Valheim: Food - how to get it, recipes Valheim guide, walkthrough
Last update: 19 February 2021
On this page of the Valheim guide, you will find information on food, as well as on how to prepare more complex dishes.
Basic information
Initially, Valheim lacked an advanced hunger management system. This changed with the introduction of the Hearth & Home update. Your character can still eat up to 3 meals at once, and what they eat will affect their overall stamina and health points pool. However, these two statistics are no longer correlated and they may differ in values.
The game features 3 different types of food, which are marked with specific fork colors:
- red gives a big health point bonus
- yellow gives a significant stamina bonus
- white gives similar amounts of health points and stamina
This bonus will last for a set period of time (indicated by the timer next to each dish), after which the effect can be renewed by eating another meal.
How to obtain food?
In Valheim, food can be acquired in several ways:
- by finding it in the map area (mushrooms and fruits),
- by growing it (carrots, turnips, barley, onions),
- by producing it (honey),
- by hunting or fishing.
Additionally, some dishes need to be cooked using several products - the more products there are and the more difficult they are to obtain, the more powerful the meal will be. To prepare these dishes, you need a cauldron, which we have described how to use later in this page.
You will be able to find Raspberries and Mushrooms, which increase your character's maximum health and stamina, as early as in the starting location. Blueberries can be found in the Black Forest. You may come across a unique type of yellow mushroom while exploring Burial Chambers.
Growing the land and producing honey is more time consuming, so we have described this process on separate pages in our guide. Carrots can be consumed raw or used as one of the ingredients in various types of food. Honey is an extremely valuable food that will give your character the fastest health regeneration (5hp per cycle) – that's more than twice the value you get from eating regular roasted meat.
By hunting game (boar, deer, lizard, Lox) or fishing, you can obtain raw meat, which you can then roast at the Cooking station or use in preparing a meal in the Cauldron. You must keep in mind that each animal drops a different type of meat, each of which offers different bonuses to HP and stamina. They can also be used in different types of dishes.
Cauldron - how to cook food?
To build a Cauldron, you will need a forge and tin – more information about mining and melting metals in Valheim can be found on a separate page in this guide. Having particular ingredients in your inventory will unlock additional recipes. Some dishes may require a higher cauldron upgrade level. There are a total of three upgrades in the game:
- spice rack
- butcher's table
- pots & pans
