Cooking is an essential part of survival in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Link can whip up dishes that provide excellent buffs to make adventuring through Hyrule much easier. As players gather various materials and ingredients on their travels, they can try different combinations to produce more potent dishes and elixirs that grant Link a significant advantage while exploring harsh climates, fighting tough monsters, and completing challenging quests. However, while there are 78 base recipes that players can create in Breath of the Wild, the game also grants a lot of freedom when it comes to which ingredients are used, leaving players to figure out the best recipes based on trial and error.
Meals are one of the most effective ways to replenish Link's hearts and stamina in BOTW, and eating food will recover a certain amount of hearts depending on the ingredients used. Many ingredients will also provide a specific buff when cooked, such as Sneaky foods that give Link a stealth boost or Mighty foods that improve Link's attack power. In addition, critters like frogs, bugs, and lizards can be combined with monster parts to create potent elixirs, which provide a buff without replenishing any hearts. Each dish or elixir can offer either a low-level, mid-level, or high-level buff that can last anywhere from 1 minute to 30 minutes. However, a dish can only provide one buff at a time, and combining ingredients with different types of buffs will cancel out any effects. Players can also wind up with Dubious Food if they combine food with elixir ingredients, cook monster parts or critters on their own, or cook a spice without any food to go with it.
However, while cooking in Breath of the Wild can be mystifying at times as the game leaves players to figure out the best combinations of ingredients on their own, there are many ways to increase Link's meals' quality. For example, cooking with more buffing ingredients will increase the effect of the dish, whereas cooking with more meat will increase the amount of hearts the dish recovers. When it comes to making elixirs, using more monster parts will increase the duration of the buff. Since only five ingredients can be cooked at a time, players will have to balance their meals and elixirs according to their adventuring needs or make a variety of dishes with varying effects to cover all of their bases. Players can also cook with special ingredients to give their meals some additional bonuses.
Cooking With Fairies For More Hearts In BOTW
Breath of the Wild's Fairies can be used to create Fairy Tonic, a simple heart-recovery elixir that can become extremely potent if more Fairies are used to make it. However, Fairies can also be cooked into meals to dramatically increase the amount of hearts they replenish. Even simple dessert dishes can become powerful heart-recovery meals with the help of a few Fairies. However, cooking with a Fairy when making an elixir will always result in a Fairy Tonic regardless of the other ingredients used, potentially wasting some good critters. Fortunately, the Fairies do not actually get cooked into the dishes themselves and instead seem to help Link cook by adding Fairy dust to the dish instead, flying away unharmed once the cooking is done.
Cooking with Monster Extract In BOTW
Monster Extract is an ingredient that players can purchase from Kilton's shop, Fang and Bone, which can be found outside most of Breath of the Wild's major cities at night. While Kilton doesn't accept Rupees as currency at his shop, he'll trade Link monster parts in exchange for his own currency, Mon, which Link can use to buy Monster Extract, as well as a variety of weapons masks, and armor. In addition, Monster Extract can be cooked into both dishes and elixirs for some unique bonuses.
Cooking with Monster Extract can be unpredictable in Breath of the Wild, resulting in random bonuses that can either improve the dish's quality or diminish its effects. For example, it can increase the number of hearts recovered by 3 or create a dish that only recovers 1/4 of a heart regardless of the other ingredients used. It can also increase or decrease the potency level of a dish by one at random. However, cooking dishes with monster extract will always produce a meal or elixir that has an effect duration of either 1 minute, 10 minutes, or 30 minutes, giving players a chance to cook meals with the maximum effect duration if they're lucky.
Cooking With Dragon Parts In BOTW
Unlike most monster parts, Dragon parts are considered a seasoning according to Breath of the Wild's cooking logic, and players can use them to increase the duration of both meals and elixirs. Players can get Dragon parts by tracking down one of the three Dragons that can be seen flying around Hyrule—Dinraal, Naydra, and Farosh—and shooting them with an arrow. Shooting a specific part of their body will cause one of four parts to fall: shooting the foot will cause a Claw to fall, shooting the mouth will cause a Fang to fall, shooting the horn will cause a Shard of Horn to fall, and hitting anywhere else will earn players a Scale.
Each type of Dragon part will increase the duration of a buff for a certain amount of time. For example, scales increase the duration of a buff by 1:30 minutes, Claws grant an increase of 3:30 minutes, Fangs grant an increase of 10-30 minutes, and Shards of Horn will increase the duration of the dish's effect to the maximum of 30 minutes. Combined with potent ingredients, Dragon Parts can create the best dishes in Breath of the Wild, resulting in long-lasting buffs that give players plenty of time to take down a tough foe or make their way through an area with a harsh climate without taking damage.
Cooking During Blood Moon in BOTW
When cooking in Breath of the Wild, players occasionally achieve a critical success, which provides a random bonus to the dish, such as more hearts, higher potency, or longer duration. However, cooking during the Blood Moon guarantees critical success, allowing players to churn out some incredibly powerful meals if they time their cooking well. Players will be able to get the critical success cooking bonus on the night of the Blood Moon from 11:30 pm until midnight. Blood Moons can be tricky to catch since they don't happen at consistent intervals, but players can speak to Hino at Dueling Peaks Stable to find out what the current moon phase is and whether the Blood Moon is will happen that night.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is available on Nintendo Switch.