Introduction
Cooking is an important life skill in BDO. It is used to create food that provides various buffs when consumed.
High Cooking skills can be quite profitable and is a great way to make money whilst AFK. All you really need to start is a Cooking Utensil and a house to put it in. A basic Cooking Utensil can be bought from a food merchant for 1,000 silver, crafted using a Tool Workshop, or bought from the Central Market.
After you have acquired a cooking utensil and placed it in your house, you can interact with it by pressing the R button to open the cooking window. Here you can select ingredients to cook or select a food/drink from the recipe list of dishes. The recipe list will not tell you the ingredients for items you have not prepared before.
When you prepare some dishes, you have a chance of earning a higher item grade.
There are 5 item grades (lowest to highest):
- White
- Green
- Blue
- Yellow
- Orange
The highest grade you can cook with all basic dishes is yellow grade, and specials have a chance to be orange grade.
I recommend using BDOlytics for Cooking Recipes to help you figure out what you can cook for profit.
Cooking NPC Vendors
There are 2 important Cooking Vendors that you can use to get materials:
- General Cooking Vendors
- Fruit and Vegetable Vendors
General Cooking Vendors sell basic Cooking Utensils and other ingredients such as Sugar, Salt, Leavening Agent, etc. These ingredients are always bought from a Cooking Vendor and cannot be obtained any other way, but they are very cheap to purchase. The General Cooking Vendors can be found all of the main cities/towns, and can be located using the Find NPC function.
- ESC Menu > Function > Find NPC > Search: “Cooking”
Fruit and Vegetable Vendors sell the fruit and vegetable type ingredients, which are often a bottleneck for cooking recipes. These ingredients can be bought from the Central Market, and also gathered, or harvested using the Farming lifeskill. However, you often use a lot more than you can collect or buy. Many players use the Fruit and Vegetable Vendor in Calpheon or Eilton to purchase extra materials as needed for their cooking. You can buy Strawberry fruits for 700 silver each, and Paprika vegetables for 850 silver each.
Fruit and Vegetable Vendor locations:
- Calpheon City – NPC Milano Belucci
- Eilton (Mountain of Eternal Winter) – NPC Biyamba
- Lake Flondor (Kamaslyvia) – NPC Miloberry
- Delmira Plantation (O’dyllita) – NPC Azelin
- Papua Crinea – NPC Benns Moanna
Cooking Utensils
Ideally, you want to use Advanced Cooking Utensils for the cooking time reduction and because of their high durability but this is really one of the biggest bottlenecks when it comes to cooking. You may have a hard time buying these utensils off the marketplace and should make them yourself. The other alternative is to use the Intermediate Cooking Utensil which has less durability but does not give the cooking time reduction.
The base Cooking Utensil and the Balenos Traditional Cooking Utensils can be bought from a cooking vendor for the prices listed below.
| Item Name | Durability | Effect | Cost to buy | Workshop | Workshop Recipe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cooking Utensil |
100 | 1,000 | Level 1 Tool Workshop | Rough Stone x15 Melted Iron Shard x10 Black Stone Powder x2 |
|
Balenos Traditional Cooking Utensil |
500 | Cooking time +5 sec | 50,000 | Level 1 Tool Workshop | Rough Stone x8 Melted Iron Shard x10 Black Stone Powder x10 |
Intermediate Cooking Utensil |
500 | Level 2 Tool Workshop | Rough Stone x25 Log x10 Melted Iron Shard x15 Black Stone Powder x7 |
||
Serendia Traditional Cooking Utensil |
1250 | Cooking time +6 sec | Level 2 Tool Workshop | Rough Stone x15 Log x20 Melted Iron Shard x15 Black Stone Powder x15 |
|
Advanced Cooking Utensil |
900 | Cooking time -1 sec | Level 3 Tool Workshop | Polished Stone x20 Usable Scantling x5 Melted Iron Shard x20 Black Stone Powder x14 |
|
Calpheon Traditional Cooking Utensil |
2000 | Cooking time +7 sec | Level 3 Tool Workshop | Polished Stone x15 Maple Plywood x8 Melted Iron Shard x30 Black Stone Powder x30 |
|
Morning Light Traditional Cooking Utensil |
3000 | Cooking time -1 sec | Moodle Village Nampo 2 Byeot County Village Nopsae 4 |
Polished stone x80 Standardized Timber Square x20 Iron Ingots x20 Firehorn x40 |
| Item Name | Durability | Effect | How to obtain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Supreme Cooking Utensil |
5000 | Cooking time -1 sec | Exchange one of the following items:
|
How to repair Cooking Utensils
You can repair a Supreme Cooking Utensil or Advanced Cooking Utensil to restore its max durability. To obtain the Repair Tool, you need to exchange a full durability Utensil of the same type.
