Discover everything you need to know about cooking in Crimson Desert, including all cooking recipes and the required ingredients.
Cooking is a crafting-style system where you combine ingredients to create meals in Crimson Desert. You gather ingredients by hunting animals, fishing, farming, and foraging. Then you use those ingredients at camps, bonfires, or similar stations to cook meals. You can learn recipes or experiment with ingredients to get cooked food that is full of buffs. Cooking is basically a way to turn resources into powerful buffs, especially useful while defeating the elite enemies or bosses.
How To Cook in Crimson Desert
Cooking in Crimson Desert only happens at a large campfire with a cooking pot. You need the required ingredients to cook any recipe. Campfires are located scattered all around the world, especially in villages, watchtowers, and camps. In this open-world action RPG, Cooking is essential for restoring health, spirit, and stamina while fighting enemies.
Consuming the cooked food grants you temporary buffs to keep you in the fight longer as a Greymane Mercenary. You can cook at the bonfires, camp pots, or the town cooking station. Once you find any of them, interact with them to open the menu. A recipe is not required to start cooking any food. Select the Improvise option and merge materials like raw meat, grains, herbs, or water.
Simple dishes like grilled meat use 1x Raw Meat for quick health recovery, while other dishes require 1x Meat, 1x Grain, and 1x Water. You need to experiment with making different dishes using multiple ingredients for unique buffs.
Cooking is important before difficult fights or exploration. Improvise and try substituting ingredients rather than using Lean Meat. Use the Z and C keys, the L2 and R2 buttons, or the RT and LT buttons to swap recipes. Hit the F key, square button, or X button to Improvise. Press the R key, triangle button, or Y button to make the meal after choosing the recipe.
How Find Ingredients
Ingredients in Crimson Desert involve exploring the world, gathering, and managing your camp. This can be done by foraging, fishing, hunting, looting enemy camps, and buying from city merchants. Ingredients are generally categorized into Meat, Fruit, Vegetable, Grain, Mushrooms, and Medicinal Herbs. You can steal items like turnips from houses, but it is risky.
To maximize efficiency, focus on unlocking camp upgrades to get more supplies. Use your Greymane camp in Howling Hill to send your pet on missions to collect ingredients for you. You can also purchase the ingredients like wheat, apples, grapes, wine, meat, and vegetables from the vendors around the Harnand Castle. Below are all the cooking recipe categories and the number of ingredients required in Crimson Desert.
- Grilled Cooking: 1x Ingredient required
- Field Pot Cooking: 3-5x Ingredient required
- Special Pot Cooking: 5x Ingredient required
How To Get Cooking Recipes
To unlock permanent recipes, cook the same dish multiple times. I recommend making the same dish at least three times to gain the recipe. After that, it appears in your list as acquired for faster access later. You can also hunt down the animals for meat, fish, and streams for seafood.
Make sure to collect plants and buy basics from the vendors to stock up. You need to prefer cheap, effective food like basic grilled meat for massive total healing. Cook often stockpiles consumables before bosses and uses your camp’s facilities to farm ingredients through rearing animals.
All Cooking Recipes
Below are all the cooking recipes and the required ingredients in Crimson Desert.
| Recipe | Required Ingredients | Effect |
| Haiden’s Lesser Elixir | Lesser Spirit Reagent x2 Lesser Catalyst x1 Empty Bottle x1 | Duration: 4 seconds Effect: No Spirit Cost |
