It’s traditional in Zelda games to smash pots or cut down tall grass with your sword in order to refill your heart-themed health gauge. But in Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild Nintendo has done things a little bit differently. Replenishing your health is all about building up a Breath of the Wild recipe book.
In this new Hyrule, you’ll have to gain health by cooking a nice meal, hunting and gathering, or brewing up a nice elixir. But, in order to reap the most benefits from your cooking sessions, it’s helpful to have a recipe book to hand.
However, the game doesn’t actually have one to help you out. Luckily for you, we’ve spent hours at the cooking pot working out the various combinations to get you the best dinners. We’ve trawled the rivers, foraged in the forest and killed a lot of critters to work out how to make the best meals and elixirs.
Cooking Guide
In order to actually cook anything you’ll need to find a cooking pot in the game. There’s one by the Old Man in the Great Plateau, but you’ll also find them at stables, towns and some enemy outposts throughout the game.
Once you’ve found one, you’ll have to go into your inventory and hold any items that you want to combine into a meal. Then back out into the main world and stand by the cooking pot. You’ll be prompted to “tap A to cook”, so just stand back and watch those items bubble into a meal.
You can always check your cooked dish for the recipe in case you want a quick reminder of how you made it too.
There are different types of meals and Elixirs. Spicy ones will protect you from the cold, mighty ones will give you extra attack strength and energising ones will restore your stamina, for example. Just remember that you can only have one effect active at any one time, meaning if you eat a spicy meal straight after a mighty one, you’ll lose that attack bonus.
So when cooking remember not to mix in a stamella shroom with an endura shroom, because you’ll utilise neither of their stat boosting effects. Instead, mix several elements with the same boost type for maximum effect. For example, a stamella mushroom + staminoka bass = energising steamed fish dish with a stamina and health boost combo.
If you don’t accidentally follow a recipe, you’ll end up with what’s known as “dubious food”. It’ll still give you one heart, but Link won’t like it.
Breath of the Wild Elixirs
If you’re looking for an item to boost a specific element of Link’s attributes, the best way to do this is to create an Elixir. While a meal will boost both your health and your stats, Elixir will either do one or the other.
They’re a great way to give you a boost during the intense boss battles in Breath of the Wild when you have full health but need some electric protection for example.
Here’s a list of all the Elixirs you can make and the ingredients you’ll need to make them, but they’re basically monster parts + a critter of some kind.
Hearty Elixir
- Provides: extra hearts
- Requires: monster part + hearty animal (such as a hearty bass or hearty blueshell snail)
Energising Elixir
- Provides: stamina restoration
- Requires: monster part + energising animal (such as a bright-eyed crab or restless cricket)
Enduring Elixir
- Provides: additional stamina
- Requires: monster part + enduring animal (such as a tireless frog)
Fireproof Elixir
- Provides: protection against fire
- Requires: monster part + fireproof animal (such as a smotherwing butterfly or fireproof lizard)
Chilly Elixir
- Provides: protection against the cold
- Requires: monster part + chilly animal (such as a chillfin trout or winterwing butterfly)
Spicy Elixir
- Provides: protection against the heat
- Requires: monster part + spicy animal (such as a warm darner or summerwing butterfly)
Electro Elixir
- Provides: protection against electricity
- Requires: monster part + electro animal (such as a thunderwing butterfly or electric darner)
Hasty Elixir
- Provides: increases your movement speed
- Requires: monster part + hasty animal (such as a hot-footed frog or hightail lizard)
Sneaky Elixir
- Provides: increases your stealth
- Requires: monster part + sneaky animal (such as a sunset firefly or sneaky river snail)
Mighty Elixir
- Provides: increases your attack
- Requires: monster part + mighty animal (such as a mighty carp or mighty porgy)
Tough Elixir
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- Provides: increases your defence
- Requires: monster part + tough animal (such as an ironshell crab or armoured carp)
Breath of the Wild Recipe Book
There are actually a plethora of base Breath of the Wild recipes to unlock in the game, all giving you a variety of health-boosting effects. If you add in items with matching stat boosting effects, as we’ve outlined before, you will add a prefix to these meals for additional effects.