- For example, to obtain a Repair Tool to restore an Advanced Cooking Utensil, you must exchange a full durability Advanced Cooking Utensil.
Unlike utensils, the repair tools stack in your inventory and have a low weight, so you can keep lots of them in your inventory or storage and use them to repair your Cooking Utensil, instead of having to replace the Utensil each time the durability runs out. Simply use the (F5) key on your utensil to use a repair tool.
| Utensil | Repair Tool | Exchange NPCs |
|---|---|---|
 Advanced Cooking Utensil |
 Baermalo Hona’s Advanced Cooking Repair Tool |
[Velia] Islin Bartali [Heidel] Constante [Calpheon] Fredelles Herba [Altinova] Edman [Valencia] Nerasabi Alom [Grána] Luansei [Duvencrune] Maopan [O’draxxia] Elena Kanin |
 Supreme Cooking Utensil |
 Baermalo Hona’s Supreme Cooking Repair Tool |
[Velia] Islin Bartali [Heidel] Constante [Calpheon] Fredelles Herba [Altinova] Edman [Valencia] Nerasabi Alom [Grána] Luansei [Duvencrune] Maopan [O’draxxia] Elena Kanin |
Morning Light Traditional Cooking Utensil |
 Morning Light Traditional Cooking Repair Tool |
Nampo Moodle Village Nampo Dalbeol Village Nampo Nopsae Byeot County |
Cooking Gear
When cooking you really want to achieve the fastest possible cooking time and also stack as much Cooking Mastery as possible.
- For players just starting out, you want to try to get 1 second cooking time. The base cooking time is 10 seconds, so you will need to use a variation of buffs to reduce it.
- Once you get to higher levels of Cooking, you may find that certain recipes produce higher silver per hour with high Cooking Mastery, so you will want to swap your Silver Embroidered Clothes for Manos Clothing.
- Use this Google Sheet to help you compare and work out whether it is better to swap to Manos Clothes.
When handing in Imperial Cooking Boxes, you should always use Mastery Cooking Clothes and Accessories to increase your silver profit.
| Item Name | Buffs | How to obtain | |
|---|---|---|---|
 |
Teff Bread | Cooking/Alchemy Time -0.3 sec | Cooking (Beginner Lv.6) Recipe for one: Teff Flour x5, Mineral Water x3, Leavening Agent x2, Salt x2 |
 |
Teff Sandwich | Cooking/Alchemy Time -0.5 sec | Cooking (Professional Lv.1) Recipe for one: Teff Bread x1, Freekeh Snake Stew x1, Grilled Scorpion x1, Red Sauce x3 |
 |
Seafood Cron Meal | Cooking/Alchemy Time -0.6 sec Life EXP +10% Processing Success Rate +10% Gathering +2 Movement Speed +2 Fishing +2 Weight Limit +100LT All Life Skill Mastery +25 |
Processing window (L) > Simple Cooking Recipe for one: Balenos Meal x3, Calpheon Meal x3, Margoria Seafood Meal x1, Ancient Cron Spice x1 |
 |
Alchemy Stone of Life | Cooking/Alchemy Time -0.5 to -2 sec (depending on alchemy stone) |
Alchemy (Skilled 5) Recipe for one: Shining Powder x8, Blood of the Sinner x5, Powder of Time x6, Pure Powdered Reagent x9, Clear Liquid Reagent x9 |
 |
Life Spirit Stone | Cooking/Alchemy Time -1.1 sec | Dropped from monsters in Kamaslyvia region |
 |
Verdure Draught | Alchemy/Cooking Time -1 sec Life EXP+20% Processing Success Rate +20% Gathering +3 Movement Speed +3 Fishing +3 Weight Limit +200LT |
Processing window (L) > Simple Cooking Worker’s Elixir x3, Elixir of Swiftness x3, Elixir of Time x3, Tears of the Falling Moon x1 |
