- "Cook up some wild cuisine by throwing together some ingredients and seeing what happens. You can't cook with an unlit pot."
- — Cooking Pots Loading Screen tip
Cooking Pots are an object and item from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. As their name implies, Cooking Pots are pots used primarily for Cooking, though they can also double as Campfires. Unlike campfires, they appear in fixed locations in certain areas of Hyrule.
Overview[]
Cooking Pots are found generally in inhabited areas, campsites, and settlements as well as some enemy campsites. Some also appear in formerly inhabited locations like Hyrule Castle Town Ruins, Satori Mountain, or abandoned campsites. Some even appear in convenient locations such as the Southern Oasis. Hyrule Castle has several Cooking Pots located within its hallways and passages. All Stables have outdoor cooking pots. In order to cook or pass the time, Link must ensure the campfire underneath the pot is lit. Once lit, Link can pass the time by the pot's campfire or cook food dishes and/or elixirs provided he has and uses the correct raw ingredient. Link must hold the materials he wishes to cook then stand next to the lit pot and press the "Cook" action button causing him to drop the ingredients into the pot resulting in a food dish or elixir depending on the ingredients. However incompatible ingredients will usually result in failed food dishes Dubious Food or Rock-Hard Food.
Monster Parts can be combined with lizards, frogs, or insects to create elixirs. Ingredients used primarily to create elixirs are essentially potion ingredients while those used primarily to create food dishes are essentially cooking ingredients though some cooking ingredients can be added to the recipe of elixirs. Cooking ingredients with different effects will cancel each other out. Recipes for dishes and Elixirs can be found in books, posters, or by completing certain side quests. Some people may even suggest recipes or tell him how to create certain elixirs. Fairies can be cooked to create Fairy Tonic or boost a dishes heart restoration. However fairies fly off instead of being cooked though Beedle implies it is their fairy dust that is cooked into the resulting tonic or dish. Occasionally Link achieves critical success which results in at different upbeat sound effects while cooking. Critical success boosts the effects and duration of cooked food/elixirs. Cooking on a Blood Moon, cooking Dragon Parts, or Star Fragments are ways to increase Link's chances for critical success. Like Campfires, a lit cooking pot warm Link's body temperature making them useful in surviving cold climates, though Link can also use them to cook up "Spicy" food dishes or Spicy Elixirs that grant cold resistance.
Cooking Pots located out in the open are exposed to rain thus their campfires will go out preventing Link or anyone else from cooking until it stops. However rarely some cooking pots are covered by trees, a roof, or even more rarely located indoors. While most Cooking Pots look the same some feature a slightly different design such as Mellie's covered outdoor Cooking Pot in Kakariko Village. There is also a Cooking Pot located in an old campsite underneath Kakariko Bridge which also keeps it sheltered from the rain. The Cooking Pot near Link's House is sheltered by the nearby tree and Hateno Village has a small outdoor kitchenette with two cooking pots sheltered by a roof. The Seabed Inn has a cooking pot inside the inn as rainfall is quite common in Lanayru Great Spring region. Rito Village and Flight Range have cooking pots in open air huts. Cooking Pots in hot volcanic areas such as Goron City always remain lit and desert cooking pots are never put out by rainfall as it never rains in the desert. Gerudo Town has two Cooking Pots located in a small outdoor kitchenette near the teacher Ashai's apartment though as with most things in Gerudo Town, Link can only use them while disguised as a Hylian "vai" (woman). Ashai holds cooking class at night in her apartment in Gerudo Town which contains two cookbooks by Chef Aurie Taamu. Ironically the Cooking Pot in Korok Forest is located inside the Great Deku Tree's stomach according to the owner of the Spore Store. Cooking pots in towns are free to use even when other people are implied to be using them. However Moza's cooking pot near the Ishto Soh Shrine is always in use and Moza will yell at Link if he attempts to use its campfire to pass time. The Hebra Trailhead Lodge, Pondo's Lodge, and Selmie's Spot all have Cooking Pots in their fireplaces. The Woodcutter's House has an outdoor cooking pot while the Old Man's hunting camp in the Forest of Spirits also has a cooking pot. Three Cooking Pots can be found along the path from Proxim Bridge, one at the merchant Giro's camp, one at the empty camp in the forest southeast of Giro's Camp (Link should be careful as ChuChu and a Forest Octorok ambush travelers here and Stalkoblin join them at night), and another down the road under the abandoned enemy tree fort which is sheltered from rainfall (though Link should be careful as Stalkoblin may rise up here at night). Two Cooking Pots can be found in the Hyrule Castle Town Ruins, one in the ruins west of the fountain in Central Square while another can be found in East Castle Town.
The Sheikah Slate map has a Cooking Pot stamp which can be used to mark Cooking Pot locations though he should save them for locations outside of active settlements and stables as their layouts and cooking pot locations are usually easy to remember. These stamps are best used for Cooking Pots out in the wilderness, ruins, and enemy camps.
Pot Lids, Soup Ladles, and Torches tend to be found around or near Cooking Pots. Some Side Quests involve using a cooking pot or reward Link with recipes. Pot Lids are intended to cover the pot when cooking soup though Link and monsters can also use them as makeshift Shields.