Cooking is one of many game mechanics in Stardew Valley. It will come in useful on many occasions. Cooked food can be beneficial to your own character to help to regain energy and health loss or to temporarily improve some of your skills. Some dishes make great gifts to Stardew Valley people and some are quest items. There are also some achievements that are associated with cooking. So how do you cook in Stardew Valley?
First of all if you want to cook even the most simple of meals you will have to have a kitchen. There is no going round this. Kitchen is included in your first house upgrade.
When you move in Stardew Valley, your house is very small and consists of one room only. Sooner or later the day will come when you simply won't have where to put all the stuff you came by with or all the statues and other kind of no-use-at-all-but-I’ll-keep-it things. So when this day comes you will start thinking about getting your first house upgrade.
You can get Robin to upgrade your house by visiting her at Carpenter’s shop. However, house upgrade costs quite a lot, especially early in the game when you struggle with everything and have to do some serious personal financing plans in order to keep your farm going. However, if you want to cook, you need that house upgrade. The first farmhouse upgrade will cost you 10 000 g, you will also have to provide Robin with the materials she needs to do the work (in this case it’s 450 pieces of Wood).
Upgrading your house will add a bedroom (which is nothing special, besides the fact that now the path from the door to your bed will be longer) and a kitchen (which means that you can now cook things chef!).
Cooking in Stardew Valley is easy. Way easier than in real life, you will not burn things, you will not make mess in your kitchen, you will not have to clean it afterwards - which means you can actually like cooking in the game. In order to start cooking go to your kitchen and interact with the kitchen counter. All the ingredients that are currently in your backpack are up for cooking. You can also store things in the fridge which works just the same as a regular chest except for everything that is in the fridge can be used while cooking without having to take it out and put in your bag.
However, just like in real life you won’t be able to cook a thing unless you know how. You will need to learn cooking recipes in order to start cooking in Stardew Valley. You can buy some at Stardrop Saloon from Gus, you will also acquire some recipes from your friends in Stardew Valley, that is one of the reasons why it’s worth to befriend NPCs, they will start sharing things with you.
There are three achievements that you can get while cooking: Cook, Sous Chef, Gourmet Chef.
- Cook achievement requires you to cook 10 different recipes.
- Sous Chef - 25 different recipes.
- Gourmet Chef - Cook all the recipes.