 |
[Fundamentals of Cooking]
Lightstone Set |
Cooking Time -2 sec Cooking EXP +13% Cooking Mastery +25 Max Carrying Weight +50LT |
Lightstone of Flora: Secret Lightstone of Flora: Stir Lightstone of Wind: Feather Iridescent Lightstone More info in our Artifacts and Lightstone guide |
 |
Sethra’s Artifacts – Cooking EXP | Cooking EXP +5% |
Obtained from Imperial Crafting Delivery
(low chance when handing in Cooking Boxes)
|
 |
Silver Embroidered Cook’s Clothes (up to +5 enhancement) |
Cooking TIme -1 to -7 sec
(depending on enhancement) |
Costume Mill (Level 1) Cotton Fabric x9, Powder of Earth x10, Black Stone Powder x15 |
 |
Canape Costume Set | Cooking Time -2 sec | Pearl Store (F3) > Apparel > Costume (2,900 pearls) |
 |
Manos Cook’s Clothing | Cooking Mastery Increase | Processing (L) > Manufacturing Indigo Lapis Lazuli x15, Dawn Fallen Silk x15, Fundamentals of Cooking x10, Manos Stone x10, |
Weight Limit Crystals for Cooking
You can find alternative crystals in our Weight Limit Guide.
Best crystal setup for a total of 490 LT:
Ancient Magic Crystal – Hystria x4 (or x6 with Fiery Weapon equipped)
HAN Magic Crystal – Gervish x4
WON Magic Crsytal- Cobelinus x2
BON Magic Crystal – Hystria x2
How to start cooking
To batch produce a recipe, you simply go to your Cooking Utensil in your house and press “R” to use it. Right-click your ingredients and make sure you enter ingredients for 1 result. (Entering more will consume all of your ingredients and only give you 1 result.
Next click “Batch Production”.
Click “Yes” then enter the amount you wish to make. You can click “Maximum quantity” or press “F” to cook as many as possible. Then click “OK” and you will automatically make as many as you have ingredients or energy for.
Imperial Cooking Boxes
You can pack alchemy or cooking boxes each day and deliver them to an Imperial Crafting Delivery NPC for silver. Even a newer player can make a minimum of 50 million silver per day by spending just a few minutes buying the items and turning them into boxes.
For more information about Imperial Crafting Delivery, check our dedicated guide!
Ingredient Exchange
You can swap certain Special grade ingredients for a lower-grade version. This is done so that you don’t waste Special grade ingredients on recipes that only require a small amount of the ingredient.
For example, the Grilled Sausage recipe only needs x1 white-grade Onion, a Special Onion can be substituted as 3-5 white-grade Onions, so you wouldn’t want to waste a Special Onion for each recipe craft.
Exchange locations and NPCs:
- Loggia Farm – Camellia Loggia
- Olvia – Bofin
- Glish – Urahr
- Heidel – Hunt
- Calpheon City – Ahr
- Altinova – Irvin
- Kasula Farm – Bumorki
- Sand Grain Bazaar – Buchrin
- Valencia City – Salebin
- Grána – Vilentia
- Delmira Plantation – Kayle
- Maslan’s Yulas Citron Orchard – Purari
| Item Name | Exchanges for |
|---|---|
 Special Pepper x1 |
High-Quality Pepper x2 OR Pepper x4 |
|
|
High-Quality Garlic x2 OR Garlic x4 |
 Special Onion x1 |
High-Quality Onion x2 OR Onion x4 |
 Special Hot Pepper x1 |
High-Quality Hot Pepper x2 OR Hot Pepper x4 |
Ingredient Substitutions
When Cooking, there are various ingredient Substitutions you can use.
