Free-to-play Cooking training

See also: Pay-to-play Cooking training

Cooking is an easy skill to train, even in Free worlds, because of the availability of fish everywhere and the large amount of experience that cooking yields over a relatively short amount of time. Also, power levelling is efficient and cooking only incurs a low level of cash loss. Completing Cook's Assistant is helpful for all players as it opens up access to a new range in Lumbridge, which is close to a bank and reduces the chance of burning the food.

Uncooked items

Some food items that requires combination of multiple items can be bought uncooked from the Grand Exchange. Though they are usually hard to buy, they may be good for training cooking.

Cooking level table

This is a cropped table indicating what can be achieved starting at certain levels. It only covers items efficient for training cooking.

Minimum level	Achievement	Experience	Notes
1	Shrimps, Meat, Crayfish, Chicken. Anchovies	30	All these items are easily obtainable by fishing or killing beginner monsters. You can also pick up meat dropped by cows in the cow field in Lumbridge where many people train and leave meat lying around. Also, when you kill chickens for their meat, always pick up the feathers dropped by them. 100 feathers are worth 1400 at the Grand Exchange.
15	Trout	70	Trout can be multi purposed. They can serve as mid level food, healing 70 life points each, or as power levelling items for both fishing and cooking. You can also pick up Trout from many power-fishers at the river near Gunnarsgrunn. Power-cooking Trout is a popular way of levelling Cooking in F2P and costs about coins for every 1000 XP gained.
20	Pike	80	Pike are generally harder to fish, expensive, and yield a low amount of experience; however, cooking pike is one of the only profitable ways of cooking and it is recommended to cook them if you don't want to lose too much money.
25	Salmon	90	Salmon can be used for food, heal 90 life points each, or sold for coins each. They are mainly obtained by lure fishing above level 30 fishing. You can also pick up Salmon from many power-fishers at the river near Gunnarsgrunn. After cooking Salmon it can be taken into the Stronghold Of Player Security and sold to players training combat in the second and third floors.
30	Apple pie	130	Apple pie can be made as mid-high level food, healing 70 life points twice each, although, 32 Cooking is needed to enter the cooking guild to make these pies in bulk. They currently cost coins each.
30	Tuna	100	Tuna can be used as mid-level food, healing 100 life points each. They are very popular for training cooking since power-fishers(mostly at Musa Point) often drop them ready to be picked up and cooked, creating a free source to train cooking quickly. Cooked tuna also has a constant demand and can be sold for coins each, higher than the raw counterpart.
32	Cooking Guild	N/A	The Cooking Guild is a good place to train cooking by making Jugs of wine and Apple pies, as it provides materials sufficient to make them.
35	Pizza	143	Cooked pizza can be used as food, healing 70 life points twice each. Cooked pizzas should not be sold, but kept for adding toppings later on.
35	Jug of wine	200	Jug of wine can be used as mid-high level food, healing 110 life points each, but cause the Attack stat to decrease. It is ideal for Ranged or Magic training. You may enter the cooking guild to make free wine, considering there are jugs, grapes, and water.
40	Lobster	120	Lobsters can be cooked as high level food, healing 120 life points each. Cooked lobster can be sold for coins, higher than the raw counterpart.
45	Swordfish	140	Swordfish can be cooked as high level food, giving the highest healing rate for Free players, healing 140 life points. As with all fish it can be consumed in one bite. Although the difference between price of raw and cooked swordfish is small, cooking swordfish would incur major loss due to low success rate when cooking the fish.
45	Meat pizza	(143+25)	Meat pizzas, which heal 80 life points twice, can be made merely by adding cooked meat on plain pizza. Raw meat is easily obtainable from killing giant rats, cows and bears.
55	Anchovy pizza	(143+39)	Anchovy pizzas, which heal 90 life points twice, are made merely by adding cooked anchovies to plain pizza, making it heal the most in F2P worlds. Anchovy pizza can be sold for coins. You can also make a profit by mass buying plain cooked pizzas from G.E and adding Anchovies onto the pizzas and selling back them to the G.E.

Note: Cooking with a fire now gives 10% more xp as of the recent Bonfires update

Training routes

Below are some training routes suitable for different kinds of players.

Training with Fishing

For players willing to train cooking along with fishing, this route is suitable.

