Free-to-play Cooking training

Cooking level table
This is a cropped table indicating what can be achieved starting at certain levels. It only covers items efficient for training Cooking.

Training methods
Below are some training methods suitable for different kinds of players.

Training alongside Fishing
This method is suitable for players wanting to train Cooking along with Fishing.

Level 1
Shrimp can be caught without any requirements. They yield 30 experience per successful cooking. Cooked shrimps can be sold in the Grand Exchange for little profit however, they should only be used for food. The best place to net shrimps is Draynor.

Level 15
Trout can be caught in Barbarian Village or in Lumbridge, provided you have level 20 Fishing. Trout are very handy and each of them give 70 experience. Power-cookers can even grab dropped raw trout from powerfishers and cook them. If you go to Barbarian Village on a populated world, there are usually people giving away free raw trout and salmon.

Level 30
Tuna can be caught at Musa point in Karamja by harpooning them at level 35 Fishing. Tuna yields 100 experience each cooking, though the catching speed is slow. The dropped raw tunas from powerfishers can be taken to cook. If a player decides to use this method to train Cooking, a very busy world should be selected.

Level 40
Lobsters can be caught at Musa Point in Karamja at level 40 Fishing. Lobster yields 120 experience each cooking and catching speed is comparable to harpooning. There are rarely any lobster drops from powerfishers, thus fishing them yourself is better.

Level 50
Swordfish can be caught in Musa Point in Karamja at level 50 Fishing is attained. Swordfish yields 140 experience each cooking. However, swordfish catching speed is the slowest among all free-to-play fish, because tuna are also caught while harpooning. Additionally, a higher Cooking level should be attained before starting to cook swordfish, as the burning rate is high among them.

Alternate method to level without burning food
This is an alternate method to level cooking without burning fish; however, it will most likely be slower than the method suggested above. It is recommended to use the other methods to attain level 50 Cooking before beginning.

Another faster method is to cook pizza from the level you're able to cook them all the way to 99. It is better experience than swordfish (143 vs 140). However, the prices change constantly, so check the prices before selling the pizzas.

Training in the Cooks' Guild
⌊undefined⌋ Please note, 32 Cooking is needed to enter the Cooks' Guild. You cannot enter the guild without getting a chef's hat.

Level 32
Although apple pies can be made at level 30 Cooking, only the Cooking Guild has free and fairly abundant resources for mass-producing them. One jug, pot, pie dish and three cooking apple spawns are available in the guild. The process of making pies can be sped up if players bring their own jugs and pots prior. Wheat can be harvested in the field directly behind the guild, then made into flour using the mill. Collecting flour, water and mixing pastry dough can all be done on the, then cooked using the ranges on the , while obtaining more equipment from the.

Level 35
Jugs and grapes can also be found inside the guild. Wine can be fermented within the guild by filling jugs with water from the sink on the ground floor, then using grapes on the jugs of water. Wine gives the highest cooking experience per success, though grape spawning is slow. Nothing is needed to be brought prior. This method of training is somewhat expensive, but can give up to 2,800 experience per inventory (14 grapes/14 jugs of water).

Training with complex food
Complex food requires time to make and can initially be a bit costly, but can be very rewarding. Complex food basically has varied trips, ranging from Draynor to Wilderness. It is possible to power-level these kinds of food, simply by purchasing the final uncooked version of the food (an uncooked pie, for example) from the Grand Exchange, or trading with another player. This method is usually quite expensive, but in turn offers very fast experience.

Level 10
Redberry pies are the first complex food that can be made. As these pies serve no purpose at higher levels, a quick method shall be shown here. The supplies such as buckets or jugs can be bought from a general store, but it's best to obtain the berries from the bushes south-east of Varrock, straight north from the entrance to Al Kharid. After that, redberry pies can be made in bulk. Oddly enough, this pie is one of the easiest to make due to the low level requirement, and the most expensive one to sell in the Grand exchange at the moment. Using the Cooking Guild and bushes located on the outskirts of Varrock, a decent profit can be made, however the experience given is low compared to other cooking processes.

Level 20
Meat pies can be similarly to redberry pies, except cows should be killed and the raw beef banked.

Level 25
Stews can be made by picking potatoes in the potato field between Lumbridge and Varrock (directly north of the Lumbridge cow farm) and killing the cows for raw beef. Bowls can be taken from the kitchen of Lumbridge Castle, purchased from general stores or the Grand Exchange, or manufactured with the Crafting skill (requires level 8 Crafting).

Level 35
Plain pizza can be made from one tomato, one cheese and one pizza base; the pizza base can be made by using a pot of flour with a jug of water or bought from Fat Tony in the Bandit Camp (Wilderness) for 4 coins each. To ensure quick buying of pizza bases, exactly 51 coins can be brought to buy exactly 10 pizza bases, and immediately move to and from the bank. Due to the personal shop update, the respawn rate of shop supply is low and players might choose to make the pizza bases themselves or wait. Cheese and tomatoes can be taken from Aggie's house or Fat Tony's camp, but both of them have disadvantages. Draynor lacks a support of cooking ranges, and Fat Tony is in the Wilderness which means players are at risk of being attacked by other players. Bandits are also aggressive, meaning that lower-leveled players must take care if they choose to train with pizzas in the Wilderness. Cooking pizzas at the range in Al Kharid can earn up to 180k experience per hour.

Level 55
Anchovy pizza can be made. Making an anchovy pizza out of plain pizza and anchovies is always a success. Raw anchovies can be fished south of Lumbridge, in Al Kharid and in Draynor.

Profitability
Fish, particularly the high level ones, play a big role in the cooking market. They make up the bulk of the food market, with high demands of both raw and cooked forms.

Note that buying most fish raw from the Grand Exchange and selling the cooked product in the Grand Exchange is not always profitable due to many players buying mass amounts of fish to get to 99 Cooking. For many fish there is often a price difference between cooked and raw fish. If players wish to be profitable, they should sell on demand. This, however, is a slow way to sell food. A way to train Cooking and gain a profit would be to make foods containing many steps. These foods give much more experience than fish when made from scratch, many cannot be burnt, and can be sold for modest profit in the Grand Exchange. The downside to this method is that it takes much longer to prepare the ingredients for combining.

Anchovies are one of the few fish that players can reliably buy raw, sell cooked, and gain profit. This is due to the fact that people buy cooked anchovies to make anchovy pizza, the highest-healing free-to-play food.

Another good way for training Cooking for little loss is to buy raw trout. The market buying price is frequently less than the selling price. This is a good way to gain cooking experience without spending lots of money. However, cooked trout takes a very long time to sell because there is not a high demand for them.

However, in exchange for the low cost, these methods provide very slow experience rates. At higher levels, players may wish to move on to higher-level foods that give better experience.

There is a way to get pretty quick levels and make a small profit. Although it takes longer than some methods if you cook 100,000+ tuna from the time that it doesn't burn you are able to not burn your cash and it is still suitable for training.

All in all, Cooking is not a very good money making skill, and it should be warned that it is not a very useful skill to train unless you are trying to boost your overall skill level for the high scores or get a skill cape.

Training locations
Some places are more suited for cooking than others. Here are some recommended places.