- For example, if you are Cooking Pickled Vegetables, the recipe requires Vegetables x8, so you can use any of the ingredients that are under the Vegetables group.
- Such as Paprika x8, Cabbage x8, Pumpkin x8, etc.
As well as substituting the ingredient, higher quality ingredients can also be used. Using the Vegetables category as an example, we can see from the table below that 1 High-Quality ingredient is the same as 6 white-grade ingredients, and 1 Special grade Ingredient is the same as 36 white-grade ingredients.
This means that in a recipe where you need x6 or lower Vegetables, you can use x1 High-Quality Vegetable instead of using x6 white-grade Vegetables.
You can also mix and match the rarities of the ingredients as long as you have at least the number of ingredients required in the recipe.
- For example, if you are Cooking Pickled Vegetables, the recipe requires vegetables x8, so you can use x1 of the Special grade ingredients that are under the vegetables group.
- Such as Special Paprika x1, Special Cabbage x1, Special Pumpkin x1
- You can also mix and match by using High-Quality Paprika x1 (equal to x6 Paprika), and Paprika x2 = x8 Vegatables.
Other cases:
- You can use any Dried Fish/Seafood at the same value 1:1. Eg. Dried Cuttlefish x2 can be replaced by Dried Squid x2.
- x1 Fresh Fish is the same as x2 Dried Fish
- Rare procs of any Dishes can be used at a 1:3 value. Eg. Beer x3 can be replaced by Cold Draft Beer x1
- However, no recipe will ever require more than x2 of a dish.
| Items | White | High-Quality | Special |
|---|---|---|---|
Group- Vegetables Cabbage Olive Paprika Pumpkin Tomato |
1 | 6 | 36 |
Group – Fruits Apple Banana Cherry Grape Pear Pineapple Strawberry |
1 | 6 | 36 |
Group – Flowers Rose Sunflower Tulip |
1 | 6 | 36 |
Group – Grains Wheat Barley Corn Potato Sweet Potato |
1 | 3 | 18 |
 Pepper |
1 | 3 | 18 |
 Garlic |
1 | 3 | 18 |
 Onion |
1 | 3 | 18 |
 Hot Pepper |
1 | 3 | 18 |
 Delotia |
1 | 3 | 18 |
 Citron |
1 | 6 | 36 |
| Group – Red Meat | Value |
|---|---|
 Pork |
1 |
 Bear Meat |
1 |
 Beef |
1 |
 Deer Meat |
1 |
 Fox Meat |
1 |
 Gazelle Meat |
1 |
 Goat Meat |
1 |
 Lamb Meat |
1 |
 Raccoon Meat |
1 |
 Rhino Meat |
1 |
 Weasel Meat |
1 |
| Wolf Meat |
1 |
| Group – Bird Meat | Value |
|---|---|
 Chicken Meat |
1 |
 Flamingo Meat |
1 |
 Kuku Bird Meat |
1 |
| Group – Reptile Meat | Value |
|---|---|
 Worm Meat |
1 |
 Lizard Meat |
1 |
 Waragon Meat |
2 |
 Cheetah Dragon Meat |
2 |
| Group – Flour | Value |
|---|---|
 Wheat Flour |
1 |
 Barley Flour |
1 |
 Corn Flour |
1 |
 Potato Flour |
1 |
 Sweet Potato Flour |
1 |
| Group – Dough | Value |
|---|---|
 Wheat Dough |
1 |
 Barley Dough |
2 |
 Corn Dough |
2 |
 Potato Dough |
2 |
 Sweet Potato Dough |
2 |
Witch’s Delicacy (Cooking Byproduct)
Witch’s Delicacy can randomly drop whilst cooking. According to players, it has a drop rate of around 2%, meaning you are likely to get one for every 50 dishes you cook.
