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•Filip Premuš• 10 min read
OSRS
OSRS Cooking: A Complete 1-99 Leveling Guide
Cooking turns raw fish, meat and other ingredients into food that heals players during fights, which makes it one of the first skills every Old School RuneScape account trains. Most of the grind is simple banking and clicking, but the food picked at each level, where it's cooked and a couple of key quests decide how fast the climb to 99 goes and how much food ends up burnt along the way.
OSRS Cooking Training Summary
OSRS Cooking quests give 57,620 XP in total, with Cook's Assistant and Gertrude's Cat covering the first levels.
Cooking gauntlets from the Family Crest quest lower the burn chance on lobsters, swordfish, monkfish, sharks and anglerfish.
Hosidius Kitchen burns less food than a normal range once the easy Kourend & Kebos Diary is done.
1-tick karambwans are the fastest Cooking training method, reaching up to 950,000 XP per hour at high levels.
Jugs of wine stop failing at level 68 and give 200 XP each, which makes them a fast, low-effort route to 99.
Cooking boosts like Chef's delight and spicy stew raise the level for a short time, so food can be cooked a little earlier.
How Cooking Works in OSRS
Cooking is trained by using raw food on a fire or a range. Most players keep raw food in the bank, withdraw a full inventory, cook it all and repeat, so cooking spots right next to a bank give the fastest XP.
Low-level players burn a lot of food, which wastes ingredients and gives no XP. Every food has a stop-burn level, the Cooking level where it can no longer burn, and ranges usually burn less food than fires. Some items lower that level even further:
Cooking gauntlets: Lower the burn chance for lobsters, swordfish, monkfish, sharks and anglerfish.
Hosidius Kitchen range: Raises the chance to cook successfully by 5% with the easy Kourend & Kebos Diary, or 10% with the elite diary.
Cooking cape: Stops nearly all food from burning while it's worn, but it needs 99 Cooking.
OSRS Cooking Quests
Quests are the quickest way past the first few Cooking levels. These quests give Cooking XP, and all of them together add up to 57,620 XP:
Quest | Cooking XP | Cooking Requirement |
|---|---|---|
Cook's Assistant | 300 | None |
Rag and Bone Man I | 500 | None |
Big Chompy Bird Hunting | 1,470 | 30 |
Gertrude's Cat | 1,525 | None |
Heroes' Quest | 2,825 | 53 |
Forgettable Tale... | 5,000 | 22 |
Scrambled! | 5,000 | 36 |
Tai Bwo Wannai Trio | 5,000 | 30 |
Meat and Greet | 8,000 | None |
Recipe for Disaster | 28,000 | 70 |
Cook's Assistant and Gertrude's Cat take only a few minutes and skip the slowest early levels. Meat and Greet has no Cooking requirement and gives 8,000 XP, while Tai Bwo Wannai Trio also unlocks cooked karambwans, the fastest food to train on.
Recipe for Disaster needs 70 Cooking and gives the biggest reward, since finishing it unlocks Barrows gloves, one of the best pairs of gloves in the game.
OSRS Cooking Gauntlets
Cooking gauntlets are the most useful Cooking item before 99. Players get them by finishing the Family Crest quest, which rewards steel gauntlets, then taking those to Caleb in Catherby, who enchants them into cooking gauntlets.
Wearing the gauntlets lowers the stop-burn level of lobsters, swordfish, monkfish, sharks and anglerfish. They don't help with tuna, karambwans, pies or wine, so players training on those can leave them in the bank.
OSRS Cooking Training From 1-99
Fish are the classic way to train Cooking, since they're easy to buy and some of them make money once they stop burning. These foods cover the main Cooking training steps, with the level where each one stops burning on a range:
Level | Icon | Food | XP Each | Stops Burning (Range) | With Gauntlets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 |  | Shrimps | 30 | 34 | No effect |
1 |  | Sardine | 40 | 38 | No effect |
15 |  | Trout | 70 | 49 | No effect |
25 |  | Salmon | 90 | 58 | No effect |
30 |  | Tuna | 100 | 63 | No effect |
30 |  | Karambwan | 190 | 99 | No effect |
35 |  | Jug of wine | 200 | 68 (stops failing) | No effect |
40 |  | Lobster | 120 | 74 | 64 |
45 |  | Swordfish | 140 | 80 | 80 |
62 |  | Monkfish | 150 | 90 | 86 |
80 |  | Shark | 210 | Never | 94 |
84 |  | Anglerfish | 230 | Never | 97 |
Levels 1 to 30 go fastest with cheap fish like sardines, trout and salmon, moving up as soon as each new fish unlocks. From 30, tuna and lobsters are steady, low-cost options, while karambwans and wines become the faster routes.
