Cooking

For a list of all requirements and unlockables within the Cooking skill, see Cooking/Level up table.

This article has a calculator here.

Calculators determine experience and costs based on real-time prices from the Grand Exchange Market Watch.

This article has skill training guides: Members / Ironman / Free-to-play

Skill training guides document optimal XP/hour methods to train a skill, as well as alternate passive or less expensive methods.

Cooking
Released		4 January 2001 (Update)
Also called		Cook
Members		No
Type		Production
Statistics
Players with 99		393,824 as of 1 November 2024 - update
Players with 200M XP		3392 as of 7 October 2024 - update

Cooking is a skill that allows raw food to be made edible, healing hitpoints when eaten. To do this, the player uses a raw, cookable food on a range or fire.

Depending on the player's Cooking level, food will sometimes burn, becoming unusable. Ranges burn food less often than fires at the same level, and some foods can only be cooked on ranges. Some ranges, such as the one in the Lumbridge Castle or in the Hosidius Kitchen, burn food less often than a normal range.

Cooking goes hand-in-hand with the Fishing skill as the player can cook the fish they obtain. If no range is nearby, having an axe and tinderbox on hand can allow the player to cut down a tree and make a fire to cook the fish on.

By levelling Cooking, the player is able to cook better foods such as swordfish, shark, pies, and pizzas. If a player achieves 32 cooking, they can access the Cook's Guild near the Grand Exchange.

	Cooking level up - normal
The music that plays when levelling up.
File:Cooking level up (normal).ogg

	Cooking level up - with unlocks
The music that plays when levelling up and unlocking new content.
File:Cooking level up (with unlocks).ogg

How to cook

Cooking is known as one of the fastest skills to train, as players can cook in many different ways as well as being able to simply buy their raw food items from the Grand Exchange.

Before the Grand Exchange was created, the bulk of players usually fished and then cooked their catches. Generally a player who is manually gathering their raw items will cook their food items on a local campfire created through the Firemaking skill near where they are gathering, or take the items they have obtained to a range and cook there.

Ranges (which provide a lower burn rate) can be easily located and are almost always well labelled on the map as a cooking pan () icon. There are other assorted things that a player can cook on, seen in NPC camps, or on iron spits. It is important to note that only meat, fish and stew can be cooked on an open fire. Foods like bread, cake, and pie must be cooked on a proper range, Most of these food items will generate an error message if the player attempts to cook it improperly while others, such as raw potatoes, will simply all burn. Raw foods loosely related to the Hunter skill, such as raw beast meat, raw chompy, and rabbit, must be cooked on an iron spit.

To actually cook something, players have to "use" their raw food item on a range or a campfire. If they have more than one food item of the same kind in their inventory, a picture of the food item will appear in the dialogue box. Ranges can also be left-clicked to automatically bring up this interface. The player can right-click on the picture and select how many they want to cook, or left click to cook all of them (default option).

If this is your first time cooking follow these steps for maximum effect:

• Cook on the Lumbridge Castle range after completion of Cook's Assistant, as there is a bank directly upstairs and the range offers a lower burn rate than other ranges.
• Cooking at the Rogues' Den has a permanent fire and is directly next to a banker (members only).
• If you do not want to spend much money in this skill, you can kill cows and cook the raw meat on the range or a fire.

Burning food

Main article: Burnt food

As players train Cooking, they will sometimes fail to cook something at random, resulting in no Cooking experience gained. It is normal when you first begin training this skill to burn nearly anything you cook on a fire or range, but as you gain more levels the burn ratio of food decreases until you reach a level where you can no longer burn them.

A table of the levels where cooking food items becomes successful 100% of the time can be found here.

A useful item to equip while training are cooking gauntlets. Wearing these gloves while training Cooking will cut down time and money due to less food being burnt. This is useful for food such as sharks where even at 99 you have the chance to burn them; with the cooking gauntlets equipped, you will stop burning sharks at level 94. Alternatively, cooking food while wearing a cooking cape will ensure that no food may be burned by the player.

All ranges have a lower burn rate than fires, but there are also special ranges which offer decreased burn rates. These can work in conjunction with the cooking gauntlets. Unless the player is cooking something with 100% success rate, it is recommended to use these where possible to decrease the amount of burnt food. The recommended range to cook on for members is in the Hosidius Kitchen, usable after completion of the Easy Kourend & Kebos Diary. This range grants a 5% increased chance to successfully cook food (10% if Elite Kourend & Kebos Diary is completed) and is very close to a bank chest.

