Quick Links

Cooking is an excellent skill in-game. If you take your time to master it, it can really help you out in various aspects of the game — it's particularly useful if you need to make a quick buck. It's not an understatement to say that in Disney Dreamlight Valley, there is more than meets the eye when it comes to cooking. It's indeed a very complex mechanic.

RELATED: Disney Dreamlight Valley: How To Unlock Characters

Cooking is more than an extra activity you can take up in your free time in the Valley. We'll show you exactly everything you need to know about it in this guide, so keep reading to learn it all.

This guide is based on early access content and is subject to change in the future.

How To Unlock Cooking

using stove in player's house

In Disney Dreamlight Valley, you don't actually unlock the ability to perform a certain activity. You simply gain access to the tools that allow you to do them.

So, for example, if you find the Royal Watering, you'll be able to water the two plants outside your house at the start of the game, but you won't be able to actually plant anything new because you need to find the Royal Shovel to dig holes and then plant seeds.

In the case of cooking, you need a stove. However, it's no problem if you haven't gotten one for yourself yet. You can cook right from the start by visiting a character's kitchen inside their house. Mickey Mouse and Goofy are available right after the game's intro and they both have a stove that you can use inside their homes.

If you want to get yourself your own stove, you'll have to complete the Foodception quest, which you will receive right after completing the first Mickey Mouse quest. In our Mickey Mouse character guide, there is a walkthrough of this quest. It's pretty simple: He'll ask you to cook up some things for him and then he'll give you a stove that you can keep. Mickey will even show you the basics of cooking.

How To Cook

finished seafood appetizer in-game

Now comes the important part: actually cooking. Before you can actually get cooking, you're going to need two crucial things: a stove, of course, and coal.

There are two ways to get coal — you can either dig up grass mounds or mine rocks. It is all up to RNG but sometimes coal will pop out.

While doing these tasks, it's always best to bring along a companion specialized in them since they have a chance of dropping these items as well when you're farming them.

To cook, all you have to do is approach any stove and interact with it. Then, select the ingredients you want to use in your dish. The number of ingredients can range from one to five.

In the upper left corner, you can check your recipe book, which will tell you what ingredients you can use to cook certain recipes that you've already learned.

Once you've decided what you're going to cook with, select the "start cooking" option.

After the meal is cooked, it will appear in front of you, displaying its information before being put away in your inventory. Its star rating will appear under its name and the more stars it has, the more energy you will receive when consuming — it has nothing to do with its price value. The meal's value in gold will depend on what ingredients and how many you used in the preparation of the meal.

Eating a good meal and going over your blue energy bar will turn it into a yellow energy bar, which will allow you to move faster due to how well-fed you are.

How To Unlock More Recipes

all of the recipes in the game

In your Collection section, if you go down to the Meals tab, you can check out all of the recipes in the game, including those that you haven't unlocked yet. There are a ton of recipes to collect and there are various ways to get them all, although they will take some work. This is how you can unlock more recipes in Disney Dreamlight Valley:

Characters

As your friendship level with the characters in the Valley increases, you'll be able to complete more character quests. Sometimes they'll ask you to cook something for them and provide the recipe — this is the case of Mickey Mouse's Foodception quest, for instance. Keep investing in the villagers and you're bound to learn something new.

If you want some help getting close with certain characters, here's our guide on how to increase friendship levels.

Exploring

Once you get the shovel, you'll be able to dig all over the place. Have you ever noticed grass mounds on the ground? Shiny grass mounds will sometimes have a recipe hiding in them.

Exploring is always worth your time. Recipes aren't only hidden in grass mounds, they can also be found in characters' homes in the sneakiest places. It's all about having an eagle eye.

Trial And Error

Lastly, and most importantly, trial and error is how you'll find many, many recipes. It's a fun process even if you might waste a few eggs doing it. A great feature to help you with this is the "history" option, which is available when cooking at the stove.

all recipe history in stove option

You can check which ingredients you've used in which recipes and what you could've done differently or what was mandatory for a specific recipe. It really helps understand how important certain ingredients can be when it comes to the final result and what could be changed to perhaps generate a final end result (a new recipe). It's all about analyzing your options and seeing what else could work.

Where To Find Cooking Ingredients

farming and visiting remy's realm

Cooking ingredients can be found pretty much anywhere in the Valley if you know where to look — it depends on the type of ingredients. There are several categories: there's fish, vegetables, fruit, grains, seafood, herbs, spices, and a few others. Here's where you can get them all:

Fish

You can get fish by fishing with the Royal Fishing Rod, of course. You can also have an automatic fish farm by repairing and upgrading Moana's fishing boat. It's very useful and you can check it from time to time to collect whatever she's caught while you were away.

Check out our fishing guide to learn where you can get every type of fish, how much they're worth, and how to unlock Moana's boat.

Vegetables And Grains

Vegetables and grains can be acquired when farming. You can buy seeds, plant them and harvest the produce. To unlock all vegetables, however, you'll have to find every Goofy Stall in the game and upgrade them completely. You can also unlock Wall-E's garden by leveling up your friendship level with him; just like Moana's boat, Wall-E will run his own little garden and you can harvest it afterward.

Fruit, Herbs, And Spices

You can't actually have your own fruit trees or berry bushes for now. To get fruit, herbs, and spices you have to harvest them in the wild. Although fruit doesn't give you any work since they'll grow naturally, you won't be able to gather them as often as you would vegetables. Thankfully, they all give three of each on the harvest. Herbs and spices naturally spawn around the Valley.

Seafood

Seafood can be found in the sand whenever you visit Dazzle Beach. Just like herbs and spices, they'll spawn naturally as time goes by. There are only three types of seafood: clams, oysters, and scallops.

Other Ingredients

There are six ingredients that you can only get from Chez Remy's Pantry. They are butter, cheese, eggs, milk, peanuts, and slush ice. You will have to get Remy to return to the Valley and then help him open up his own restaurant. Then, he'll have a couple of items for sale — once you upgrade the restaurant, he'll increase his stock.

Here's our guide on Remy if you haven't unlocked him yet.

NEXT: Disney Dreamlight Valley: Best Recipes, Ranked By How Tasty They Look