Once you’ve collected 10 of them, you can exchange them at Nadia Rowen in Olvia for one of the following:
| Required Item | Can be Exchanged for |
|---|---|
 Witch’s Delicacy x10 |
 Beer x500 |
 Milk x120 |
|
 Contribution EXP 900 and Cooking EXP 30 |
I highly recommend choosing either Milk or Contribution EXP. Milk is difficult to obtain since it has to be gathered by hand and is a bottleneck for cooking, whilst the Contribution EXP you earn from cooking is one of the easiest ways to boost your CP.
Cooking Mastery
Higher Cooking Mastery has the following benefits:
- You will receive more profit for Imperial Cooking Boxes (up to 114.9%).
- The chance to obtain the maximum amount of food per cooking will increase up to 61.1% (e.g. if you get 1 to 4 results when cooking a certain food, the chance to get 4 will increase
- The chance to obtain higher-grade food will increase up to 19.3% max.
- You will have a chance of Mass Cooking occurring. This means you will be able to cook in larger batches. (e.g. you will use x10 materials at once and get x10 food at once, but the durability of your Cooking Utensil will only decrease by 1). The chance of this occurring can increase up to 100% depending on your total Cooking Mastery points.
However, mastery gear is not typically used when cooking because it is hard to obtain 1 second cooking time without wearing Silver Embroidered Cook’s Clothes. The mastery gear is still used though for handing in cooking boxes.
Emergency food quests have also been added which will pop up at random times whilst you are cooking. Emergency food quests require you to cook x1 of the food you are already cooking and then turn it in to an NPC. As a reward, you will receive a large number of cooking ingredients.
For example: [Emergency] Food for Calpheon Slum will require one random food among three types of food. The rewards are either 1000 Eggs or 1000 Milk.
Food recipes to increase Cooking Mastery:
| Food | Requirement | Ingredients | Effects |
|---|---|---|---|
| Savory Steak | Cooking Professional Lv. 1 or Cooking Mastery 250 points |
Lion Meat x4, Fig x5, Cooking Wine x2, Pepper x3 |
All Life Skill Mastery +10 Points for 45 minutes |
| Seafood Cron Meal | None (Processing > Simple Cooking) |
Balenos Meal x3, Sute Tea x3 Savory Steak x1, Ancient Cron Spice x1 |
All Life Skill Mastery +25 Points, Life Skill EXP +5%, Movement Speed +2, Max Weight Limit +100LT for 120 minutes |
FAQ
What recipe should I use for Contribution Point EXP?
Cook Essence of Liquor, Vinegar, or Grilled Bird Meat.
The recipes for these are below:
- Essence of Liquor: Leavening Agent x1 + Grain Flour x1 + Fruit x1
- Vinegar: Leavening Agent x1 + Grain x1 + Fruit x1 + Sugar x1
- Grilled Bird Meat: Chicken Meat x2 + Deep Frying Oil x6 + Salt x1 + Cooking Wine x2
Grain = Wheat, Barley, Potato, Sweet Potato, or Corn
Fruit = Strawberry, Grape, Apple, Cherry, Pear, Banana, or Pineapple
You will get an item called Witch’s Delicacy and once you have of these you can exchange them for Contribution Point EXP from Nadia Rowen in Olvia.
I also recommend using this calculator to work out how long it will take you to reach your CP goal! Gaining CP through cooking can be slow and you shouldn’t expect great results overnight, but it is still an AFK activity.
How do I get 1 second cooking time?
Use an Advanced Cooking Utensil, Pearl store costume, +3 Silver Embroidered Cook’s Clothes, Sharp Alchemy Stone of Life, Seafood Cron Meal.
If you are using an Intermediate Cooking Utensil, or don’t have the pearl store costume, you can use a +4 Silver Embroidered Cook’s Clothes and Verdure Cron Elixir.
Should I use Life Skill Mastery clothing?
For cooking it’s really important to achieve the 1 second cooking time, this is hard to obtain whilst wearing the mastery clothing because the Silver Embroidered Cook’s Clothing greatly reduces cooking time.
