Everything to Know About Food in Stardew Valley

Stardew Valley really hit the gaming sphere by storm as one of the more successful spiritual successor to those old farm life simulation games like Harvest Moon. It’s one of those Indie game success stories where one developer made a game that was loved by hundreds and thousands of people and became a big hit. It’s a game that still has a great modding scene with big mods like Stardew Valley Expanded. It’s a game that keeps on giving and in this guide we’ll help you give the wonderful people of Stardew Valley some great food as gifts. Here is everything you need to know about food in the game!

Stardew Valley: Everything to Know About Food

When you’re starting out in Stardew Valley, doing farm things you’ll notice that you run out of energy rather quickly. That’s where you learn that you can eat food to replenish your energy, so you eat the stuff you forage around since they’re free, like berries or leeks.

Still they only offer a small amount of Energy, and that’s where you should try getting some cooked food. You might get your first ones from villagers or from the Stardrop Saloon, but it’s much better to make stuff yourself! You’re a self-sufficient farmer after all!

Cooking Basics

Cooking food gives you more energy and even sometimes gives you buffs. These buffs range from increasing your walking speed to increasing defense or even luck to get more items. To cook though you’ll need to buy the first upgrade for your house for 10,000 gold and 450 wood. This will let you have a kitchen in your house that also has a fridge to store your ingredients! You can also get to Level 9 Foraging and craft a cookout kit if you want a different route.

Cooking Recipes

Now that you have a place to cook you can then find the recipes for different dishes in the game. Here are all the ways you can get recipes to start your cooking journey:

• Buying Recipes from Shops
• Unlocking through skill level ups
• Watching Queen of the Sauce on TV every Sunday (Watching Re-runs every Wednesday will let you learn recipes you haven’t gotten yet.)
• Foraging Level 2
• Farming, Fishing, Mining and Combat Level 3
• Fishing and Combat Level 9
• Befriending villagers will make them send you Recipes through the mail. (3 and 7 Hearts for almost all characters.)
  • Sandy gives a recipe at 7 Hearts
  • Emily gives a recipe at the 4 Hearts cutscene
  • Willy gives 2 extra recipes at 5 and 9 Hearts
• Bought in Ginger Island, Floor 5 Volcano Dungeon, from the dwarf.
• Ginger Island Trader
• Ginger Island Resort, when Gus visits

Food Buffs

There’s a lot of different buffs you can get from certain food and here are all the buffs you can get:

• Speed – Increases Movement Speed
• Luck – Increases Drop Rates
• Skill Buffs (Fishing, Mining, etc.) – Increases skills temporarily
• Defense – Makes you take less damage
• Attack – Makes you do more damage
• Squid Ink Ravioli Buff – Makes you immune to Debuffs
• Max Energy – Increases Max Energy, it says on the tin
• Magnet Radius Buff – Increases Dropped item pick up range

Congratulations you now know all about the Food in Stardew Valley, as you can see they can be really great addition to any facet of the game so make sure to cook a lot!

ALSO READ: Stardew Valley – Fall Crops Tier List