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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.

Minimum level Food Experience Notes
1 Shrimps, Meat, Chicken. Anchovies 30,

40,

30,

30

All these items are easily obtainable by fishing or killing beginner monsters. You can also pick up meat dropped by cows in the cow field in Lumbridge where many people train and leave meat lying around. Also, when you kill chickens for their meat, always pick up the feathers dropped by them.
15 Trout 70 Trout can be multi purposed. They can serve as mid level food, or as power levelling items for both Fishing and Cooking. You can also pick up trout from many power-fishers at the river near Barbarian Village. Power-cooking trout is a popular way of levelling Cooking in free-to-play.
20 Pike 80 Pike are generally harder to fish, expensive, and yield a low amount of experience.
25 Salmon 90 Salmon can be used for mid level food and are mainly obtained by lure fishing above level 30 Fishing or you can pick them up at the barbarian village where power fishers drop them.
30 Apple pie 130 Apple pie can be made as mid level food. However, 32 Cooking is needed to enter the Cooks' Guild to make these pies in bulk.
30 Tuna 100 Tuna can be used as mid-level food. They are very popular for training Cooking since power-fishers (mostly at Musa Point) often drop them ready to be picked up and cooked, creating a free source to train Cooking quickly. Cooked tuna also has a constant demand, sometimes higher than its raw counterpart.
32 Cooks' Guild N/A The Cooks' Guild is a good place to train Cooking by making jugs of wine and apple pies, as it provides materials sufficient to make them.
35 Pizza 143 Cooked pizza can be used as food. They should not be sold, but kept for adding toppings later on.
35 Jug of wine 200 Jug of wine can be used as mid level food, but cause the Attack stat to decrease. You may enter the Cooks' Guild to make free wine, considering there are jugs, grapes, and water.
40 Lobster 120 Lobsters can be cooked as mid-high level food. Cooked lobster can sometimes be sold for more than its raw counterpart.
45 Swordfish 140 Swordfish can be cooked as mid-high level food, giving the highest healing rate for free players in a single bite. As with all fish it is consumed in one bite.
45 Meat pizza (143+25) Meat pizzas can be made merely by adding cooked meat on plain pizza. Raw meat is easily obtainable from killing giant rats, cows, and bears.
55 Anchovy pizza (143+39) Anchovy pizzas are made merely by adding cooked anchovies to plain pizza, making it heal the most in F2P worlds. It is sometimes possible to make a profit by mass buying plain cooked pizzas from Grand Exchange, adding anchovies onto them, and then selling them back them via the Grand Exchange.

Price of plain cooked pizza: 612

Price of cooked Anchovies: 100

Price of Anchovy pizza: 742

Net-gain per Anchovy pizza assembled: 30

Training methods[]

Below are some training methods suitable for different kinds of players. You should start off by doing the quest Cook's Assistant, as this will get you to level 4.

Training alongside Fishing[]

This method is suitable for players wanting to train Cooking along with Fishing. If the player has at last 30 Cooking, 35 Fishing and has done Dragon Slayer, they may want to choose the Corsair Cove Resource Area as a substitute place for training rather than at Karamja.

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 successful cook, 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. There is no permanent cooking location so bring an axe and tinderbox to use on the trees by the dock.

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, using the highest-level food possible such that they cannot be burned; 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.

Image Fish type Start level Finishing level Number of fish required Price of uncooked fish Price of cooked fish Profit/Loss
Trout Trout 50 58 1760 121,440 31,680 −89,760
Salmon Salmon 58 64 2029 233,335 231,306 −2,029
Tuna Tuna 64 74 6893 330,864 296,399 −34,465
Lobster Lobster 74 86 20846 4,377,660 3,481,282 −896,378
Raw swordfish Swordfish 86 99 67405 23,591,750 21,839,220 −1,752,530
Total Fish 98933 28,655,049 25,879,887 −2,775,162

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[]

Old School RuneScape uses the British convention for floor numbering: Ground floor, first floor, etc.

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 Cooks' 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 ground floor[?], then cooked using the ranges on the 1st floor[?], while obtaining more equipment from the 2nd floor[?].

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 Cooks' 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-levelled 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.

Location Distance from range Optimal food Notes
Edgeville bank Very short Lured fish There is a range right by the bank in Doris's house. (However, Doris is a members-only NPC, so the house is empty.) It is also a popular place to train Firemaking, which means that there will be plenty of fires around to cook on if the player wishes for faster runs. (Note: the house that contains the range has a door that automatically closes occasionally.)
Lumbridge bank Very short Lured, netted Either the 4 log respawn points just outside the bank, or the cooking range in the kitchen in Lumbridge Castle can be used for cooking, which the latter boasts lower chance of burning food, although Cook's Assistant is required for access. Players can cook trouts, pikes and salmons by their ways from River Lum to the bank. Bring 28 raw pieces of food. Make a fire and cook all 28 pieces of food. Bank and repeat. Power cooking is also recommended as logs spawn very near to the bank.
Barbarian Village fishing spots Very short Lured fish Players can catch trout/salmon or pick up dropped trout and salmon commonly dropped by other players and use the permanent fire located right at the fishing spots to cook the fish.
Varrock West bank Very short Power levelling There are two ranges located outside the west walls of Varrock. One at the main level of Juliet's house, and the alternate would be at Gertrude's house. The closest fishing area is Barbarian Village which is rather far from the cooking area. It is advised to have raw food prepared in the bank. The advantages of this cooking area is the relatively short distance to the Grand Exchange, as well as access to Varrock's west bank.
Al Kharid bank Very short Power levelling Although the range is nearest to bank among everywhere in F2P worlds, fishing spots are rather remote. However, this hot spot has no doors or anything that could block you, which can reduce time taken to cook an inventory. This place is recommended for powercookers who already have all the necessary food.
Draynor Village Short Shrimp and anchovies Though the nearest range is in Draynor Manor, the shrimps and anchovies can be cooked on fires made by firemakers. Free supplies of tinderboxes can be obtained from the Wise Old Man's house by searching the bookcases.
Grand Exchange Medium - Very short Power levelling Grand Exchange is a popular place to train Firemaking, and materials can be bought and sold freely. A busy world is recommended for training Cooking at Grand Exchange.
Musa Point spot Very long Tuna, lobsters and swordfish Musa spot is the most popular place for free players to catch tuna, lobsters, and swordfish, which is a major source of Cooking experience. Fire must be manually made by cutting logs (at the entrance to the Musa Point) and lit with a tinderbox, or other players might do it instead. In busy worlds, fires are usually lit by other players. The cooked fish generally have lower value and are not recommended to be sold to the general store. They can be banked at a bank deposit box located in Port Sarim and subsequently sold to other players or used as reliable food. To maximise the experience rate, players can login to a very busy world, take raw fish on the ground and cook them, trade to give away to players (the best way), or eat/drop them.
Corsair Cove Resource Area Short (permanent campfire) Tuna, lobsters and swordfish Requires completion of Dragon Slayer. There is a permanent campfire south of the area, where Lord Marshal Brogan and Altarkiz are. Players will usually also provide fires by burning the logs they have cut from the trees. If players are looking to bank their food, they need to keep in mind that The Corsair Curse has to be completed in order to use the bank a distance away. Players are advised to keep run mode on when travelling to the bank.


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