Health recovery recipes for foods and elixirs in Tears of the Kingdom remain mostly the same as they were in Breath of the Wild. The Gloom mechanic is new, and there are new recipes to address that, but the rest stays the same.
Losing hearts in a fight is an inevitable part of combat in this game, and players need to plan accordingly. Having an inventory full of health recovery foods and elixirs is an essential part of the pre-fight preparations, and we're here to make it simple.
10 Meaty Rice Balls
- Ingredients: 3 Raw Meat + 2 Hylian Rice
- Health Recovery: 10 Hearts
Raw meat can be obtained by hunting down random monsters, while the Hylian Rice can be harvested by cutting down tall grass in the Hyrule Plains or bought from Beedle at the Wetland Stable.
For a significant portion of the game, 10 hearts is synonymous with Full Recovery since it will take Link a long time to gather enough Lights of Blessings from Shrines to increase his heart.
9 Gourmet Meat & Seafood Fry
- Ingredients: Raw Gourmet Meat + Fish
- Health Recovery: 8 Hearts + Additional Effects from the Fish
Raw Gourmet meat is a rarer variant of Raw Meat, dropped mostly by foxes and wolves. You can replace this ingredient with lesser variants of meat like Raw Prime Meat or Raw Meat, but it will come with a drop in hearts recovered.
The Hearty Bass and the Hearty Salmon fish provide more health recovery compared to every other variant of Fish but at the cost of not giving any additional bonuses. If you're only after health recovery, these are the way to go.
8 Copious Meat Skewers
- Ingredients: 5 Different Types of Meat
- Health Recovery: Variable (10-20 Hearts)
If you have multiple different types of meats stewing in your inventory waiting to be put into a recipe, you don't have to think too much. Just throw every piece of meat in the pot to get a Copious Meat Skewer.
This dubious blend of different flavors is apparently very effective in recovering hearts, depending on which meat you put in the pot. Naturally, the rule that the more hearts it recovered before being cooked, the more effective it will be after being cooked still applies.
7 Copious Seafood Skewers
- Ingredients: 5 Different Types of Fish
- Health Recovery: Variable (10-20 Hearts)
Fishes are great for giving foods secondary properties like Attack Up or Flame Resistance, but if you are only after recovering the most hearts possible, the most effective solution is to throw 5 at a time in the pot.
The different effects and bonuses that the Fishes usually provide will be canceled out, and you will only get the health recovery bonus. Depending on what types of Fish you were using, this health recovery can be vastly variable.
6 Fried Wild Greens
- Ingredients: 5 Hyrule Herbs
- Health Recovery: 10 Hearts
Herbs, or greens, are found across Hyrule in forests and near trees growing out of the soil. The most common variant is the Hyrule Herb which you can start farming as soon as you exit the starting area.
Although the Hyrule Herb can also be used in other recipes to increase their effectiveness, if you have a surplus of them, you can easily make an extremely powerful health recovery food in the form of Fried Wild Greens.
5 Sunny Fried Wild Greens
- Ingredients: 5 Sundelions
- Health Recovery: 15 Hearts + Gloom Recovery
Sundelions can be found almost exclusively in the Sky Islands, growing under bright sunlight. These herbs are extremely valuable as not only do they provide excellent health recovery, but they also counter Gloom.
If you've been exploring the Depths, you know that Gloom damage cannot be recovered except by rising up to the surface, visiting a Lightroot, or eating specific foods. Sundelions provide a solution to the Gloom problem while simultaneously recovering health for Link.
4 Meat Skewer
- Ingredients: 5 Raw Meat/5 Raw Prime Meat/5 Raw Gourmet Meat
- Health Recovery: Variable (10/15/Full Recovery)
If you're planning on stocking up for a tough fight and aren't sure which foods you should be preparing for the fight, the answer is Meat Skewers. While regular Meat Skewers might not be the most effective at healing Link, they are the most easily farmable.
Just head out into any part of Hyrule and hunt down deer, foxes, wolves, and basically anything that moves. After a few minutes, you will have a mountain of various types of meat in your inventory to be converted into Meat Skewers.
3 Hearty Elixir
- Ingredients: Hearty Lizard + Any Monster Part/Any Chuchu Jelly
- Health Recovery: Full Recovery + 1-4 Extra Hearts
There is only one Elixir that heals Link, and it's a good one. One Hearty Lizard combined with any monster part or any Chuchu Jelly results in one of the best elixirs in the game that can heal Link from 0 to 20 and then some.
The great thing about making this Elixir is that you only need to worry about farming one thing: Hearty Lizards. The second part of the recipe can be switched out into anything that doesn't ruin the potion. Bokoblin Guts, Keese Eyeballs, and Electric Chuchu Jellies are all equally viable as the second ingredient.
2 Hearty Mushroom Skewer
- Ingredients: 1 Hearty Truffle
- Health Recovery: Full Recovery + 1 Extra Heart
The Hearty Truffle is the holy grail of all healing foods, and finding it means you have a Full Recovery Food on your hands as soon as you find a cookpot. You can find Hearty Truffles in caves, hidden inconspicuously around corners and in the dirt. Keep an eye out when you're out adventuring.
The larger variant of the Hearty Truffly is the Big Hearty Truffle which gives +5 extra hearts on top of the Full Recovery effect. The reason this is ranked even higher than the Hearty Elixir is that the Hearty Truffle doesn't require any additional ingredients. You only need the Hearty Truffle, nothing else.
1 Hearty Fried Wild Greens
- Ingredients: Hearty Radish
- Health Recovery: Full Recovery + 3 Extra Hearts
Like the Hearty Truffles, Hearty Radishes are another key ingredients to make easy Full Recovery Meals for Link. Hearty Radishes are even better than Hearty Truffles in the sense that they offer more extra hearts and are much easier to farm.
You can find Hearty Radishes in the Sky Islands growing from the ground. You can also unlock the ability to farm them after completing the Teach Me A Lesson quest in Hateno Village.