Fallout 4 Guide: Cooking 101 - Finding Recipes and More

In Fallout: New Vegas, surviving the Mojave was all about your skills over the campfire. The game introduced a wide variety of inventive recipes for the player to make, each with their own unique benefits, serving as a precursor to the cooking system fans would later encounter in Skyrim and now Fallout 4.

Personally, it took me awhile to get into cooking in Fallout 4. I didn't see the need, given how many other ways there are to heal damage. However some of the recipes provide more than just healing and offer a serious leg-up while you're out looting and fighting in the wastelands. Thus they are worth the effort in obtaining the ingredients needed to make them.

There are three times of cooking stations where you can make consumable items: one with a large pot over a fire contained by cinderblocks (Steel 5, Concrete 3, Wood 3, Screw 3), another with a large roasting spit (Steel 4, Gear 3, Wood 2, Screw 2), and a cooking stove (Steel 4, Gear 3, Wood 2, Screw 2). You cannot craft a cooking station in your settlements until you have invested in the second tier of the Local Leader perk. However most settlements will already have one, and you can use one at any level. Here are the recipes available:

BEVERAGE

Dirty Wastelander

Mutfruit 1
Nuka Cola 1
Whiskey 2

Purified Water

Dirty Water 3

ROAST

Baked Bloatfly

Bloatfly Meat 2

Increases radiation resistance.

Bloodbug Steak

Bloodbug Meat 1

+15 Max Health for 1 hour.

Cooked Softshell Meat

Softshell Mirelurk Meat 2

+15 AP for 1 hour.

Crispy Squirrel Bits

Squirrel Bits 1

Deathclaw Egg Omelette

Blood Pack 1
Deathclaw Egg 1

Small Health Regen for 2 hours.

Deathclaw Steak

Deathclaw Meat 1

+1 Agility for 1 hour.

Grilled Radroach

Radroach Meat 3

Grilled Radstag

Radstag Meat 1

+25 Carry Weight for 1 hour.

Iguana On A Stick

Iguana Bits 1
Wood 1

Mirelurk Cake

Mirelurk Egg 1
Mirelurk Meat 1
Oil 1
Razorgrain 1

Breathe underwater for 30 minutes.

Mirelurk Egg Omelette

Dirty Water 1
Mirelurk Egg 1

Restores 50 AP.

Mirelurk Queen Steak

Queen Mirelurk Meat 1

+2 Endurance for 1 hour.

Mole Rat Chunks

Mole Rat Meat 2

+5 AP for 15 minutes.

Mutant Hound Chops

Mutant Hound Meat 1

Remove 50 points of Radiation.

Mutt Chops

Mongrel Dog Meat 1

Radscorption Egg Omelette

Purified Water 1
Radscorpion Egg 1

Cures all addictions.

Radscorpion Steak

Radscorpion Meat 1

+25 Energy Resist for 1 hour.

Ribeye Steak

Brahmin Meat 1

Roasted Mirelurk Meat

Mirelurk Meat 2

+10 AP for 30 minutes.

Squirrel On A Stick

Squirrel Bits 1
Wood 1

Stingwing Filet

Stingwing Meat 1

+1 Perception for 1 hour.

Tasty Deathclaw Omelette

Blood Pack 1
Carrot 2
Mutfruit 2
Pristine Deathclaw Egg 1
Purified Water 1

Small Health Regen and +50 Max Health for 2 hours.

Yaoi Guai Ribs

Yao Guai Meat 1

+15 Damage Resist for 1 hour.

Yao Guai Roast

Carrot 1
Tato 1
Yao Guai Meat 1

+10 melee damage for one hour.

SOUP

Iguana Soup

Carrot 1
Dirty Water 1
Iguana Bits 3

Noodle Cup

Dirty Water 1
Razorgrain 1

Radstag Stew

Gourd 1
Radstag Meat 1
Silt Bean 1
Vodka 1

+30 Energy Resist for 1 hour.

Squirrel Stew

Bloodleaf 1
Carrot 1
Dirty Water 2
Squirrel Bits 1
Tato 1

+2% XP gain for 2 hours.

Vegetable Soup

Carrot 1
Dirty Water 1
Tato 1

+25 Rad Resist for 1 hour.

UTILITY
 
Vegetable Starch

Corn 3
Mutfruit 3
Purified Water 1
Tato 3
 

Some recipes will provide rad-free meals, particularly roasting Radroach, Mole Rat, Mirelurk, Deathclaw and Brahmin Meat. Other recipes to take note of include Mirelurk Cake, which allows you to breathe underwater, Mirelurk Egg Omelette, which restores 50 AP, Grilled Radstag which adds 25 to your carry weight for an hour, and Radscorpion Egg Omelette, which cures all addictions (very handy, as Addictol is rare and expensive). Vegetable Starch is the most important as it breaks down into 5 Adhesive (highly necessary for armor and weapon mods) and can be made with vegetables that can be grown in great quantities on your settlements.

There are a few rare items in the list of necessary cooking station ingredients. Silt Bean can be found growing in wooded areas; it resembles a cluster of modern peapods, but it is red in color instead of green. Bloodleaf is a scarlet broad leafed plant that generally can be found growing on the edge of bogs and bodies of water.

Many of the recipes also rely on the meat salvaged from bugs and animals. To get a regular supply, you will need to spend time in the outskirts of Boston. Insects stick to bodies of water, and Yao Guai, Deathclaws, and Radstag roam the wooded areas. Mirelurks can be found near any body of water, fresh or sea. Some Legendary drop weapons have prefixes that offer boosts to killing insects and Mirelurks. The best gun for hunting them is probably Reba II, a hunting rifle that boosts your damage to Mirelurks and bugs by 50%. You can earn it by helping Barney Rook with his machine gun turrets up in Salem, w hich is in the northeast portion of the map.

A lot of the roasts you make with the meat you find from bugs and insects will give performance boosts to things like AP and Endurance. After a kill you should look around for any nearby camps to see if they have a cooking station so you can benefit from the boosters right away. If you’re up against Mirelurks, Deathclaws, or Stingwings, you’ll need them.

There are a few recipes out in the wild that you can collect and then use at the cooking station. Deathclaw Wellingham, available as a reward for the sidequest The Devil’s Due, is one. Another is Slocum’s Buzzbites, which is in an Advanced safe located in the offices of the Slocum Joe's Corporate Headquarters.

You cannot use the Gwinnett beer recipes at a cooking station, however, that does not mean they have no use. Check out our guide on the Drinkin' Buddy here.