient, and choose to hold it.
• Add more ingredients, up to a total of five.
• Exit the inventory and use your ingredients on the cooking pot.

You can create both food and drink through cooking. Food-based meals are created using meat, vegetables, fruits, and other edible plants. Meals will restore your health, and provide a useful buff if prepared with the correct ingredients. If you just want a buff, then you can create an elixir drink using monster parts, bugs, and critters.

Buff Types

There are several different buff types in Tears of the Kingdom. If your meal or elixir contains one of these words, they will provide the associated effect.

• Hearty - grants temporary bonus hearts
• Enduring - grants temporary bonus stamina
• Energizing - restores stamina
• Sunny - repairs broken hearts
• Mighty - increases attack
• Tough - increases defense
• Hasty - increases movement speed
• Sneaky - increases stealth
• Sticky - increases grip
• Chilly - increases heat resistance
• Spicy - increases cold resistance
• Fireproof - increases fire resistance
• Electro - increases shock resistance
• Warding - increases gloom resistance
• Bright - causes a glow effect

To tell if an ingredient will provide a certain quality, just look at its name. Many will include the associated buff title (i.e. Hearty Truffle) or is synonymous with the quality (i.e. Spicy Pepper).

How to Balance the Best Ingredients

Cooking is a science, and you’ll want to mix the right ingredients to create your desired outcome. While often you can just throw things into a pot and get a helpful dish, you should follow these tips to get the best results.

• Do not mix buff ingredients. They will cancel each other out and provide no buff at all.

• Do not mix food and elixir ingredients. This will create gross food that’s pretty much worthless.

• Add more buff ingredients to increase the buff. For instance, five Spicy Peppers cooked together will provide a longer duration of cold resistance than just two or three.

• Add more basic meat, fruit, or vegetables to recover more health. This will mean less space in the pot for buff ingredients, though, so balance according to your needs.

• Elixirs provide better buffs than food, but cannot replenish health. If you just need the buff, then four ingredients in an elixir is more effective than four in a meal.

The Best Recipes - Meals

These are the best meal recipes we've found so far. They are all made of a combination of meats, fruits, vegetables, and other seasonings found around Hyrule. Most will replish your health, and many will provide useful buffs.

Best Health Recovery Recipes

Hearty Mushroom Skewer

• Effect: recovers all hearts and provides one temporary heart
• Ingredient needed: Hearty Truffle
• Ingredient location: Hearty Truffles are found in caves all around Hyrule Field and West Necluda. One can reliably be found in eastern Central Hyrule, in a shallow cave beneath a fortress to the east of Passeri Greenbelt.

Just one truffle is needed to make this fantastic meal. You can occasionally find a Big Hearty Truffle, which will provide an extra four temporary hearts. Other useful full recovery ingredients include Hearty Radish (try searching the Sokkala Sky Archipelago in Akkala Sky) and the rare Hearty Salmon (find some in the waters below the Flight Range in Herba's Dronoc's Pass).

Alternative: For quick health recovery without the need for rare ingredients, cook five of any flower or herb to create Fried Wild Greens which restore 10 hearts. You can also cook up a mix of raw meat, mushrooms, and fish for a similar health boost.

Best Stamina Recipes

Enduring Fried Wild Greens

• Effect: Recovers four hearts, fully recovers stamina, and provides 1/3rd bonus stamina wheel
• Ingredient needed: Endura Carrot
• Ingredient location: One Endura Carrot can be reliably found in Central Hyrule, beneath the cherry blossom tree to the north of Yamijo Shrine. A group of three also sprout on the plateau to the east of the Horse God Bridge in the south of Faron.

Just one Endura Carrot is needed to make this stamina-boosting meal. Always cook Endura Carrots one at a time, as two cooked together provide less benefit than two cooked separately.

Alternative: Since Endura Carrots are rare, use the more readily available Stamella Mushrooms (commonly found in West Necluda and Lanayru Great Spring) for an easier to make but less effective stamina boost. Cook them on their own or mix with any meat for an Energizing skewer.

Best Glow Recipe

Bright Mushroom Skewers

• Effect: Makes Link glow in the dark, recovers hearts
• Ingredient needed: Brightcap
• Ingredient location: Found in caves around Hyrule. Try the Hebra Mountains, Central Hyrule, West Necluda, or East Necluda.

Each Brightcap will restore one heart and provide two minutes of glow, so cook more mushrooms together for increased glow duration.

Alternative: Prepare a dish with Glowing Cave Fish, which can occasionally be found in caves around Central Hyrule.

Best Broken Heart Recovery Recipe

Sunny Steamed Meat

• Effect: Repairs broken hearts, recovers hearts
• Ingredients needed: Sundelion, Raw Meat
• Ingredient locations: Sundelion grows all across the fields of Central Hyrule and Eldin Canyon, as well as on many Sky Islands. Hunt any land animal or bird for the meat.

Each Sundelion repairs three broken hearts, while each raw meat will heal two hearts. For full recovery of six broken hearts, use two Sundelions and three Raw Meat.

Alternative: You can cook Sundelion on its own to create Sunny Fried Wild Greens, but this meal will only repair broken hearts, not heal them.