- Once you get to higher levels of Cooking, you may find that certain recipes produce higher silver per hour with high Cooking Mastery, so you will want to swap your Silver Embroidered Clothes for Manos Clothing.
- Use this Google Sheet to help you compare and work out whether it is better to swap to Manos Clothes.
Mastery clothing is still used when handing in cooking boxes for the extra profit the mastery bonus gives.
How often do special recipes proc?
When crafting yellow-grade meals (such as the valencia meal) they can proc and become orange-grade “special” meals. The proc rate starts at 15% and can go up to a maximum of 30% once you are over 10 cooking levels over the required level to cook the recipe. In other words, if the recipe requires master 1+ to cook, you will have a 15% chance of getting a special proc. If you are master 11 or higher you will have a 30% chance to get the special proc.
Per craft you get 2.5 + 1.5 * mastery_bonus of the main recipe.
What substitutions can I use whilst cooking?
You can substitute some ingredients when cooking. There are exceptions to the rule but here are some guidelines you can follow:
– 1 ingredient of green grade can be replaced by 2-3 white grade ingredients and vice versa.
– 1 ingredient of blue grade can be replaced by 3-5 white grade ingredients and vice versa.
– 1 fresh fish can be replaced by 2 dried fish and vice versa.
– 1 dried fish will usually work for most recipes where 1 fresh fish is required.
You can also swap certain Special grade ingredients for a lower-grade version. This is done so that you don’t waste Special grade ingredients on recipes that only require a small amount of the ingredient.
For example, the Grilled Sausage recipe only needs x1 white-grade Onion, a Special Onion can be substituted as 3-5 white-grade Onions, so you wouldn’t want to waste a Special Onion for each recipe craft.
Exchange locations and NPCs:
- Loggia Farm – Camellia Loggia
- Olvia – Bofin
- Glish – Urahr
- Heidel – Hunt
- Calpheon City – Ahr
- Altinova – Irvin
- Kasula Farm – Bumorki
- Sand Grain Bazaar – Buchrin
- Valencia City – Salebin
- Grána – Vilentia
- Delmira Plantation – Kayle
- Maslan’s Yulas Citron Orchard – Purari
| Item Name | Exchanges for |
|---|---|
| Special Pepper x1 |
High-Quality Pepper x2 OR Pepper x4 |
|
|
High-Quality Garlic x2 OR Garlic x4 |
| Special Onion x1 |
High-Quality Onion x2 OR Onion x4 |
| Special Hot Pepper x1 |
High-Quality Hot Pepper x2 OR Hot Pepper x4 |
What should I cook for profit?
For profit most of the profits come from the Imperial Cooking Boxes, or cooking recipes depending on the current market. For this, I recommend using BDOlytics, which provides recipes using Market Data, and can help you work out what is best to cook.
You can also start by cooking the meals to pack into imperial cooking boxes for your current cooking level. You can buy the meals straight from the market but this really starts to cut into your profit. Cooking goes very well with farming as well to obtain materials that are more of a bottleneck, such as onions and garlic, and doing these together can increase your overall silver per day.
Pickled vegetables for the Professional Cooking Boxes are a great start. The only thing you can’t buy from a vendor is grain for the vinegar, which you should be gathering with your workers.
Sute Tea is also relatively easy for the Master Cooking Boxes. It requires butter, milk, and Cooking Honey to make. Although milk is never in stock on the market, butter usually is, so you can gather your own milk and Cooking Honey, and then save your resources by just buying the butter.
I highly recommend taking a look at this Google Sheet which shows you the best boxes to make for profit. Prices are based on the EU market but you can make a copy of the sheet and change it to NA on the “Ello” tab.
The cooking outfit only costs 2200 pearls for the part that matters. Don’t waste the additional 700 pearls on the weapon cosmetics, they don’t do anything for cooking speed/xp. Buy the costume set. Don’t buy the classic set.
The weapons still contribute to the standard 8pc outfit bonus, but they aren’t special in that regard. Any weapon cosmetics will do that. Only buy the 2900 pearl bundle if you like the way the weapons look.