Note: this page is out of date. We have a new Cooking page that is up to date for Cataclysm and will be up to date for Mists of Pandaria. Go here => Leveling your cooking

1. Artisan Cooking Quest
2. Alliance Side
3. Horde Side
4. Professions
   

Why Cooking?

After all, you can buy various foods from the vendors all over Azeroth and Northrend. The foods will heal you up by some amount over 30 seconds or so. Since they're so readily available why bother with cooking?

For the buffs and the gold. While some foods only heal you (or restore mana) there are many others that will buff your stamina and other stats. At the lowest level you can get something like Herb Baked Egg, which buffs 2 stam and spirit for 15 minutes. At the highest level you can create a FIsh Feastwhich will heal, restore mana, and buff your entire party for with 80 Attack Power, 46 Spell Power, and 40 Stamina.

Some recipes are selling for very high prices. Grab them from a vendor and check prices on the AH. You may be shocked.

Foods that provide buffs, or the raw ingredients to certain foods, also command high prices. Clam meat, for example, is way up there at times. Check prices for the ingredients, check Thottbot.com for what drops that ingredient, then go farming.

Cooking Notes:

Recipes - Cooking recipes are scattered throughout the land. Check all new vendors, they may have something unusual. Also note that recipes bought for a few silver may sell for a surpising amount of gold on the Auction House.

• Dig Rat Stew and Savory Deviate Delight - The former is a quest reward from The Barrens, the latter is a Barrens drop. Either can sell for very high prices on the AH. Deviate fish a re a lot easier to come by than Dig Rats, though.

Check out thottbot or other such resources if you need specific drop rates/mobs or zones for any given recipe/item.

Ingredients - Most of the ingredients to level your cooking, even to the new 450 cap, can be bought off the auction house. Grab your ingredients and camp the trainer to level your skill. You will have to visit Gadgetzan to do the Artisan Cooking Quest, though. It used to be that you had to buy the Master Cooking Book in Outlands to train your skill past 300, but now you can just go to the Outlands trainers.

Item prices will vary wildly, as weill quantity, on different servers. On yours it may be prohibitivly expensive to buy the mats, so you'll have to use an alternate choice or farm them yourself.

Once on Northrend talk to a cooking trainer, in any of the starting towns, for get your Grandmaster Cooking skills.

You can find a more detailed WoW cooking guide on Squidoo, and a far more detailed guide than that comes with the Wrath of the Kitchen King cookbook. Items below highlighted in bold are also in the Tauren Chef Cookbook, which can be bought along with Wrath of the Kitchen King at a package price, allowing you to create these foods in the real world.

225 – Artisan Cooking Quest

Head over to gadgetzan for this quest, you’ll need to speak to Dirge Quickcleave to pick it up first, the objective being Clamlette Surprise.

To finish it 12 Giant Eggs, 10 Zesty Clam meat, and 20 Alterac Swiss is required.  The Alterac Swiss is the easiest to get as it’s buyable off a vendor named Ben Trias in the trade district of Stormwind City, Horde can buy it off the Thunderbluff inkeeper.

The second and third ingredients are gathered by killing Owlbeasts in the Hinterlands and Turtles in Tanaris, Eggs and Clam Meat respectively.  Once you’re done turn it all in and get ready for the ride from 225-375.

Note: with the 3.1 patch all of the spice requirements for the recipes have been dropped, with the exception of Spice Bread and the recipes earned from tokens at the Dalaran trainers.

Alliance Cooking Guide

1 - 75

• 1 - 40: Spice Bread (1 x Simple Flour, 1 x Mild Spices) x 40
• 40 - 75: Smoked Bear Meat (1x Bear Meat) x 50

75 – 175

• 75 - 85: Crab Cake (1 x Crawler Meat) x 10
• 85 - 100: Cooked Crab Claw (1 x Crab Claw) x 20
• 100 - 130: Seasoned Wolf Kabob (2 x Lean Wolf Flank) x 30
• 130 - 175: Curiously Tasty Omelet (1x Raptor Egg) x 50

175 - 225

• 175 - 200: Roast Raptor (1 x Raptor Meat) x 30
• 200 - 225: Spider Sausage (2 x White Spider Meat) x 30

225 - 325

• 225 - 285: Monster Omelet (1 x Giant Egg) x 80
• 285 – 300: Smoked Desert Dumplings (1 x Sandworm Meat) x 20
• 300 – 325: Ravager Dog (1 x Ravager Flesh)
  Note: You’ll need to buy the master cooking book off of Father Malgor Devidicus located within Honor Hold/Hellfire Penninsula before you can go past 300 cooking skill.

350 – 375

• 325 – 350: Roasted Clefthoof (1 x Clefthoof Meat) x 35-40
• 350 – 375: Spicy Crawdad (1 x Furious Crawdad) x 30-40

Horde Cooking Guide

1 – 125

• 1 - 40: Spice Bread (1 x Simple Flour, 1 x Mild Spices) x 50
• 40 - 75: Smoked Bear Meat (1x Bear Meat) x 60
• 90 - 125: Dig Rat Stew (1 x Dig Rat) x 40

125 – 225

• 125 – 175: Hot Lion Chops (1 x Lion Meat) x 60
• 175 – 200: Roast Raptor (1 x Raptor flesh) x 30
• 200 - 225: Spider Sausage (2 x White Spider Meat) x 30

225 - 325

• 225 - 285: Monster Omelet (1 x Giant Egg) x 80
• 285 – 300: Smoked Desert Dumplings (1 x Sandworm Meat) x 20
• 300 – 325: Ravager Dog (1 x Ravager Flesh)
  Note: You’ll need to buy the master cooking book off of Cookie One-Eye located within Thrallmar/Hellfire Penninsula before you can go past 300 cooking skill.

350 – 375

• 325 – 350: Roasted Clefthoof (1 x Clefthoof Meat) x 35-40
• 350 – 375: Spicy Crawdad (1 x Furious Crawdad) x 30-40

375+

• Talk to the trainer in Northrend for Grandmaster Cooking, then harvest the appropriate parts from the animals in the area or off the Auction House.

Maxing out your cooking

In the Inns in Dalaran are cooking supply vendors. They have a variety of recipes that can only be purchased with tokens form the Daily Cooking Quests. You can only do one of these quests each day and they are five of them, randomly assigned. Each quest awards at least one Dalaran Cooking token and a spice bag. Open the spice bag and you will find Northern Spices, maybe an additional token, and, rarely, another recipe.

Unlike the rest of the recipes prior to this level, the Dalaran recipes require the Northern Spices. Fortunately you can buy any extra spice you need off the AH.

Most of these recipes have some very nice buffs, great for raiding.

Professions Guide

Penn's Professions Guide details all the secrets to leveling any WoW profession as quickly, efficiently, and cheaply as possible. From Cooking to Inscription to Enchanting the most effective way to max out your skill is with Penn's Guide. Check it out, here.