Cooking

In Breath of the Wild, a major function of the game is the ability to cook. For most dishes, Link can cook at any cooking pot located all over Hyrule, as long as the fire underneath it is lit. He can hold up to 5 ingredients at a time. There is also cooking by exposing raw ingredients to open flame or ice cold water, but the results aren't as desirable as full dishes.

Dishes can have additional effects that can help you on your journey, such as temporary heat or cold resistance. There are also Elixirs, which normally will give you only special effects rather than restore hearts. Check the Elixirs page for more on that.

General Tips

 * Some combinations of items will result in Dubious Food or Rock-Hard Food. You will get Rock-Hard Food if you try to cook with minerals, rocks, or other definitely not edible items. Dubious Food is usually a result of trying to cook Monster Parts or Critters with actual food ingredients. If you're having problems with this, make sure to check those pages and make sure you aren't using a bad ingredient. Make sure you're only using ingredients listed below.
 * Most recipes have some ingredients that can be replaced with others but still result in the same dish. As long as you swap an ingredient from the same category (like, a recipe that asks for mushrooms can be almost any mushroom). This means there are many possibilities to make a basic recipe have an additional effect, as long as you don't put in two ingredients with conflicting effects. This will cancel out any added effect entirely.
 * Sometimes when you are cooking, you will hear a special jingle played. This means that the resulting dish will be boosted in some way from what it normally would provide. The occurrence of this is seemingly random most of the time. However, if you cook during the first 15 minutes after midnight on a Blood Moon, you are guaranteed a random bonus. It can add an additional three hearts, 5 minutes to any effect's duration time, boost the strength of the effect, add an extra yellow (temporary) heart, or add an extra 2/5ths of a stamina wheel (normal or temporary).

Ingredients by Category
A list of ingredients that can be used in cooking, organized by category. As stated above, you can swap ingredients of a recipe from the same category and have the same dish, but with different effects. Further down is a key for all of the effects that can be added to a dish.

Added Effects Key
If you use an ingredient with a special effect, it will add one of the following prefixes to the dish name. Each has a different use. There are also some prefixes that come from using different types of meat or using a variety of ingredients for a dish.

Recipes
A list of every recipe discovered so far in Breath of the Wild, organized by how many different ingredients are necessary for the dish. There are 122 base recipes listed.

Elemental Cooking
Basic cooking done with either cold water or open flames. Mostly useful if you aren't anywhere near a cooking pot.

Open-Flame Cooking
Some cooking can be done by setting a single ingredient on fire for a few seconds. You can do this either by dropping them in or near an open fire (not in a cooking pot), setting them on fire with a tool, or simply dropping them on the ground in the volcanic areas of Eldin. An ingredient that will turn into something new will have white smoke coming from it, whereas anything with black smoke will burn to ash. Be sure to pick up your food before it burns completely away! You will also get the seared version of meat if you kill wild game with fire. One advantage of these is that they can be stacked in your food inventory. Also, by using the same method, you can turn any Chuchu Jelly into Red Chuchu Jelly.

Ice-Cooking
If you find yourself by cold water, usually high up in the mountains, you can make some frozen foods. Simply drop the ingredient into the cold water, and be careful to retrieve it when it becomes frozen (cold water will hurt you). If you kill wild game with ice arrows, it will also drop frozen meat. Like the open flame baked items, these can stack in your food inventory, and all of the below items will grant you 1 minute of low level heat resistance, though it will not draw out any other effects. These still aren't as good as cooking a proper dish, but it's better than raw. You can also make any Chuchu Jelly you have into White Chuchu Jelly the same way.