Consumable items play a crucial role in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, as they can have various effects on Link and improve his stats for a limited time. While eating fruits, vegetables, and other nutrients in their raw form still boost your stats, you can improve their effectiveness even more.
Roasting and cooking are two different ways to enhance eatable items. Each of them offers different results, but cooking is a more advanced method for improving nutrients and their effects. In some cases, cooked items offer brand-new effects on Link.
Updated by Chad Thesen on 28 June 2023: This guide has been reviewed and an additional embedded link has been added for the convenient navigation of the reader. Also, the addition of another way that players can make use of their cooking pot.
How To Roast Items
Roasting is quite easy. All you need is to find a lit fire, or make one. Stand in front of the fire, hold "Up" on D-Pad, and choose an eatable item. Now, press "X" to drop it. The item that has been dropped inside the fire will start to get roasted. After around 5 to 10 seconds, you will spot the item's appearance changes a little bit, and so is its name. If you press "A" to take it, you will have a new item with enhanced effects.
Keep in mind that the roasted items are stored in the "Food" category of your inventory.
How To Cook Meals
Cooking requires a boiling pot. You can find pots on top of the fire in different locations on the map, but there are also some Zonai Capsules that include portable pots, allowing you to deploy them wherever you want. However, that's not the only thing players are using cooking pots for.
To start cooking, stand next to a pot, and you will spot the UI showing an option to "Sit." Now press the "Plus" button and hover over any nutrient that you want to cook. Press "A" and then select "Hold" from the drop-down menu. If you can't see a "Hold" option, it means that the item cannot be cooked. After choosing "Hold," you will spot a row with five slots on the right side of the menu. Now, if you simply press "A" on any other nutrient, you can add it to the empty slots. You can add the same item type five times as well. Once you are done creating your recipe, press "Y." Now, you will spot that the option for "Sit" has been changed to "Cook." Press "A" to start cooking. After a few seconds, you can take your new meal.
Keep in mind that you don't need to fill in all five slots for cooking. You can simply cook a single item as well. For example, cooking Spicy Peppers creates a new meal that immunes Link against the cold for a limited time. The more peppers you include in the recipe, the longer it takes for the meal's effect to fade away.