Level 1

Crayfish and shrimps can be caught without any requirement. Crayfish can be fished much faster, though both of them yield 30 experience per successful cooking. Cooked crayfish and shrimps don't sell much in Grand Exchange, thus they should be used for food only. The best place to net shrimps is Draynor, and the best place to cage crayfish is at the river behind the Lumbridge church .

Level 15

Trouts can be caught in Gunnarsgrunn or in Lumbridge, provided you have level 20 Fishing. Trouts are very handy and each of them would give 70 experience. Power-cookers can even grab dropped raw trouts from powerfishers and cook them. If you go to Gunnarsgrunn in World 1, or a populated world, there are usually people giving away free raw trouts and salmon.

Level 30

Tunas can be caught in Musa point in Karamja by harpooning them, provided 35 fishing is attained. Tuna yields 100 experience each cooking, though catching speed is slow. The dropped raw tunas from powerfishers can be taken to cook. If a player decides to use this method to train cooking, a very busy world should be selected.

Level 40

Lobsters can be caught in Musa point in Karamja, provided 40 fishing is attained. Lobster yields 120 experience each cooking, catching speed is comparable to harpooning. There are rarely any lobster drops from powerfishers, thus fishing them is better.

Level 50

Swordfish can be caught in Musa point in Karamja, provided 50 fishing is attained. Swordfish yields 140 experience each cooking. With the swordfish gloves obtained from the Fist of Guthix activity, players can earn double the amount of experience in catching a swordfish. However swordfish catching speed is the slowest among all fish, with the fact tunas are often caught when harpooning. Also, a higher cooking level should be attained before starting cooking swordfish, as the burning rate is high among them.

It used to be a common practice to trade cooked for raw food; however, this is less common now due to the prices of raw food being more expensive.

Dungeoneering training

The reason this method is placed in a small part, is fishing is also involved in the part, and dungeoneering cannot yield stable cooking experience. The working principle is simple. Just chop/buy some high tier branches, fish and cook them into cooked food. There are several points to notice:

• Fishing speed is much faster, and each fishing spot yields 11-14 fish before depletion.
• Wood for burning can greatly affect the burning rate, choose the best wood to cook.
• Buying wood would be much more expensive than cutting them, but fish do not have great cost.
• Do it after defeating the boss.

Alternate method to level without burning food

This is an alternate method to level cooking without burning fish; however, it will most likely be slower than the method suggested above. It is recommended to use the other methods to attain level 50 cooking before beginning. Without urns

Image	Fish Type	Start Level	Finishing Level	Number Of Fish Required	Cost per Raw Fish (coins)	Total Cost (coins)	Sell For (coins)	Profit/Loss (coins)	Coins per Exp
	Trout	50	58	2,094
	Salmon	58	65	4,669
	Tuna	65	74	4,283
	Lobster	74	86	20,846
	Swordfish	86	99	67,405
			Total Fish	99,297	Total cost

With Cooking urns

Image	Fish Type	Start Level	Finishing Level	Number Of Fish Required	Number Of Urns Required	Cost per Raw Fish (coins)	Cost per Urn+Rune needed (coins)	Total Cost (coins)	Sell For (coins)	Profit/Loss (coins)
	Trout	50	58	1,768	26
	Salmon	58	69	3,922	74
	Tuna	69	74	3,600	75
	Lobster	74	99	83,080	2077
					Total Fish	92,370	Total cost

Note It is not advisable to start cooking swordfish after you reach level 86 while cooking with urns, because you can't use urns on Swordfish, the amount of Swordfish you need to cook is a couple of thousand more than you need with Lobsters and you will lose a bit more money.

A cooking urn gives 950 experience when full. If one uses a cooking urn and 40 lobsters the experience gained averages to 143.75 per lobster. This is higher than swordfish at only 140 per swordfish.

Also another faster method is to cook pizza from the level you're able to cook them all the way to 99. It is better experience than swordfish (143 vs 140) and you make 100 coins per pizza. The prices change all the time though, so check the prices before selling the pizzas. If one uses a cooking urn and 43 uncooked pizzas the experience gained averages to 170.94 per pizza.

Training via Cooking guild

Please note, 32 Cooking is needed to enter the guild. Some equipment, like a chef's hat should be brought before entering the guild as well.

Level 32

Although apple pies can be made at level 30 cooking, only the cooking guild has free and fairly abundant resource for mass making them. One jug, pot, pie dish and three cooking apple respawn are available in guild. Process can be sped up if some jugs, pots are brought prior. Wheat can be harvested in the field right next to the guild, then made into flour. Collecting flour, water and mixing pastry dough can all be done at ground floor, then cooked at first floor, while the equipments obtained from the first and second floor.

