Credits to the francs and beans who originally posted this list on Reddit!
Over the past few weeks I had made some comments in various posts about how useless I felt cooking recipes were in general. I decided to take a closer look at them to see which ones are the best. I think we’re swimming in too many mediocre recipes or recipes that do the same thing as 4 or 5 others and this wall of recipes, so to speak, turns off a lot of people. Let’s hope that the following compendium of the “best” recipes and the ones that are easiest to gather for the ingredients will be useful for players. After buying some recipes from the Whitespring seller, I think I now have most of the cooking recipes, but I’m sure I’m missing some that are just world drops.
Food recipes of the same type usually do not stack each other. Foods that give melee damage bonus are stacked against each other. I made 4 of the 5 types of melee damage foods and they were all stacked to give a huge +45% damage bonus. However, other foods that give bonuses do not accumulate. I tried this with XP bonus foods and healthy food and in those cases the last item you eat overwrites the effects and timer of the previous one you ate, so be careful not to overwrite something that lasts 60 minutes with something that only lasts 30 minutes. Recipes that do different things DO pile up. Just like XP bonus and melee damage bonus will work at the same time from two different recipes.
However, food recipes are stacked with bobbleheads. I tried this on the bobblehead leader and the food that gives bonus xp and the effects stacks. Based on this, I would think that if there are other bobbleheads that have the same effects as various recipes, those effects will also add up.
The following list does not contain any recipes that simply increase stats such as strength or luck. From what I’ve seen, there is no food or drink that increases a statistic more than 3 points. There are many variations in foods that increase the statistics, so I didn’t mind trying to track them.
Before giving the list, I would like to mention the simple food and drink that simply satisfies the food/hunger. I think we’ve all been creatures of convenience most of the time, as we could cook what we have on hand, regardless of what you do, as long as it satisfies hunger and thirst. The simplest recipes to satisfy any of the requirements are those with a single ingredient. Because of the hassle of even gathering ingredients, I prefer to simply rely on canned dog food and purified water over prepared food/drinks. Both items satisfy more thirst and hunger than simple recipes. Recipes that satisfy much more than purified water or canned dog food ALWAYS require hard-to-find ingredients or ingredients that are so far apart that you have to travel fast to get to them, so I always ignore anything that requires, for example, things like any radscorpion ingredients, melon flowers, Scorchbeast’s body parts, etc, etc
. etc. All that
said, I make exceptions for recipes that satisfy BOTH thirst and hunger and I am inclined to prefer those that satisfy thirst more than hunger, since we are thirsty more often than hungry. So if I’m running out of canned dog food or purified water, I’m left with things like corn soup that satisfies 12% hunger and 18% thirst. Since we can grow corn in our camps, this is really the only one I make, although in the field I could make a brain mushroom soup or soot flower herb paste or similar, as they also give the ratio of 12/18 and do not require more than one ingredient.
Another problem with making recipes more esoteric is that when you travel fast, the items you pick, such as berries, flowers, or meat you pick, will degrade more quickly. So if you decide to make the weird recipe, make sure you make as few jumps as possible to get the ingredients. Cooked food ALWAYS degrades more slowly even with multiple fast travel hops, although I’ve had a couple of surprises finding a pile that suddenly went too fast, but this doesn’t happen often.
In general, food weighs twice as much as water, but we need it less so you can carry less dog food than water. Foods that weigh a pound or more (I have Thru-Hiker level 1) I do my best to avoid them.
The following list has
food and beverage recipes that: increasing melee damage gives
- instant AP refills of various large amounts
- gives a bonus to XP
- increases
- regens health over time
- critical damage
resistance to damage
foods that increase
I decided to leave out recipes that give small increases to rad resistance and those that increase energy resistance. Foods that increase rad resistance are small effects compared to rad shield, rad-x, and diluted rad-x. I didn’t try it, but I imagine the food voucher will accumulate with rad-x and its variants. Foods that increase energy resistance seem to be a rare situation, so I don’t worry about them. Perhaps in the future DLC content we will need it more.
For the list below, I only mention the items you need to gather. I guess you already have salt, pepper, sugar and spices on hand. If not, you need to pick up those things every time you see them. All weights listed are for Thru-Hiker level 1.
