Stardew Valley’searly game is a slow burn, as for a long time, players will have to try and squeeze as much out of their day as possible with little to no means of adding buffs or replenishing status bars to keep efficiency high. You’ll find that after you’ve watered your crops and chopped a few trees, your stamina bar will be almost depleted, which usually leads to you wandering around foraging or talking to the locals to fill up the time until it’s socially acceptable to hit the hay.
Best Gifts For Each Villager In Stardew Valley
Gift-giving isn’t quite as stressful if you stockpile gifts.
However, as soon as you get your hands on some recipes and upgrade your home to include a kitchen unit, suddenly, you have the means to heal, replenish stamina, and give yourself helpful buffs to get more done throughout your day. But you may be wondering which of these recipes is most useful inStardew Valley. Well, light the stove and put on your apron because I’m going to show you a thing or two.
While we considered adding recipes that players can eat during the Desert Festival to this list, we ultimately decided that, due to the fact that these are only available for such a short period of time, we would leave these out. However, it’s worth noting that this new 1.6 Update addition allows you to choose your own buffs, and they stack on top of normal food effects. So when the Desert Festival is running, be sure to talk to The Chef!
10Fruit Salad
How To Learn Recipe
Queen Of The Sauce (Y2, Fall D7)
Ingredients Needed
We kick things off with theFruit Salad, which is the best recipe in the game for restoring the maximum amount of health and stamina per use. This item restores a huge 263 points of Stamina and 118 points of health, making it a great item to have on hand whether you’re fighting through the mines or watering a huge allotment of crops. Allowing you to push on and get the job done.
The only downside to this one is that you need to plan ahead andgrow some fruit trees in your Greenhouse, as well as stock up onBlueberry Seedsduring summer if you want to make lots of Fruit Salad in bulk. Not to mention that you only learn this recipe via Queen of the Sauce in year two. But if you do go to the trouble of preparing, you’ll have a recipe that is also profitable, and a great gift for Haley. So chop up some juicy fruit and take this with you on your travels for a healthy snack.
9Triple Shot Espresso
Purchased fromGusfor 5,000g
As you get accustomed to the wayStardew Valleyworks and more of the game’s world opens up to you, you’ll begin to feel like there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to get things done. Well, just like in real life, the answer to this issue is a caffeine kick in the form of aTriple Shot Espresso. This recipe allows you to combine three cups ofCoffee, allowing you to gain a speed boost for four minutes per Espresso. This is ideal when you need to cover ground fast and make it to Clint’s Smithy before he shuts at 4 pm, for example.
Plus, this is a relatively easy recipe to get and use in the early game, as it can be bought from Gus. And then, provided you have access to the frozen levels of the mines, you will be able to farm Soot Sprites until you get enoughCoffee Beanto get production up and running. Plus, if you drink this, your horse gets faster, too. Morally, I’m not sure if giving your horse coffee is an okay thing to do, but if it means more profit at the end of the day, then who am I to complain?
8Pepper Poppers
Gain 3 Hearts WithShane
Hot Pepper
Next, we have a favorite dish of Shane’s and one he will teach you how to make if you become friends with him, equal to three hearts. When you consider that Shane can be gifted Beer, which is regularly available at the Stardrop Saloon, you’ll soon realize this is another early-game recipe worth grabbing. It’s a very easy dish to make by combining Cheese and Hot Pepper, and it’s pretty good for restoring your HP and Stamina.
However, the real appeal of this recipe is that it also gives you a +2 buff to your farming stat and a speed boost, much like coffee does. Only this one is much better, as it lasts for a whole three minutes more. This dish is a really great one to cook in bulk as early as you can, so hold on to a few Hot Peppers when summer turns to Fall.
7Squid Ink Ravioli
Raise Combat Skill to Level 9
Wheat Flour
When you start frequenting the Skull Cavern instead of the standard mines inStardew Valley, you learn that there are some seriously annoying enemy types that love nothing more than sending you on a one-way ticket back to Pelican Town so thatHarveycan patch you up. This is partly because these enemies are faster and hit harder than the standard mine’s enemies, but it’s also partly due to the annoying debuffs they cause.
Well, with someSquid Ink Ravioliin your belly, you can rule out being caught off guard with any of these debuffs for a whole three minutes per dish. Not to mention, you’ll get a +1 buff to your mining skill as well, which is always appreciated. The only issue with this one is that you’ll need a Squid Pond if you want access to Squid Ink regularly, and this recipe offers no HP replenishment. But all in all, this is still a great utility item to help give an edge over those annoying Skull Cavern enemies.