Level 35

Jugs and grapes can be taken in the guild, with the jug filling water and grapes squeezed in it, a wine would be fermented. Wine gives the highest cooking experience per success, though grape spawning is slow. Nothing is needed to be brought prior. This method of training is somewhat expensive, but can give up to 2800 experience per inventory (14 grapes/14 jugs of water).

Training with complex food

Complex food requires time to make and some base fund, but can be very rewarding. Complex food basically has varied trips, ranging from Draynor to Wilderness. It is possible to power-level these kinds of food, simply by purchasing the final uncooked version of the food (an uncooked pie, for example) from the Grand Exchange, or trading with another player. This method is usually quite expensive, but in turn offers very fast experience.

Level 10

Redberry pies are the first complex food that can be made. As these pies serve no purpose at higher levels, a quick method shall be shown here. Redberries, jug, pie dish, and pots can be bought from Beefy Bill site. Beefy Bill can supply all the goods for about 8 coins. If you're in Lumbridge, Beefy Bill can bank them and the mill can give flour, so it's the easiest powerlevelling. The supplies such as buckets or jugs can also be bought from general store, but it's better to get them from the bushes south east of Varrock, straight north from the entrance to al-Kharid. After that, redberry pies can be made in bulk.

Level 20

Meat pies can be made, with method similar to redberry pies, except cows can be killed at the old Gnomecopter site and banked for quick storage.

Level 25

Stews can be made, by picking potatoes in the potato field between Lumbridge and Draynor Village, and killing cows for their beef. Bowls can be taken from kitchen of Lumbridge cook, purchased from Grand Exchange, or manufactured with the Crafting skill (requires level 8 Crafting at a minimum).

Level 35

Plain pizza can be made. Plain pizza is composed of tomato, cheese and pizza base; the pizza base can be made in the cooking guild or bought from Fat Tony in Bandit Camp (Wilderness) for 4 coins each. To ensure quick buying of pizza bases, exactly 51 coins can be brought to buy exactly 10 pizza bases, and immediately move to and from the bank. Due to personal shop update, the respawn rate of shop supply is low and players might choose to make the pizza bases themselves. Cheese and tomato can be taken from Aggie's house or Fat Tony's camp, but both of them have disadvantages. Draynor lacks a support of cooking ranges, and Fat Tony is in Level 23 Wilderness, which might be dangerous as player killers by drop by the camp. Cooking pizzas at the range in Al-Kharid can earn up to 180k xp per hour.

Level 45

Meat pizza can be made. Making a meat pizza out of plain pizza and cooked meat is always a success. Please refer to previous parts for making the respective ingredients.

Level 55

Anchovy pizza can be made. Making an Anchovy pizza out of plain pizza and anchovies is always a success. Raw anchovies can be fished south of Lumbridge, in Al Kharid and in Draynor.

Tips

Bonfires

Bonfires are a great way of earning more experience. Cooking on a Bonfire will earn a player 10% more experience. eg. Cooking lobster on a range will give the player 120 experience, if using a bonfire this will be boosted to 132 experience. (This is a very good choice for training if you have the correct level not to burn certain food. Bonfires are lit in the Grand Exchange all the time and so can be very close to a bank).

Sell and buy, or just trade

Fish, particularly the high level ones, play a big role in the cooking market. They make up the bulk of the food market, with high demands of both raw and cooked forms.

When training on lobsters or swordfish, players may wish to use the RuneScape food forum to buy raw fish and sell cooked ones. This can be made quicker by going to the fishing spot in Karamja and ask for lobster, usually they will be happy to oblige.

Note that buying most fish raw from the Grand Exchange and selling the cooked product in the Grand Exchange is no longer profitable due to many players buying mass amounts of fish to get to 99 Cooking. For many fish there is a significant price difference between cooked and raw fish. If players wish to be profitable, they should sell on demand. This, however, is a slow way to sell food. A way to train cooking and gain a profit would be to make foods containing many steps. These foods give much more experience than fish when made from scratch, many cannot be burnt, and can be sold for modest profit in the Grand Exchange. The downside to this method is that it takes much longer to prepare the ingredients for combining.

Cost Control

Anchovies are one of the few fish that players can buy raw, sell cooked, and gain profit. This is due to the fact that people buy cooked anchovies to make anchovy pizza, the highest-healing Free-to-Play food.

