The quick answer
Use a cooking pot with a learned recipe, its ingredients and enough crafting Stamina. Start with Veggie Mix or a recipe from Culinary: The Flavor of Sunset Glow. Recovery dishes restore health; buff dishes provide temporary stats. Vitality Food and Attack Food can be active together.
On this page
Make your first dish
- Find an interactable cooking pot or stove and open its cooking menu.
- Select a recipe you have learned and check its Cooking Level requirement.
- Inspect the ingredient quantities and Stamina cost before choosing a batch size.
- Craft the dish, then check the consumable in your bag for its actual effect and use conditions.
Character level, Cooking Level and recipe ownership are separate checks. Having the ingredients does not bypass a locked recipe. A recipe also unlocks a craft; it is not an unlimited supply of finished meals.
Three accessible recipe routes
| Dish | Ingredients | Recipe source |
|---|---|---|
| Veggie Mix | 2 Herb and 2 Mushrooms | Basic starting recipe. |
| Hotpot | 2 Herb and 2 Small Meat Chunks | Culinary: The Flavor of Sunset Glow. |
| Ultimate Stuffed Fish | 1 River Fish, 2 Herb and 1 Wild Fruits | Fishing Contest progression through Chu Shuiyang in Verdant Wilds. |
These are starter recovery options. Later fishing rewards, shops and encounters provide additional recipes, so choose a specific dish to work towards instead of expecting the pot itself to teach every recipe.
Separate recovery from pre-fight buffs
Read the item’s effect before using it. A recovery meal restores health, while a stat meal improves an attribute for a duration. A higher Cooking Level recipe can still be the wrong item if you need healing rather than attack.
July’s update split Buff Food into Vitality and Attack categories, allowing both effects and both Auto-Buff slots together.
Our recommendation is to check the active buff icons after entering the activity you intend to play. Mode restrictions matter: do not assume that an effect shown in the open world remains active in a trial. Use the dish’s current tooltip and the activity rules before consuming a rare meal.
Cook for the next session
Cooking spends the same crafting Stamina used by other professions. Make a small batch first and reserve enough for medicine or another item you actually need. A bag full of low-level recovery food can consume resources without improving your next fight.
For combat healing, also check your Medicine Chest setup. Food recipes do not increase the chest’s charge capacity, and upgrading the chest does not teach recipes.
What to read next
Common questions
Does every meal heal?
No. Some provide timed stat buffs. Read the effect before crafting or consuming it.
Why is a recipe still unavailable when I have its ingredients?
Check whether you learned the recipe and meet its Cooking Level requirement. Ingredient ownership alone does not unlock it.
Sources & verification
Source research is separate from in-game testing. Recommendations are identified as editorial advice.
- Official: Version 2.0 adjustments
Food category review.