Cooking is not a particular profitable profession, but it can be very fun for those that get into it. There are dozens of different recipes with the ability to do everything from turn you into a ninja or pirate to boosting all of your stats before a fight. Look for recipes and either learn how to make things like Savory Deviate Delight (can be sold for a decent amount of gold) or resell the recipes for large profits.

Use the following information as a basis for your decision whether to choose Cooking as a secondary profession. While Cooking may not make you a lot of gold throughout the game, it does offer you the chance to make a good number of food items that will offer an increasing number of useful buffs as you proceed into the game. Cooking is also among the easiest and quickest secondary skills to level up in the game, making it an absolute must for any players looking for their next task.

It's a great idea to level cooking in pair with fishing. You can get a lot of what you need to level up your cooking skill by having fishing as another secondary profession. This allows you to do a lot of things, including save time and money. If you are in interested you can take a look on our special guide – "Leveling fishing and cooking together guide".

Intro in leveling up cooking

When you level up your cooking skill, you need a few simple things. You're going to need a fire to cook any fish or meat, meaning you will need to find and purchase Simple Wood and Flint and Tinder. You can find these in Orgrimmar with Asoran or in Ironforge with Bryllia. Another important thing to keep in mind is that you will need to have a great deal of recipes set aside to level up your cooking skill. Many of these recipes might be limited supply, so if you cannot find them, look at the Auction House (they are much more expensive there, but if you start looking early, you can try to find a good deal). Also notice that this walkthrough assumes you are doing fishing as well. If not, you can still buy these fish at the Auction House, but it is much easier and cheaper to just catch them yourself and level both skills up in tandem.

Recipes Needed

Ingredients Needed

Leveling Cooking 1–75

After training as an Apprentice Cook, start cooking Brilliant Smallfish until you reach Level 50. After this, cook Longjaw Mud Snapper until you reach Level 75

Leveling Cooking 75–150

Train your Journeyman Cooking skill and then start cooking Longjaw Mud Snapper until you reach Level 100. Next, cook Bristle Whisker Catfish until you reach level 150.

Leveling Cooking 150–225

Next, find and buy your Expert Cookbook to become an Expert Cook. You can find this cookbook with Wulan in Desolace (for Horde) and with Shandrina in Ashenvale (for Alliance).

Next, cook Bristle Whisker Catfish until you reach Level 175. Then cook Mithril Head Trout until you reach skill Level 225.

Leveling Cooking 225–300

To reach your Artisan Level, you need to complete a quest that starts with Dirge Quikcleave in Gadgetzan. Find him and accept «Clamlette Surprise». He will request that you gather the following materials:
Giant Egg x12 – Drop from Owlbeasts (Hinterlands)
Zesty Clam Meat x10 – Drop from Saltwater Snapjaws (Hinterlands)
Alterac Swiss x20 – Sold by Galgrom in Caverns of Time

After getting all of these materials, return to Dirge Quickcleave and turn in the quest. You can now start cooking Spotted Yellowtail until you reach skill Level 250.

Next, cook Poached Sunscale Salmon until you are at skill Level 275. To reach 300 before you leave for Outland, cook Mightfish Steak.

Leveling Cooking 300–375

To train as a Master Cook, you need to buy your Master Cookbook, which can be found with Baxter (Horde) or Gaston (Alliance) in Hellfire Peninsula.

Cook Feltail Delight to reach skill Level 330.
Cook Blackened Sporefish to reach skill Level 340.
Cook Golden Fish Stickss to reach skill Level 355.

Cook Spicy Crawdad to reach skill Level 375 and finalize your cooking skills. As you can see, if you are also training in fishing, cooking can be an incredibly quick skill to level up, and a fun one to play with when you finally reach Level 375.

Leveling Cooking 375–450

When you reach Grand Master, you will need to start making Grilled Bonescale until you reach level 375.

To reach level 415, start cooking Pickled Fangtooth and Glacial Salmon. You will need Northern Spices for every dish from here on out so have a good number of them on hand.

Now, you need to visit Dalaran to get your higher level, rare recipes. These will require you to go to the faction part of town and to get dalaran cooking awards. Now, cook Snapper Extreme until you reach level 425.

To complete your run to Level 450, you will need to create feasts. Each recipe costs 3 Cooking Awards and will include a number of different items to make. You will need things like Nettlefish, Rhino Meat and Glacial Salmon for small feasts and Deep Sea Monsterbelly, Chunk o' Mammoth, and Rockfin Grouper for the Gigantic Feast. If you want the Deep Sea Monsterbelly, you will need to go to the Frozen Sea and have a fishing skill as high as 575.

Cooking trainers

I hope this WoW Cooking guide has helped you to reach 450.