Welcome to the kitchen chaos
Cooking in Where Winds Meet is one of those delightfully useful systems that makes you feel like a culinary hero — or at least less hungry when monsters try to hug your face. Meals restore HP and can hand out tasty temporary boosts, so learning to cook is basically learning to not die dramatically.
How to cook (the lazy, efficient way)
Recipes live in your cooking menu from the get-go, but most are locked until you meet certain conditions: finish quests, win (or participate in) fishing contests, explore new spots, and the usual adventurer stuff. Ingredients come from hunting, foraging, fishing, or buying from vendors.
To actually cook, find one of the world’s many campfires with a pot over it — they’re usually near settlements, camps, and resting points. Interact with the cooking station, pick a recipe you’ve unlocked, deposit the ingredients, confirm, and wait for the cute little animation where your character proves they can chop and stir without burning the world down.
Quick step-by-step: Step 1: Approach a fire with a pot. Step 2: Open the cooking interface. Step 3: Pick a recipe and make sure you have the ingredients. Step 4: Add ingredients and confirm. Step 5: Watch them cook. Step 6: Enjoy the dish (and the benefits).
Cooking stamina and other annoying realities
Heads up — cooking uses stamina. Make sure you aren’t trying to meal-prep a full raid party when you’ve got zero stamina and a heroic need to nap instead.
Types of dishes
There are two main kinds of meals: Recovery Meals (mend your HP over a short time) and Buff Meals (raise max HP or increase physical attack for 30 minutes). Currently there are 19 known recipes split between recovery and buff categories.
Recovery Meals
These are the comfort-foods that glue your HP back together over a short burst. Each line below lists the dish name, stamina cost, ingredients, and the healing effect.
Veggie Mix — Stamina 2. Ingredients: 2 Herbs, 2 Mushrooms. Effect: Restores 4,500 HP over 3 seconds.
Ultimate Stuffed Fish — Stamina 2. Ingredients: 1 River Fish, 2 Herbs, 1 Wild Fruit. Effect: Restores 4,500 HP over 3 seconds.
Hotpot — Stamina 2. Ingredients: 2 Herbs, 2 Meat Scraps. Effect: Restores 4,500 HP over 3 seconds.
Aromatic Roasted Meat — Stamina 3. Ingredients: 2 Herbs, 3 Prime Meat Cut. Effect: Restores 9,000 HP over 3 seconds.
Water Lily Clams — Stamina 3. Ingredients: 2 Eggs, 2 Meat Scraps, 1 Carapace. Effect: Restores 9,000 HP over 3 seconds.
Fish-stuffed Lotus Pods — Stamina 3. Ingredients: 1 River Perch, 2 Mushrooms, 2 Wild Fruits. Effect: Restores 9,000 HP over 3 seconds.
Sliced Fish Fillet — Stamina 3. Ingredients: 2 Snakehead, 3 Herbs. Effect: Restores 9,000 HP over 3 seconds.
Steamed Pork with Salt — Stamina 4. Ingredients: 3 Herbs, 1 Fatty Meat Chunk. Effect: Restores 22,500 HP over 3 seconds.
Meat-stuffed Mushrooms — Stamina 4. Ingredients: 3 Mushrooms, 3 Small Meat Chunks. Effect: Restores 22,500 HP over 3 seconds.
Mushroom Steamed Fish — Stamina 4. Ingredients: 2 Luokou Croaker, 3 Mushrooms. Effect: Restores 22,500 HP over 3 seconds.
Egg Custard Soup — Stamina 5. Ingredients: 3 Wild Fruits, 2 Eggs. Effect: Restores 39,000 HP over 3 seconds.
Mock Clam Fish — Stamina 5. Ingredients: 2 Mandarin Fish, 2 Wild Fruits. Effect: Restores 39,000 HP over 3 seconds.
Braised Fish Head — Stamina 5. Ingredients: 2 Bighead Carp, 3 Herbs. Effect: Restores 39,000 HP over 3 seconds.
Buff Meals
Buff meals are the adrenaline and steroid-juice without the courtroom drama. All listed buff dishes cost stamina (usually 8) and last 30 minutes. The buff effects refresh if you eat the same dish again, but they don’t stack with themselves or with other buff foods, and they won’t work inside Trials.
Caro with Fried Noodles — Stamina 8. Ingredients: 1 Golden Carp, 2 Beauty’s Garment, 2 Mushrooms. Effect: +1,100 Max HP for 30 minutes.
Rotisserie Venison — Stamina 8. Ingredients: 1 Deer Meat, 2 Bai Zhu, 2 Eggs. Effect: +10–20 Physical Attack for 30 minutes.
Crispy Pheasant — Stamina 8. Ingredients: 1 Vicious Flower, 2 Lethal Frog Meat, 2 Mushrooms. Effect: +20–40 Physical Attack for 30 minutes.
Venison Ginseng Soup — Stamina 8. Ingredients: 1 Venison, 2 Wild Ginseng, 3 Herbs. Effect: +2,300 Max HP for 30 minutes.
Braised Double Shreds — Stamina 8. Ingredients: 1 Wei’s Purple Peony, 1 River Fish, 2 Great Bustard Meat. Effect: +50–100 Physical Attack for 30 minutes.
Pufferfish Soup — Stamina 8. Ingredients: 2 Jade Tower Peony, 1 Pufferfish, 2 Wild Fruits. Effect: +5,600 Max HP for 30 minutes.
Final chef’s wisdom
Eat a buff meal before a boss fight, keep a pocket full of recovery meals, and don’t mix too many exotic ingredients unless you enjoy gambling with glowing teeth. Buffs refresh if reapplied but won’t stack, and cooking uses stamina, so plan your feast around naps and saves.