6Roots Platter
Raise Combat Skill to Level 3
Winter Root
Cave Carrot
Sometimes, a good attack is the best form of defense when dealingwith tough enemiesinStardew Valley. A strong weapon will get you so far, but being able to up your base attack stats will truly make you a force to be reckoned with, and the best recipe to make you a champion combatant is theRoots Platter. All you need to make this is a Cave Carrot and a Winter Root, which can both be found on levels 1-40 in the standard mines if you hoe the soil, and you’ll get the recipe at combat level 3, so again, a nice early option.
It has reasonable stamina and HP replenishment, but the real star of the show is the +3 boost to your base attack stats, making you hit much harder. This isn’t necessary for the basic mines, really, but when you start fighting Serpents in the Skull Cavern, believe me when I say that having one of these to pop before you head in is a godsend. Oh, and it’s a profitable recipe, so if you have extras, feel free to sell them for a quick buck. In short, if you want to hit harder, eat them roots!
5Miner’s Treat
Raise Mining Skill To Level 3
Cave CarrotX2
If you’re looking for something that will help you crush rocks like no one’s business, then you need to get your hands on theMiner’s Treatrecipe, which is acquired by raising your mining stat to level 3. When you do, you’ll have unlocked a really useful recipe, as this item not only raises your mining skill by +3, allowing you to break stronger rocks with ease. It also gives the player a lot of stamina and HP replenishment as well.
It’s easy to make with Milk, Sugar, and Cave carrots being the main ingredients, and it’s also one of Maru’s loved gifts, so it’s a real all-rounder. Plus, as a little sweetener, this item also ups your magnetism too, meaning you’ll be picking up items from across the room. It’s another early-game top-tier recipe, and one that remains useful even into the late-game, so before you head to the mines, make sure you have one of these in your back pocket. Oh, and if you don’t, theDwarfsells them too, so don’t feel like you ever have to go without!
4Banana Pudding
From Island Trader for 30xBone Fragment
Now for one of the newer recipes in the game, courtesy of the 1.5 update that allowed us toset sail for Ginger Island. This tropical locale is where you’ll get your hands on many exotic crops, and one of those is the humble banana. This, along with Milk and Sugar, makesBanana Puddinga recipe that is easily one of the best all-rounders in the game.
you’re able to purchase this recipe from the Island Trader for 30 Bone Fragments, and once you learn it, you’ll have access to a great HP and Stamina replenishment item with +1 buffs to Mining, Luck, and Defense, making it a top-tier item to have when scouring the Skull Cavern for goodies. It will take you a little while to unlock this recipe, but your patience will be rewarded with potassium-fuelled goodness.
3Seafoam Pudding
Raise Fishing Skill To Level 9
Midnight Carp
We enter our top three withSeafoam Puddingsneaking in to nab the bronze medal. If you’re someone that primarily makes their money inStardewby fishing, or someone that is still working on catching all the Legendary Fish within the game, then having an item that can buff your fishing stat is near essential, as those little buggers are slippery, and even tackle and bait will only get you so far.
But with the Seafoam Pudding, players gain a +4 buff to their fishing, which allows you to cast your line further and makes your green catching area in the fishing mini-game much larger, allowing more room for error. The downside is that this recipe requires some very particular ingredients that are mainly sourced exclusively at the Night Market, but chances are you’ll only need a few batches to ensure you get all the Legendary fish. A good alternative isDish O' The Sea, but even if this one is a little hard to get ingredients for, it’s still the undisputedbest fishing item by a distance.
2Crab Cakes
Queen of the Sauce (Y2, Fall D21)
Our runner-up is one that players won’t be able to acquire until rather late in the game, but it’s well worth the wait. TheCrab Cakesrecipe allows you to combine simple ingredients like Crab, Oil, Eggs, and Wheat Flour to create one of the best consumable items in the game. This dish grants a lot of stamina and healing, as well as a +1 boost to Defense and Speed.
But what makes this such a standout item is that this speed and defense boost lasts for a whopping sixteen minutes, allowing you to eat this one at the start of the day, and you’ll be zooming around until you need to turn in. If this was more accessible early on, it would easily be the best food item in the game by a distance, but because you have to wait for this one, it just falls short of the mark.
1Spicy Eel
Gain 7 Hearts WithGeorge
In our number one spot, we haveSpicy Eel, a recipe that is our winner because it does practically the same thing that the Crab Cakes do, but with the important caveats that you can make this recipe easily, you can obtain it quite early on if you make friends with George, and it also increases your luck instead of your defense, which is honestly a better thing to boost if you’re looking for goodies in the Skull Cavern.
This item has slightly less HP and stamina replenishment when compared to our number two, and it lasts for less than half the time. But, because you’re able to make these in bulk, and obtain them as drops from Serpents too, this item is so abundant that accessibility allows this one to come out on top. So, if you want to get more done inStardew Valley,you need a bit of spice in your life.