—————————————————————————-
Recipes that increase
melee damage Bright meat fillet + 10% melee damage, lasts 30 minutes, weighs 1.05, requires 1 bright meat Mutant hound chops + 10% melee damage, lasts 30 minutes (?), weighs 0.7, requires 1
Yao Guai Ribs mutant hound meat + 10% melee damage, lasts 30
minutes (?), weighs 1.05, requires 1 meat of guai
Yao Guai
Roast +15
% melee damage, lasts 60 minutes (?), weighs 0.7, requires 2 guai yao meat and 2 mutant fruit hound stew
+ 15% melee damage, lasts 60 minutes (?), weighs 0.7, requires 2 mutant hound meat and 2 starry berries
My opinion is that although it weighs more and does not give as much advantage, the bright beef steak is the one. In the higher-level areas, bright meat is easy to find. Unless you want to take the time to try to gather enough yao guai beef to last for several hours of playtime, I think Glowing Meat Steak is the easiest to gather. That said, there is always a bear in the Philipi cemetery in Ash Heap. It reappears pretty quickly, but I think you can jump to the server to get a faster one.
—————————————————————————-
Recipes that give AP refills
I’ve rarely wished my AP could instantly refill out of burned-beast fights, but if you do, these foods are for you
.
Tarberry Juice refills 120
AP, weighs 0.35, requires 1 tarberry Mud Cookie refill 180 AP, weighs 0.7, requires 1
Blackwater Brew, 1 Mireluk egg, 2 razorgrain
Sweet Blackberry Tea refill 200 AP, weighs 0.35, requires 2
starlight berries and 2 blackberries Blackberry Honey Crisp refill 300 AP, weighs 0.18, requires 2
razors, 3 royal jellies, 3
Sweet Roll blackberries refills 300 AP, weighs 0.18, requires 3 sugar pumps Sunshine Oil refills 400 AP, weighs 0.7
,
requires 3 blight, 1 bright blood, 1 sugar bomb
None of the
above are particularly easy to do in the blink of an eye unless you’re putting away any box of Sugar Bomb you find. However, some sellers sell them. If you want to run to gather ingredients, sweet blackberry tea and sun oil might be the two easiest to make. If you have spent any time around Morganton, then you know where the starlight berries are, not that they are everywhere. Tars can be found in containers, some vendors and growing in the water around Watoga or other random bodies of standing water. Mirelurk eggs are NOT that common. Good luck finding royal jelly. As far as I know, it only falls on the big bee that can be found, among other random places, at the Seneca Rocks Visitor Center. It’s considered a junk item, so be careful not to throw it away! Blight is not so hard to find. Go to Welch train station and then run behind the house that has the supervisor’s stash. There should be 3 growing on logs right there. There are also another 5-7 on the way to the Red Rocket. At the billboard sign on the right of the road, continue up the hill on the right and there is plenty up there.
—————————————————————————-
Recipes that give Damage Resist Cranberry
Jam +10 resist, weighs 0.7, lasts 60 minutes, requires 2 carrot flowers and 2 sick blueberries Mirelurk Jerky +15 resists, weighs 0.7, lasts 60 minutes,
requires 2 Blight (see above for easy to know where to get them) and 2 Mirelurk Meat Limt Bean Puree +15 resists, weighs 0.35, lasts 60
minutes,
requires 2 slime beans and 2 tato
I think it’s easy to see which of the above is the easiest to make AND gives the most resistance: Mashed slime bean. Both ingredients are found in Flatwoods. Limt Bean is on the right side of the church and near the trailer on the Red Rocket. There are a lot of tatos on the ground next to the always dead Brahman. Since they last 1 hour, you really only need a few of these, but if you want a bunch of friends, only jump to the server once or twice to gather enough for lots of them. If you want Mirelurk Jerky mirelurks can be easily found around the large lake near the dam and steel plant in Ash Heap. I don’t have the advantage of getting extra meat, but once around that lake I got 14 meats. In another race I got less.
—————————————————————————-
Foods that give
XP a bonus
It is good that we have so many things that will increase XP, you can eat food to increase it, use the leading bobblehead and get the well-rested bonus to get a good boost to XP
. Cranberry juice 2% bonus, lasts 30 minutes, weighs 0.35, requires 1 sick cranberry Cranberry
Cobbler 5% XP
bonus, lasts 30 minutes, weighs 0.35, requires 1 normal cranberry Tasty squirrel stew 10
% XP bonus, lasts 60 minutes, weighs 0.7, requires
2 pieces of squirrel and 2 tatos Cranberry Relish
10% XP bonus + 200AP recharge, lasts 60 minutes, weighs 0.7, requires 2 blueberries and 2 pumpkins (recipe at the seller at Whitespring Resort)
EDIT: People keep losing the TLDR at the bottom where I mention Cranberry Relish so I guess
I’ll
move it here:
Cranberry
Relish is a rarity in the sense that it gives bonuses to two things I’m tracking here: XP bonus and AP recharge. It gives an instant recharge of 200AP and also gives a 10% bonus to XP for one hour. Since it only requires 2 blueberries and 2 pumpkins, I think this is the easiest one to prepare. Blueberries can be easily found in the northwest of Cranberry Bog and pumpkins can be grown in your camp. If you’re having trouble finding pumpkins to grow, you can find some, among other places, in Raleigh’s bunker at The Mire.