Another good way for training cooking for no loss is to buy raw trout. The market buying price is coins and selling price is coins. This is a good way to gain cooking exp without spending lots of money. However, cooked trout takes a very long time to sell because there is not a high demand for them.

However, in exchange for the low cost, these methods provide very slow experience rates. At higher levels, players may wish to move on to higher-level foods that give better experience.

There is a way to get pretty quick levels and make a small profit. Although it takes longer than some methods if you cook 100,000+ tuna from the time that it doesn't burn you are able to not burn your cash and it is still suitable for training.

All in all, cooking is not a very good money making skill, and it should be warned that it is not a very useful skill to train unless you are trying to boost your overall skill level for the high scores or get a skill cape.

Hot spots

Some places are more suited for cooking than others. Here are some recommended places.

Note: If you create your own fires in the Grand Exchange near the bankers, you can eliminate travel time entirely. However, this means you can only cook 27 items per inventory, as you need one spot for logs (and your tinderbox would be in your toolbelt). Also, this requires one log for every 27 items you wish to cook, slightly increasing the cost of cooking. Nevertheless, it is significantly faster.

Location		Distance from range	Optimal food	Notes
Edgeville bank	File:NewEdgevilleRange.png	Very short	Lured fish	There is a range right by the bank in Doris's house. (However Doris is a members-only NPC, so the house is empty.) It is also a popular place to train firemaking, which means that there will be plenty of fires around to cook on if the player wishes for faster runs. (Note: the house that contains the range has a door that automatically closes occasionally.)
Lumbridge bank	File:Lumbridge Cookingtraining.png	Very short	Lured, netted and crayfish	Either the 4 log respawn points just outside the bank, or the cooking range in the kitchen in Lumbridge castle can be used for cooking, which the latter boasts lower chance of burning food, although Cook's Assistant is required for access. Players can cook trouts, pikes and salmons by their ways from River Lum to the bank. Bring a tinderbox and 27 food. Make a fire and cook all 27 pieces of food. Bank and repeat. Power cooking is also recommended as logs spawn very near to the bank.
Al Kharid bank	File:Al kharid Cookingtraining.png	Very short	Power levelling	Although the range is nearest to bank among everywhere in F2P worlds, fishing spots are rather remote. However, this hot spot has no doors or anything that could block you, which can reduce time taken to cook an inventory. This place is recommended for powercookers who already have all the necessary food.
Draynor Village	File:Draynor Cookingtraining.png	Short	Shrimp and anchovies	Though the nearest range is in Draynor mansion, the shrimps and anchovies can be cooked on fires made by firemakers. Free supplies of tinderboxes can be obtained from the Wise old man's house by searching the bookcases.
Grand Exchange		Medium - Very short	Power levelling	Grand Exchange is a popular place to train firemaking, and materials can be bought and sold freely. A busy world is recommended for training cooking at Grand Exchange.
Gunnarsgrunn fishing spots	File:Barb village Cookingtraining.png	Medium	Lured fish	Players may stay at the fishing spots and make fire by themselves to cook their food, or cook at the non-stop fire in Peksa's shop (the helmet shop), or the Long hall is a slightly longer way to cook food.
Musa Point Spot	File:Karamja Cookingtraining.png	Very long	Tuna, lobsters and swordfish	Musa spot is the most popular place for Free-To-Play players to catch tunas, swordfish and lobsters, which is a major source of Cooking Experience. Fire must be manually made by cutting logs (at the entrance to the Musa Point) and lit with a tinderbox, or other players might do it instead. In busy worlds, fires are usually lit by other players. The cooked fish generally have lower value and are not recommended to be sold to the general store. They can be banked in Draynor bank or noted at Stiles, which can then be sold to other players or used as reliable food. To maximize the experience rate, players can login to a very busy world (possibly world 1-3), take raw fish on the ground and cook them, trade to give away to players (the best way), eat/drop them (if out of energy) or run to Stiles to note them. Use the Explorer's ring 3 to teleport to the cabbage patch when you are going to go back to Draynor bank, or using Lumbridge teleport if it is available. Using ferries to travel back to Port Sarim is not recommended. Stiles, as mentioned before, resides south-east from the Karamja volcano entrance and can aid a player in converting fish to bank notes. This removes the need of a player to have to leave the island to bank fish. Thus, a fisherman can stay at the island indefinitely and proceed to cook the fish later on.