The range in Lumbridge Castle also has a lower burn rate for some foods, usable after completing the Cook's Assistant quest. The nearest bank to this range (for members) is the Culinaromancer's Chest in the cellar, which requires the first part of the Recipe for Disaster quest to be completed, or the bank at the top of Lumbridge Castle for free players.

Items needed

As Cooking is the skill of turning food from raw to edible, and there is a very wide range of available food types in RuneScape, there are many items that players need in order to cook food. Depending on what you are cooking, you will need a variety of items such as water or flour. Listed below are the cardinal cooking items which are used to make the most common types of food.

• Fish (raw lobster, raw trout, etc.)
• Flour (held in a pot)
• Water (Held in a bucket, bowl, vial or jug)
• Milk (held in a bucket)
• Meat (raw meat, raw rat meat, raw bear meat, raw yak meat, raw chicken)
• Vegetables (cabbages, grain, onions, potatoes)
• Fruits (cooking apples, grapes, bananas, redberries, tomatoes)
• Cheese
• Bowl
• Bucket
• Cake tin
• Jug
• Pie dish
• Pot
• Knife

Types of food

Meat / fish

Level	Item		XP	Healing	Members
1		Cooked meat	30	3	0
1		Sinew	3	N/A	1
1		Shrimps	30	3	0
1		Cooked chicken	30	3	0
1		Cooked rabbit	30	5	1
1		Anchovies	30	1	0
1		Sardine	40	4	0
1		Poison karambwan	80	-5	1
1		Ugthanki meat	40	3	1
5		Herring	50	5	0
7		Guppy	12	N/A	0
10		Mackerel	60	6	1
11		Roast bird meat	60	6	1
12		Thin snail	70	5-7	1
15		Trout	70	7	0
16		Spider on stick	80	7-10	1
16		Spider on shaft	80	7-10	1
16		Roast rabbit	70	7	1
17		Lean snail	80	5-8	1
18		Cod	75	7	1
20		Pike	80	8	0
20		Cavefish	23	N/A	0
21		Roast beast meat	82.5	8	1
21	File:Cooked crab meat.png	Cooked crab meat	100	10	1
22		Fat snail	95	7-9	1
23		Cooked wild kebbit	73	4+4 (8)	1
25		Salmon	90	9	0
28		Slimy eel	95	6-10	1
30		Tuna	100	10	0
30		Cooked karambwan	190	18	1
30		Cooked chompy	100	10	1
31		Cooked fishcake	100	11	1
31		Cooked larupia	92	6+5 (11)	1
32		Cooked barb-tailed kebbit	106	7+5 (12)	1
33		Tetra	31	N/A	0
35		Rainbow fish	110	11	1
38		Cave eel	115	7-11	1
40		Lobster	120	12	0
41		Cooked jubbly	160	15	1
41		Cooked graahk	124	8+6 (14)	1
43		Bass	130	13	1
45		Swordfish	140	14	0
46		Catfish	43	N/A	1
51		Cooked kyatt	143	9+8 (17)	1
53		Lava eel	30	14	1
59		Cooked pyre fox	154	11+8 (19)	1
62		Monkfish	150	16	1
68		Cooked sunlight antelope	175	12+9 (21)	1
72		Sacred eel	109-124	N/A	1
80		Shark	210	20	1
82		Sea turtle	211.3	21	1
82		Cooked dashing kebbit	215	13+10 (23)	1
84		Anglerfish	230	3-22	1
90		Dark crab	215	22	1
91		Manta ray	216.2	22	1
92		Cooked moonlight antelope	220	14+12 (26)	1

Bread

Level	Item		XP	Healing	Members
1		Bread	40	5	0
58		Pitta bread	40	N/A	1

Pies

Level	Item		XP	Healing	Effect	Members
10		Redberry pie	78	10	None	0
20		Meat pie	110	12	None	0
29		Mud pie	128	0	Thrown at enemies	1
30		Apple pie	130	14	None	0
34		Garden pie	138	12	+3 Farming	1
47		Fish pie	164	12	+3 Fishing	1
52		Botanical pie	180	12	+4 Herblore	1
60		Mushroom pie	200	16	+4 Crafting	1
70		Admiral pie	210	16	+5 Fishing	1
73		Dragonfruit pie	220	20	+4 Fletching	1
85		Wild pie	240	22	+4 Ranged, +5 Slayer	1
95		Summer pie	260	22	+5 Agility	1

Stews

Level	Item		XP	Healing	Members
25		Stew	117	11	0
60		Curry	280	19	1

Pizzas

Level	Item		XP	Healing	Members
35		Plain pizza	143	14	0
45		Meat pizza	169	16	0
55		Anchovy pizza	182	18	0
65		Pineapple pizza	195	22	1

Cakes

Level	Item		XP	Healing	Members
40		Cake	180	12	0
50		Chocolate cake	210	15	0

Wine

Level	Item		XP	Healing	Members
35		Jug of wine	200	11	0
65		Wine of zamorak	200	N/A	1

Note that every wine made resets the twelve second fermentation of the previously made wines, resulting in an enormous experience drop if a series of inventories are made fast enough. While being one of the fastest methods for reaching 99 Cooking (yielding 400k+ exp/hour if done optimally), it is also the most costly. There is virtually no profit made as opposed to the more traditional fish cooking. This method is also accessible to free-to-play.