Best Gloom Resistance Recipe

Warding Dark Stew

• Effect: Increases Gloom Resistance, recovers hearts
• Ingredients needed: Dark Clump, Raw Meat, any fish
• Ingredient locations: You can trade 10 Poes (the little blue spirits found in The Depths) for one Dark Clump at the statue found in Robbie’s workshop at Lookout Landing. Hunt any land animal or bird for the meat, and any fish will work.

This meal will replenish hearts and provides low-level gloom protection, which will allow you to walk through gloom puddles for longer before your hearts begin to break.

Alternative: If you don't have any fish to hand, you can create a less-effective Warding Meat Skewer with just a Dark Clump and some Raw Meat. Mix the clump with Hylian Rice and Rock Salt to make Dark Rice Balls.

Best Increased Attack Recipe

Mighty Simmered Fruit

• Effect: Increases attack power, recovers hearts
• Ingredient needed: Mighty Bananas
• Ingredient location: Along the southern edge of East Necluda. Try Lake Floria or Eventide Island.

Cooking up a full batch of five Mighty Bananas will create a meal that restores five hearts and increases your attack power for just over four minutes. If you only need power for a quick battle, use less bananas for a shorter duration.

Alternative: Mighty Thistles can be found near the Mighty Banana trees, and can be used to make Mighty Fried Wild Greens. This meal does increase attack, but for a shorter duration and without the heart restoration.

Best Increased Defense Recipe

Tough Mushroom Skewers

• Effect: Increases defense, recovers hearts
• Ingredient needed: Ironshroom
• Ingredient location: East Necluda

Ironshrooms increase your defense, but you’ll need quite a few for long-term protection. Just a couple cooked together will provide one minute and 40 seconds of increased defense, enough for a small battle.

Best Cold Resistance Recipe

Spicy Sautéed Peppers

• Effect: Increases cold resistance, recovers hearts
• Ingredient needed: Spicy Peppers
• Ingredient location: Great Sky Island, Hyrule Field, Gerudo Desert

Spicy Peppers are found in plentiful amounts, so cook them in batches of five to create a dish that provides 12 minutes and 30 seconds of low-level cold resistance.

Alternative: Cook dishes with Sunshrooms, Sizzlefin Trout, or Warm Safflina for a similar effect. All three can be found in the Eldin Canyon.

Best Increased Stealth Recipe

Sneaky Mushroom Skewers

• Effect: Increases stealth, restores hearts
• Ingredient needed: Silent Shrooms
• Ingredient location: West Necluda, Akkala Highlands

Cook five Silent Shrooms together and you’ll make a health-restoring meal that will also provide a whole 10 minutes of increased stealth. Throw fewer shrooms in the pot if you only need to sneak for a few minutes.

Alternative: Make Sneaky Fried Wild Greens using Blue Nightshade, which can be found in Great Hyrule Forest and West Necluda. Five Blue Nightshade will make Sneaky Wild Fried Greens, which provides 10 minutes of stealth boost but no health restoration.

The Best Recipes - Elixirs

Brewing elixirs is a little different to cooking meals. For a basic elixir you must combine a critter with a monster part. Any monster part will be fine but the critter provides the buff, so it is much more effective to use two, three, or even four critters to create a long-lasting elixir.

Below are the most useful elixirs we've discovered so far. Our example images are based on a recipe of one critter and one Bokoblin Horn.

Best Stamina Elixir

Hasty Elixir

• Effect: Increases movement speed
• Ingredients needed: Hot-Footed Frog, any monster part
• Ingredient location: Hot-Footed Frogs are rare, and usually found near water. Try the small lake in Hyrule Ridge, east of Irch Plain, or the banks of Nabi Lake in West Necluda.

Best Slip Resistance Elixir

Sticky Elixir

• Effect: Increases slip resistance
• Ingredients needed: Sticky Lizard, any monster part
• Ingredient location: Sticky Lizards can commonly be found in caves across Hyrule. Sticky Frogs can also be used, which can be found across East Necluda.

Best Glow Elixir

Bright Elixir

• Effect: Makes Link glow in the dark
• Ingredients needed: Deep Firefly, any monster part
• Ingredient location: Deep Fireflies can easily be found across The Depths.

Best Stealth Elixir

Sneaky Elixir

• Effect: Increases stealth
• Ingredients needed: Sunset Firefly, any monster part
• Ingredient location: Look out for green glowing Sunset Fireflies during the evening or at night, usually around trees or meadows.

Best Cold Resistance Elixir

Spicy Elixir

• Effect: Increases cold resistance
• Ingredients needed: Warm Darner, any monster part
• Ingredient location: The dragonfly-like Warm Darners can be found around the Akkala Highlands or Faron Grasslands.

Best Stamina Elixir

Energizing Elixir

• Effect: Restores stamina
• Ingredients needed: Restless Cricket, any monster part
• Ingredient location: Restless Crickets can be found hiding in almost any grassy area, and so are common in Hyrule Field. Use your sword to cut the long grass and be prepared to catch any hiding crickets.

Best Fireproof Elixir

Fireproof Elixir

• Effect: Flame Guard
• Ingredients needed: Fireproof lizard, any monster part
• Ingredient location: Fireproof Lizards are native to the Eldin Region and don’t go beyond the borders, so you’ll need to search the Canyon and Mountains regions. Beedle, the trader at Woodland Stable, also sells these lizards.