Players who want profit instead of speed usually switch to sharks from 80 and anglerfish from 84, which often sell for more than the raw fish. Hosidius Kitchen lowers the burn levels in the table even further, so sharks stop burning at 84 and anglerfish at 87 with gauntlets and the elite diary.
Best Cooking Locations in OSRS
Cooking next to a bank is the biggest time saver. These are the best places to cook in OSRS:
Rogues' Den: A fire that never goes out, right next to a bank in Burthorpe, with no requirements.
Hosidius Kitchen: Two ranges and a bank chest in Great Kourend, and the easy Kourend & Kebos Diary unlocks its burn bonus.
Myths' Guild: A range next to a bank, unlocked by finishing the Dragon Slayer II quest.
Mor Ul Rek: A stove beside a bank inside the TzHaar city, which needs a fire cape to enter.
Cooks' Guild: A range west of Varrock that needs 32 Cooking and a chef's hat to enter.
Hosidius Kitchen is the best spot for AFK cooking until the high 90s, thanks to its burn bonus. For 1-tick karambwans, Rogues' Den and Myths' Guild are better, since their fire or range sits right beside the bank.
Fastest Way to Train Cooking in OSRS
1-tick karambwans are the fastest Cooking method. Players use a raw karambwan on the fire or range once every game tick, which cooks food far faster than the normal pace and reaches from about 460,000 XP per hour at level 30 up to 950,000 XP per hour at 99.
Karambwans need the Tai Bwo Wannai Trio quest before they can be cooked into proper food. Before that, players can cook poison karambwans from level 1 to 30 for fast early XP. This method takes constant, precise clicking, so it suits players who want the quickest 99 and don't mind an intense session.
Jugs of wine are the low-effort fast option. Players add grapes to jugs of water, and after a short wait the jugs ferment for 200 XP each. Wine unlocks at level 35, but it can fail and give no XP until level 68, after which it reaches about 490,000 XP per hour.
Players with the Lunar Diplomacy quest and 65 Magic can also use the Bake Pie spell, which cooks pies without a range and never burns them, but it costs more than other methods.
Profitable Cooking Methods in OSRS
Cooking can make money when the cooked food sells for more than the raw ingredients. These methods are usually profitable:
Sharks: Profitable from level 80, especially once they stop burning.
Anglerfish: One of the most profitable fish to cook from level 84.
Karambwans: Often turn a profit, even with the faster tick method.
Monkfish: Can make a small profit at higher levels, once fewer of them burn.
Prices on the Grand Exchange change often, so checking raw and cooked prices before buying in bulk keeps the profit from turning into a loss. Lower-level fish like tuna and lobsters usually lose a little gold.
OSRS Cooking Boosts
Cooking boosts raise the level for a short time, which lets players cook food a few levels early or burn less of it. These are the main Cooking boosts in OSRS:
Chef's delight: Boosts Cooking by 1 to 5 depending on the level, but lowers Attack and Strength.
Mature Chef's delight: Boosts Cooking by 2 to 6, with a slightly bigger Attack and Strength drop.
Spicy stew: Changes Cooking by a random amount, up to 5 levels up or down, when made with orange spice.
Cooking cape: Boosts Cooking by 1 and stops nearly all food from burning.
Ironman Cooking Training
Ironmen can't buy raw food, so Cooking on an ironman goes alongside gathering skills. Most early levels come from cooking fish caught along the way, which makes Fishing training and Cooking a natural pair.
From level 20, the Hosidius mess hall is one of the best ironman spots, since all the ingredients for meat pies are available there, and pineapple pizzas from 65 reach over 200,000 XP per hour. Trouble Brewing is another option at around 200,000 XP per hour, and karambwans caught by the player can be cooked for big XP too.
FAQs About OSRS Cooking Training
Final Words
For most players, OSRS Cooking training comes down to speed or profit. 1-tick karambwans and jugs of wine get to 99 fastest, while sharks and anglerfish take longer but can pay for themselves along the way.
Whichever route fits, finishing the early quests, getting cooking gauntlets and cooking at Hosidius Kitchen or Rogues' Den makes every level smoother and keeps burnt food to a minimum.
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