Hot Drinks

Level	Item		XP	Healing	Notes	Members
20		Cup of tea	52	3	Restores 5% energy.	1

Vegetable

Level	Item		XP	Healing	Members
7		Baked potato	15	4	1
9		Spicy sauce	25	2	1
11		Chilli con carne	25	5	1
13		Scrambled egg	50	5	1
23		Egg and tomato	0	8	1
28		Cooked sweetcorn	104	1-10	1
39		Potato with butter	40	14	1
41		Chilli potato	15	14	1
42		Fried onions	60	5	1
46		Fried mushrooms	60	5	1
47		Potato with cheese	40	16	1
51		Egg potato	45	16	1
57		Mushroom & onion	120	11	1
64		Mushroom potato	55	20	1
67		Tuna and corn	0	13	1
68		Tuna potato	10	22	1

Dairy

Level	Item		XP	Healing	Members
21		Pot of cream	18	1	1
38		Pat of butter	40.5	N/A	1
48		Cheese	64	2	1

Kebabs

Level	Item		XP	Healing	Members
1		Ugthanki kebab	40	19	1

Brewing

A brewing vat used to create ales.

Main article: Brewing

Brewing involves the fermenting of raw ingredients into ales or cider. Brewing is useful because most products boost certain skills. The process, however, is quite slow and is not a viable means of training. These alcoholic drinks are not useful for healing, unlike most food made with Cooking. Brewing takes place at three fermenting vats, with one located in eastern Keldagrim on the 1^st floor^[UK]2^nd floor^[US] of the Laughing Miner Pub, one in Port Phasmatys underneath the The Green Ghost pub, and one on Aldarin at the Moonrise Brewery and Winery. Only one brew can be made in a vat at a time.

During the brewing process it is possible for an ale to mature, normally a 5% chance, or 64% when adding the stuff. The stuff cannot be added to cider. Mature ales have stronger boosts. It can also turn into bad ale which has no use and is drained from the barrel.

To make an ale, 2 bucket of water, 2 barley malt, 1 ale yeast, and optionally: 1 the stuff are required:

Steps
1. Use 2 bucket of water on the fermenting vat
2. Use 2 barley malt on the fermenting vat
3. Optional: Use 1 the stuff on the fermenting vat, increasing the chance to mature the ale from 5% to 64%
4. Use the ingredients specific to the brew type you want to make
5. Use 1 ale yeast on the fermenting vat
6. Wait for 3 x 640 minute cycles (with the stuff added, between 3 x 640 and 16 x 640 minutes)
7. Use the valve to drain the completed ale into the barrel
8. Use 8 beer glasses or 2 calquat kegs on the barrel full of the completed ale

To make cider, 4 buckets of apple mush, 1 ale yeast are required:

Steps
1. Use 4 buckets of apple mush on the fermenting vat
2. Use 1 ale yeast on the fermenting vat
3. Wait for three 640 minutes farming cycles
4. Use the valve to drain the completed ale into the barrel
5. Use 8 beer glasses or 2 calquat kegs on the barrel full of the completed cider

Each apple mush requires 4 cooking apples and one bucket added into the Apple Press. 16 cooking apples are required per cider.

Most brews boost certain stats, some boost a variable amount based on the skill's level, boosting more as the level increases.