| Meliara’s Lesser Elixir | Lesser Health Reagent x2 Lesser Catalyst x1 Empty Bottle x1 | Duration: 5 minutes Effect: Increases Max Health +75 |
| Apollonia’s Lesser Elixir | Lesser Defense Reagent x2 Lesser Catalyst x2 Empty Bottle x1 | Duration: 5 minutes Effect: Defense +10 |
| Freya’s Elixir | Common Attack Reagent x5 Lesser Catalyst x1 Empty Bottle x1 | Duration: 10 minutes Effect: Attack +7 |
| Meliara’s Elixir | Common Health Reagent x3 Lesser Catalyst x2 Empty Bottle x1 | Duration: 10 minutes Effect: Max Health +150 |
| Haiden’s Elixir | Common Spirit Reagent x3 Lesser Catalyst x2 Empty Bottle x1 | Duration: 8 seconds Effect: No Spirit Cost |
| Astrid’s Elixir | Common Stamina Reagent x3 Lesser Catalyst x2 Empty Bottle x1 | Duration: 8 seconds Effect: No Stamina Cost |
| Palmar Pill | Medicinal Herb x15 Water x2 | Instant revive |
| Platinum | Gold Bar x1 Brimstone x4 Mercury x3 Holy Water x2 | – |
| Refined Palmer Pill | Quality Medicinal Herb x1 Palmar Leaf x1 Palmar Beetle x1 Water x1 | Instant revive |
| Wine | Fruit x2 Sugar x1 Water x2 | Stamina +64 Ice Resistance |
| Vegetable Juice | Vegetable x1 Water x2 | Stamina +32 |
| Oakwood Mushroom Tea | Oakwood Mushroom x2 Water x2 | Stamina +160 Ice Resistance |
| Mild Herbal Tea | Medicinal Herb x2 Honey x1 Water x2 | Stamina +96 Ice Resistance |
| Honey Tea | Honey x2 Water x2 | Stamina +128 Ice Resistance Lv 2 |
| Grilled Vegetables | Vegetable x1 | – |
| Grilled Fruit | Fruit x1 | – |
| Toasted Grains | Grains x1 | – |
| Grilled Meat | Meat x1 | – |
| Small Grilled Fish | Small Fish x1 | – |
| Grilled Fish | Medium Fish x1 | – |
| Large Grilled Fish | Large Fish x1 | – |
| Smoked eggs | Egg x1 | – |
| Grilled Bird Meat | Bird Meat x1 | – |
| Grilled Pincers | Shellfish x1 | – |
| Grilled Seafood | Mollusk x1 | – |
| Vegetable Rice Cake | Vegetable x4 Fruit x2 Egg x1 Salt x2 | Health: +240 Spirit: +22 Fire Resistance Lv 4 |
| Chewy Rice Cakes | Grains x4 Fruit x2 Egg x2 Cooking Oil x3 | Health: +240 Spirit: +22 Fire Resistance Lv 4 |
| Braised Fish | Fruit x1 Fish Fillet x2 | Health: +80 Spirit: +6 Fire Resistance Lv 2 |
| Salt-Roasted Fish | Small Fish x1 Salt x3 | Health: +100 |
| Battered Meat | Meat x1 Egg x1 Cooking Oil x3 | – |
| Braised Meat | Meat x1 Fruit x1 | Health: +80 Spirit: +10 Fire Resistance Lv 2 |
| Pickled Vegetables | Vegetable x1 Fruit x1 Salt x1 | Spirit: +14 Fire Resistance Lv 2 |
| Pickled Fruit | Fruit x1 Sugar x1 | – |
| Battered Grains | Grains x1 Egg x1 | Health: +100 Fire Resistance Lv 2 |
| Meat Skewers | Meat x1 Vegetable x1 | Health: +120 Spirit: +10 Fire Resistance Lv 2 |
| Salt-Roasted Bird Meat | Bird Meat x1 Salt x1 | Health: +120 Fire Resistance Lv 2 |
| Fish Skewers | Vegetable x1 Fish Fillet x2 | Health: +80 Spirit: +6 Fire Resistance Lv 2 |
| Battered Meat and Fish | Vegetable x1 Fish Fillet x2 Egg x3 Cooking Oil x3 | Health: +240 Fire Resistance Lv 4 |
| Battered Seafood | Seafood x2 Vegetable x2 Egg x2 Cooking Oil x3 | Health: +260 Spirit: +24 Fire Resistance Lv 4 |
| Pan-Fried Marinated Meat | Meat x3 Fruit x2 Vegetable x2 Cooking Oil x3 | – |
| Grilled Meat and Fish | Meat x1 Small Fish x1 | – |
| Fish Porridge | Grains x1 Fish Fillet x2 Salt x1 Water x3 | Health: +240 Ice Resistance Lv 4 |
| Fishball Soup | Grains x2 Vegetable x1 Fish Fillet x2 Salt x1 Water x3 | Health: +340 Ice Resistance Lv 4 |
| Meat and Vegetable Porridge | Meat x2 Vegetable x3 Grains x2 Water x3 | Health: +260 Spirit: +24 Ice Resistance Lv 4 |
| Clear Soup | Meat x1 Grain x1 Water x1 | Health: +180 Ice Resistance Lv 2 |
| Steamed Eggs | Vegetable x1 Egg x5 Salt x2 Water x3 | – |
| Fruit Punch | Fruit x1 Grain x1 Water x1 | Health: +140 Spirit: +12 Ice Resistance Lv 4 |
| Braised Ribs | Meat x4 Vegetable x2 Fruit x2 Water x3 | Health: +260 Spirit: +24 Ice Resistance Lv 4 |