Regarding the other XP bonus foods, unfortunately tasty squirrel stew, which lasts an hour, won’t be something you can probably do in quantity of more than 1 or 2 unless you have the advantage of finding extra meat. Finding squirrels in the wild is rare, although some have reported that they have a place to find them easily. I have found 2 at once and I have found 3 at once, but never again. I have seen them in the forest, heaps of ashes in the wooded areas and in the wild division. They never seem to be in the same place twice (unlike chickens). Luckily, the food vendor in Whitespring sells some. I’ve never seen more than 2 and sometimes only 1. Other sellers can also sell them and occasionally I will find them in containers. If you just want to avoid that altogether, then blueberries, both sick and regular, are easy to find around Watoga. Regular blueberries are near Sundew Grove.
—————————————————————————-
Foods that give a healing effect over time
Melon juice ~ 1HP / 2 seconds, lasts 30 minutes, weighs 0.35, requires 1 melon Bloodbug Pepper Steak, presumably 2 HP / sec, lasts 60 min (?), weighs 0.35, requires 2 blood bug meat and 2
blood leaf swamp tofu soup, presumably 2 HP / sec,
lasts 60 minutes (?), weighs 0.35, requires 2 pumpkins and 2 swamp
plants Tato
dulce stew, 2 HP/sec, lasts 60 minutes, weighs 0.7, requires 2 mutfruit and 2 tato
As with XP bonus foods, the best option is clear: Sweet Tato Stew. What can be better than the ability to grow the necessary ingredients in your own camp? The regen is incredibly good at 2HP/sec (out of action only, I think) and lasts an hour! Melon juice would also be easy to make, as you can also grow them. Blood bug meat is too hard to find and good luck to find that **** swamp plant. Are there even 2 in the game world??? All these recipes say that the regen is 0.08 in the case of melon juice and 0.25 in the case of others. I don’t know what the hell that means. I have listed regeneration/real time above.
—————————————————————————-
Foods that give a bonus to
critical damage Firecracker Berry Juice +10% critical damage, lasts 30 minutes, weighs 0.35, requires 1 firecracker berry Sookie thistle tea + 20% critical damage, lasts 60 minutes (?), weighs 0.35, requires 2 thistles Sweet
mutfruit tea + 20% critical damage, lasts 60 minutes, weighs 0.35, requires
2
mutfruit and 2 starlight berries Blight
soup +20% critical damage, lasts 60 minutes (?), weighs 0.35, requires 1 blight
Among this group of recipes, the easiest for me to obtain ingredients seems to be Firecracker Berry Juice if you know the convenient locations of some of these berries (although the effect lasts only 30 minutes). However, if you follow the instructions I listed above to find the blight, you can muster enough blight to have enough juice to last you several hours (assuming the juice doesn’t degrade and disappear). For me, it’s too complicated to gather more than 4-6 starlight berries to make the sweet mutfruit tea recipe available to me and even if you could find several thistles, the recipe is annoying to me right now (I can’t prepare it even if I have the ingredients) and presumably it’s annoying for each one. The only place to find thistle is at Ash Heap in the immediate west of the water park (like just outside the park grounds) and at Willard Corporate Housing, which is right next to the park. I know the exact location of only 4 floors, but there may be others in the area. In any case, it takes 2 of them to make tea, so using this drink would not be optimal.
—————————————————————————-
In the closing (the
TLDR version) based on the effectiveness of each of these types of recipes and the ease of gathering the ingredients (see above for things you may not know how to easily gather) the recommendations for each group would be the following recipes:
Shiny meat fillet + 10% melee damage, lasts 30 minutes, weighs 1.05, requires 1 bright meat
Sweet Blackberry Tea refills 200 AP, weighs 0.35, requires 2 Starlight berries and 2 blackberries (or Sunshine oil)
Slime bean puree +15 resists, weighs 0.35, lasts 60 minutes, requires 2 limo beans and 2 tato Blueberry
seasoning 10% XP bonus + 200AP refill, lasts 60 minutes, weighs 0.7, requires 2 blueberries and 2 pumpkins (recipe at the vendor at Whitespring Resort)
Tato sweet stew, 2 HP/
sec, lasts 60 minutes, weighs 0.7, requires 2 mufrutas and 2 tato
Blight +20% critical damage, lasts 60 minutes (?), weighs 0.35, requires 1 blight