Ale				Boosts	Heals	Deboosts	Distinct ingredient
		Level	Experience
	Cider	14	182	+1	1	2–3 2 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.02)		4 × Apple mush
	Mature cider			+2	2	3–4 3 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.02)
	Dwarven stout	19	215	+1	1	2–5 2 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.04)		4 × Hammerstone hops
	Dwarven stout(m)			+2	2	3–6 3 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.04)
	Asgarnian ale	24	248	+2	1	2–6 2 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.05)		4 × Asgarnian hops
	Asgarnian ale(m)			+3	2	3–7 3 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.05)
	Greenman's ale	29	281	+1	1	2–5 2 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.04)		4 × Harralander
	Greenman's ale(m)			+2	2	3–6 3 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.04)
	Wizard's mind bomb	34	314	+2–3 2 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.02)	1	1–5 1 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.05)		4 × Yanillian hops
	Mature wmb			+3–4 3 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.02)	2	2–6 2 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.05)
	Dragon bitter	39	347	+2	1	2–6 2 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.05)		4 × Krandorian hops
	Dragon bitter(m)			+3	2	2–6 2 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.05)
	Moonlight mead	44	380	N/A	4	N/A		4 × Mushroom
	Moonlight mead(m)				6
	Axeman's folly	49	413	+1	1	2–3 2 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.02)		1 × Oak roots
	Axeman's folly(m)			+2	2	3–4 3 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.02)
	Chef's delight	54	413	+1–5 1 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.05)	1	3–6 2 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.05)		4 × Chocolate dust
	Chef's delight(m)			+2–6 2 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.05)	2	4–7 3 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.05)
	Slayer's respite	59	479	+2	1	2–3 2 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.02)		4 × Wildblood hops
	Slayer's respite(m)			+4	2	3–4 3 + floor(CurrentLevel * 0.02)

Gnome cooking

Main article: Gnome cooking

Gnome cooking is very complicated, and is best left with its own specially dedicated guide. The gnome foods plays a big part in the Gnome Restaurant minigame. More detailed information can be found in article linked to above, but following is a general guide for how a player can get acquainted with gnome cooking.

Although it is complex, somewhat expensive, and requires a wide variety of unusual ingredients, gnome cooking can provide a good way to level Cooking from around 10 up to about 30 in good speed. To obtain the cookbook with all the recipes for gnome foods, a player can go to The Grand Tree in the Gnome Stronghold and find Aluft Gianne Sr. He is on the west side of the first level up of the Grand Tree and is dressed as a chef. Talk with him, and offer your assistance to him. He will assign you a succession of dishes to prepare. Once you have prepared the dish to his satisfaction, he will ask you to make another, then another moving steadily up the assortment of gnome foods. If you are using this method to train your Cooking and get an assignment you do not have the correct level to prepare, then you simply need to train until you do. Use the shops and resources in the Gnome Stronghold to make more gnome foods if you wish, or cook other foods that you may have. For each dish, the player can buy supplies from the shop run by Hudo who is found by the cooking range nearby Gianne, but ever since the shop stock update this has been severely limited. Players going through the tutorial will start by making crunchies, which can stored at a bank in the Grand Tree and later sold on the Grand Exchange. As your skill levels improve, you will be able to make battas then eventually bowls. Once you have completed the training exercises he gives you, you can start the minigame, which has several useful rewards.

Level	Item		XP	Healing
6		Fruit blast	50	9
8		Pineapple punch	70	9
10		Toad crunchies	100	8
12		Spicy crunchies	100	7
14		Worm crunchies	100	8
16		Chocchip crunchies	100	7
18		Wizard blizzard	110	5
20		Short green guy	120	5
25		Fruit batta	150	11
26		Toad batta	152	11
27		Worm batta	154	11
28		Vegetable batta	156	11
29		Cheese and tomato batta	158	11
30		Worm hole	170	12
32		Drunk dragon	160	5
33		Choc saturday	170	5
35		Veg ball	175	12
37		Blurberry special	180	7
40		Tangled toad's legs	185	15
42		Chocolate bomb	190	15

2-tick cooking

2-tick cooking demonstrated at the range in Myths' Guild.

It is possible to cook most foods at double speed, provided that they only have one cooking interface option. To perform this, drop the raw food items in front of a cooking range and then alternate between picking up raw food and left-clicking the range. This works because the cooking interface is skipped when only one raw food item is in the inventory, and the item is cooked with no delay. Due to the time it takes to drop items, the experience rate will not be exactly double, but this is still the fastest way to cook most foods. An inventory of food cooked on a range will take approximately 1 minute and 5 seconds. With efficient dropping, and using the 2-tick method, an inventory can be dropped and cooking in approximately 40 seconds total. This makes the 2-tick method around 30-40% faster than afk cooking, depending on shift-click drop speed.