Just remember:
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- hearty = heart refills and/or additional hearts
- energising = stamina restoration
- enduring = extra stamina
- fireproof = flame guard
- chilly = heat resistance
- spicy = cold resistance
- electro = shock resistance
- hasty = movement speed up
- sneaky = improves stealth
- mighty = improves attack strength
- tough = improves defence
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Here’s the full list of base Breath of the Wild recipes:
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- Cakes = Tabantha wheat + cane sugar + goat butter + any carrot/any nut
- Carrot Stew = fresh milk + Tabantha wheat + goat butter + any carrot
- Clam Chowder = fresh milk + Tabantha wheat + goat butter + hearty blueshell snail
- Copious Fish Skewers = any variety of four fish
- Copious Fried Wild Greens = any four different vegetables, herbs or flowers
- Copious Meat Skewers = any four different meats together
- Copious Mushroom Skewers = any variety of four different mushrooms
- Copious Simmered Fruits = any four different fruits
- Crab Omelette with rice = Hylian rice + bird egg + rock salt + any crab
- Crab Omelette with rice = Hylian rice + bird egg + rock salt + any crab
- Crab Stir-Fry = any crab + Goron spice
- Cream of Mushroom Soup = Hylian rice + goat butter + rock salt + any mushroom + any vegetable, herb or flower
- Creamy Heart Soup = any radish + hydromelon + volfruit + fresh milk
- Creamy Meat Soup = fresh milk + rock salt + any vegetable, herb or flower + any meat
- Creme of Vegetable Soup = Hylian rice + goat butter + rock salt + any carrot or pumpkin
- Crepes = fresh milk + bird egg + Tabantha wheat + cane sugar (+ wildberry/honey)
- Curry Rice = Hylian rice + Goron spice
- Egg Pudding = fresh milk + bird egg + cane sugar
- Egg Tart = bird egg + Tabantha wheat + cane sugar + goat butter
- Fish and Mushroom Skewer = any fish + any mushroom
- Fish Skewer = any fishFragrant Mushroom Saute = any mushroom + Goron spice
- Fragrant Mushroom Saute = any mushroom + Goron spice
- Fried Bananas = mighty bananas + Tabantha milk + cane sugar
- Fried Egg and Rice = Hylian rice + bird egg
- Fried Wild Greens = any vegetable, herb or flower (+ any vegetable, herb or flower)
- Fruit and Mushroom Mix = any fruit + any mushroom
- Fruitcake = apple or wildberry + any fruit + Tabantha wheat + cane sugar
- Glazed Meat = any meat + courser bee honey
- Glazed Mushrooms = any mushroom + courser bee honey
- Glazed Seafood = any seafood + courser bee honey
- Glazed Veggies = any vegetable + courser bee honey
- Herb Saute = any vegetable, herb or flower + Goron spice
- Honey Candy = courser bee honey
- Honeyed Apple = apple + courser bee honeyHoneyed Fruits = any fruit + courser bee honey
- Honeyed Fruits = any fruit + courser bee honey
- Hot Buttered Apple = apple + goat butter
- Meat and Mushroom Skewer = any meat + any mushroom
- Meat and Seafood Fry = any seafood + raw meat/prime meat/gourmet meat OR bird drumstick/bird thigh/whole bird
- Meat Curry = raw gourmet meat/prime meat/meat + Hylian rice + Goron spice
- Meat Skewer = any meat
- Meat Stew = fresh milk + Tabantha wheat + goat butter + raw gourmet meat/prime meat/meat or raw bird thigh
- Meat Stuffed Pumpkin = fortified pumpkin + any meat
- Monster Cake = Tabantha wheat + cane sugar + goat butter + monster extract
- Monster Curry = Hylian rice + Goron spice + monster extract
- Monster Rice Balls = Hylian rice + rock salt + monster extract
- Monster Soup = fresh milk + Tabantha wheat + goat butter + monster extract
- Monster Stew = any meat + any seafood + monster extract
- Mushroom Omelette = any mushroom + bird egg + goat butter + rock salt
- Mushroom Skewer = any mushroom
- Omelette = bird egg
- Peppered Meat = any meat/any seafood + spicy pepper
- Pies = fortified pumpkin/any fruit/any meat/apple/any seafood/apple + Tabantha wheat + cane sugar + goat butter
- Pilafs = Hylian rice + bird egg + goat butter + raw whole bird/bird thigh/bird drumstick/Goron spice
- Porgy Meuniere = Tabantha wheat + goat butter + any porgy
- Poultry Curry = raw whole bird/bird thigh/drumstick + Hylian rice + Goron spice
- Pumpkin Stew = fresh milk + Tabantha wheat + goat butter + fortified pumpkin
- Rice Balls = Hylian rice + any meat/any fish/any mushroom/any vegetable, herb or flower
- Rice Bowls = Hylian rice + rock salt + raw gourmet meat/prime meat/meat or raw whole bird/bird thigh/bird drumstick
- Risottos = Hylian rice + goat butter + rock salt + hearty salmon/any crab/any mushroom/any carrot or pumpkin
- Rock-Hard Fruit = wood or any gemstone
- Salmon Meuniere = Tabantha wheat + goat butter + hearty salmon
- Salt-Grilled Fish = rock salt + any crab/any fishSalt-Grilled Greens = any vegetable, herb or flower + rock salt
- Salt-Grilled Greens = any vegetable, herb or flower + rock salt
- Salt-Grilled Meat = rock salt + raw gourmet meat/prime meat/meat or raw whole bird/bird thigh/bird drumstick
- Salt-Grilled Mushrooms = any mushroom + rock salt
- Sauteed Nuts = any nutSauteed Peppers = spicy peppers
- Sauteed Peppers = spicy peppers
- Seafood Curry = hearty blueshell snail or any porgy + Hylian rice + Goron spice
- Seafood Fried Rice = Hylian rice + rock salt + hearty blueshell crab or any porgy
- Seafood Meuniere = Tabantha wheat + goat butter + any seafood
- Seafood Paella = any porgy + hearty blueshell snail + Hylian rice + goat butter + rock salt
- Seafood Skewer = any crab or snail
- Simmered Fruit = any fruit
- Spiced Meat Skewers = Goron spice + raw gourmet meat/prime meat/meat
- Steamed Dishes = any vegetable, herb or flower + any meat/any fish/any mushroom/any fruit
- Vegetable Curry = any carrot or pumpkin + Hylian + Goron spice
- Vegetable Omelette = any mushroom + bird egg + goat butter + rock salt
- Veggie Cream Soup = fresh milk + rock salt + any carrot or pumpkin
- Warm Milk = fresh milkWheat Bread = Tabantha wheat + rock salt
- Wheat Bread = Tabantha wheat + rock salt