Want to turn Link into Hyrule’s best cook? Cooking in Breath of the Wild is the closest thing the game has to a potion shop, and it’s the reason you can climb frozen peaks, walk into volcanoes and tank Lynel hits. Here’s the full breakdown: how the cooking pot works, the recipes worth memorizing, and every elixir you can brew. To test a mix before you use up your ingredients, try our BOTW cooking simulator, or browse every dish in the BOTW recipes database.
How Cooking Works in BOTW
Grab up to five ingredients from your inventory, hold them over a lit cooking pot and drop them in. The pot decides what you get based on the mix. There’s no recipe book in Breath of the Wild, so the game won’t remember dishes for you. That’s what this page is for.
- Meals: made from fruit, mushrooms, vegetables, meat, seafood and extras like Rock Salt, Goat Butter or Hylian Rice. Cooking doubles the hearts each ingredient restores raw.
- Elixirs: need at least one critter (a frog, lizard or insect) plus at least one monster part.
- Fairy Tonic: cook a Fairy on its own and you get a tonic instead of a meal.
- Dubious Food: what you get from combos that don’t work, like a critter thrown in with regular food.
- Rock-Hard Food: toss in ore or gems like Amber, Flint or a Diamond and the meal fails completely.
Oh, and you can skip the pot for simple stuff: drop raw food next to a fire to roast it, or leave meat and fish in freezing areas to make frozen food.
The Golden Rules of Effects
Ingredients with an effect (Spicy, Chilly, Mighty and so on) pass it to the dish. Here’s how to stop wasting them:
- One effect per dish: mix two different effects, like Spicy and Sneaky, and they cancel out. Keep every effect ingredient on the same team.
- More of the same means longer and stronger: four Spicy Peppers beat one Spicy Pepper every time.
- Critical cooks: any dish has a chance to get a bonus when you hear a little jingle during the animation. It can add hearts, add five minutes, or raise the effect level.
- Blood Moon trick: cook between 11:30 PM and midnight on a Blood Moon night, right before the cutscene, and every dish gets a guaranteed bonus.
- Star Fragments and dragon parts: both give a 100% critical chance when you cook with them, and dragon parts make elixirs last much longer. (Pro tip: dragon parts are worth saving for your best elixirs.)
BOTW Recipes Worth Memorizing
Breath of the Wild has more than 100 named dishes, but you’ll lean on a small core. Here’s the cheat sheet:
| Dish | Ingredients | Why make it |
|---|---|---|
| Mushroom Skewer | Any mushrooms | Easiest effect dish in the game |
| Fried Wild Greens | Any vegetables | Endura Carrots make huge stamina meals |
| Simmered Fruit | Any fruit | Hearty Durians make big extra-heart dishes |
| Meat and Seafood Fry | Raw Meat or Raw Bird Drumstick plus any seafood | Solid early heart recovery |
| Salt-Grilled Fish | Any seafood plus Rock Salt | Simple fish dish, keeps fish effects |
| Fragrant Mushroom Sauté | Any mushroom plus Goron Spice | Quick and cheap |
| Cream of Vegetable Soup | Any vegetable, Fresh Milk, Rock Salt | Easy village cooking |
| Mushroom Risotto | Any mushroom, Hylian Rice, Goat Butter, Rock Salt | Filling and flexible |
| Meat Curry | Raw Meat, Hylian Rice, Goron Spice | Great heart value |
| Wildberry Crepe | Wildberry, Fresh Milk, Bird Egg, Tabantha Wheat, Cane Sugar | Gets a built-in heart bonus |
| Seafood Paella | Mighty or Armored Porgy, Hearty Blueshell Snail, Hylian Rice, Goat Butter, Rock Salt | One of the strongest heart dishes |
| Monster Cake | Monster Extract, Tabantha Wheat, Cane Sugar, Goat Butter | Needed for a Tarrey Town side quest |
Hearty Dishes
Hearty ingredients (Hearty Durian, Hearty Truffle, Hearty Radish, Hearty Bass, Hearty Salmon, Hearty Blueshell Snail) fully restore your hearts and add temporary yellow ones on top. Five of the same Hearty ingredient makes a monster boss-fight snack. Simmered Fruit with Hearty Durians is the classic.
Stamina Dishes
- Energizing: Stamella Shrooms, Staminoka Bass and Courser Bee Honey refill your stamina wheel mid-climb.
- Enduring: Endura Carrots and Endura Shrooms refill your wheel and add yellow extra stamina, capped at two extra wheels in BOTW. Fried Wild Greens made with Endura Carrots is the go-to.
Stamina food is the secret to Akkala’s tallest spires (think Zuna Kai in our Akkala shrines guide).
Every BOTW Elixir
Elixirs take the effect from the critter, so pick the bug or lizard first, then toss in any monster part. Here’s the full list:
| Elixir | Effect | Critters |
|---|---|---|
| Hearty Elixir | Full hearts plus extra | Hearty Lizard |
| Energizing Elixir | Restores stamina | Restless Cricket, Energetic Rhino Beetle |
| Enduring Elixir | Extra stamina | Tireless Frog |
| Spicy Elixir | Cold resistance | Summerwing Butterfly, Warm Darner |
| Chilly Elixir | Heat resistance | Winterwing Butterfly, Cold Darner |
| Electro Elixir | Shock resistance | Thunderwing Butterfly, Electric Darner |
| Fireproof Elixir | Flame protection | Smotherwing Butterfly, Fireproof Lizard |
| Hasty Elixir | Movement speed | Hightail Lizard, Hot-Footed Frog |
| Sneaky Elixir | Stealth | Sunset Firefly |
| Mighty Elixir | Attack up | Bladed Rhino Beetle |
| Tough Elixir | Defense up | Rugged Rhino Beetle |
Your best bet for Death Mountain is a Fireproof Elixir. Spicy food or a Spicy Elixir handles snowy peaks, while Chilly covers the Gerudo Desert by day.
BOTW Recipes FAQ
How many recipes are in Breath of the Wild?
There are more than 100 named dishes, plus elixirs, Fairy Tonic, Dubious Food and Rock-Hard Food. Exact counts differ between guides depending on how they group variants.
How do you make an elixir in BOTW?
Cook at least one critter, such as a butterfly, lizard or frog, with at least one monster part. The critter decides the elixir’s effect.
Why did I get Dubious Food?
Your ingredients didn’t form a recipe, usually because you mixed a critter or monster part with regular food. Dubious Food heals very little and has no effect.
Does cooking during a Blood Moon do anything?
Yes. Cooking between 11:30 PM and midnight on a Blood Moon night guarantees a critical bonus on every dish.
Nailed it? Stick to one effect per dish, stack the same ingredient, and save dragon parts for the elixirs that matter. Need a Monster Cake? Our Akkala guide covers the Tarrey Town quest that asks for one. Heading into the sequel next? Check out the Tears of the Kingdom recipe guide and our tips on the best TOTK recipes.