Temporary boosts

Main article: Temporary skill boost

Boost		Level increase	Visibility	Other info
	Cooking cape	1	Visible	When the Cooking cape is equipped, nearly any food cooked by the player will never become burnt.
	Eel sushi	1	Visible	Hitpoints 10
	Fillets	1	Visible	Hitpoints 2
	Grubs à la mode	1	Visible	Hitpoints 2
	Loach	1	Visible	Hitpoints 3
	Mushrooms	1	Visible	Hitpoints 2
	Roast frog	1	Visible	Hitpoints 2
	Spicy stew (orange spice)	±0-5	Visible	Hitpoints 11 Depending on type of stew, any skill except Hitpoints can be boosted or reduced by 0 to 5 levels randomly.
	Chef's delight	1-5	Visible	Hitpoints 1 Cooking 1 + floor(StaticLevel * 0.05) Attack - floor(CurrentLevel * 0.05) - 2 Strength - floor(CurrentLevel * 0.05) - 2
	Chef's delight(m)	2-6	Visible	Hitpoints 2 Cooking 2 + floor(StaticLevel * 0.05) Attack - floor(CurrentLevel * 0.05) - 3 Strength - floor(CurrentLevel * 0.05) - 3

Quests

Quests requiring Cooking

Quest	Cooking requirement	Other requirements
Recipe for Disaster (Another Cook's Quest)	10	-
Ghosts Ahoy	20	25
Forgettable Tale...	22	17
Recipe for Disaster (Evil Dave subquest)	25	-
Big Chompy Bird Hunting	30	5 , 30
Tai Bwo Wannai Trio	30	15 , 5
Recipe for Disaster (Pirate Pete subquest)	31	-
Recipe for Disaster (Lumbridge Guide subquest)	40	-
Recipe for Disaster (Skrach Uglogwee subquest)	41	20
Heroes' Quest	53	55 , 53 , 25 , 50
Swan Song	62	100 , 66 , 62 , 45 , 42 , 40
Recipe for Disaster (Awowogei subquest)	70 (Boostable)	48
Kandarin Elite Diary	80	Numerous
Desert Elite Diary	85	Numerous
Wilderness Elite Diary	90	Numerous
Ardougne Elite Diary	91	Numerous
Varrock Elite Diary	95 (Boostable)	Numerous

Quests rewarding Cooking experience

Main article: Quest experience rewards

Quest	Experience reward	Cooking requirement	Other requirements
Cook's Assistant	300	-	-
Rag and Bone Man I	500	-	-
Recipe for Disaster (Dwarf subquest)	1,000	-	-
Recipe for Disaster (Goblin generals subquest)	1,000	-	-
Recipe for Disaster (Pirate Pete subquest)	1,000	31	-
Big Chompy Bird Hunting	1,470	30	5 , 30
Recipe for Disaster (Skrach Uglogwee subquest)	1,500	41	20
Gertrude's Cat	1,525	-	-
Recipe for Disaster (Lumbridge Guide subquest)	2,500	40	-
Heroes' Quest	2,825	53	55 , 53 , 25 , 50
Recipe for Disaster (Sir Amik Varze subquest)	4,000	-	107
Forgettable Tale...	5,000	22	17
Tai Bwo Wannai Trio	5,000	30	15 , 5
Recipe for Disaster (Evil Dave subquest)	7,000	25	-
Meat and Greet	8,000	-	-
Recipe for Disaster (Awowogei subquest)	10,000	70	48
Total	44,620

Skill choice

Upon completing any of the following quests, players may choose to allocate experience to Cooking. These rewards usually come in the form of items, such as lamps or books, and are independent of any experience rewards directly received for completing the quest.

Quest	Experience reward	Skills available	Skill requirements
X Marks the Spot	300	Any	None
Client of Kourend	500 twice	Any	None
Fairytale II - Cure a Queen	2,500	Any skill above 30	49 , 57
A Tail of Two Cats	2,500 twice	Any skill above 30	None
The Great Brain Robbery	5,000	Any skill above 30	16 , 30 , 50
King's Ransom	5,000	Any skill above 50	65
Darkness of Hallowvale	2,000 three times	Any skill above 30	5 , 20 , 22 , 32 , 33 , 40
A Taste of Hope	2,500 three times	Any skill above 35	48 , 40 , 40 , 45 , 38
A Kingdom Divided	10,000 twice	Any skill above 40	54 , 52 , 52 , 50 , 42 , 38 , 35
In Search of Knowledge (miniquest)	10,000	Any skill above 40	None
Curse of the Empty Lord (miniquest)	10,000	Any skill above 50	Some players will need 31
One Small Favour	10,000 twice	Any skill above 30	36 , 25 , 18 , 30
Recipe for Disaster (The final battle)	20,000	Any skill above 50	175 , 70 , 48 , 50 , 53 , 53 , 25 , 59 , 40 , 50 , 40 , 40 , 10 , 10 , 36
Sins of the Father	15,000 six times	Any skill above 60	62 , 60 , 56 , 52 , 50 , 50 , 49
Total	202,300

See also

• Cooking/Experience table, a list of all Cooking experience sources
• Cooking/Level up table, a list of all requirements and unlockables within the Cooking skill