Cooking delicious meals and treats is a fun activity in Animal Crossing: New Horizons (ACNH). This guide will show you how to unlock cooking, find recipes, and gather the necessary ingredients to become a culinary master on your island.
Unlocking the Culinary Arts in ACNH
Before you can start cooking, you’ll need to unlock the feature. Head to the Nook Stop terminal in Resident Services and select “Redeem Nook Miles.” Scroll down and purchase “Be a Chef! DIY Recipes +” for 2,000 Nook Miles.
This purchase will upgrade your Nook Phone’s DIY Recipes app, adding a cooking section and your first eight recipes. These initial recipes will teach you how to make flour, sugar, and smoothies using your island’s native fruit. You’ll also unlock the DIY recipe for a Stonework Kitchen, essential if you haven’t already acquired a stove. Remember, you need the Ver. 2.0 patch installed to unlock cooking. Unlocking cooking also unlocks the “Writing a Cookbook?” Nook Miles card, rewarding you with Nook Miles for each new recipe learned.
Discovering New Cooking Recipes in ACNH
Expanding your recipe repertoire is key to culinary success. There are several ways to find new cooking recipes in ACNH:
- Nook’s Cranny: Purchase the Basic Cooking Recipes pack from the cabinet inside Nook’s Cranny for 4,980 Bells. This pack includes eight new recipes, such as whole-wheat flour and brown sugar.
- Message in a Bottle: Explore your island’s beaches daily for message bottles washed ashore. These bottles can contain both DIY crafting recipes and cooking recipes. Kapp’n’s island tours also offer a chance to find message bottles with new recipes.
- Friendly Villagers: Chat with your villagers, especially when they’re cooking at home. They might share a recipe with you, potentially a new one you haven’t learned yet.
- Fishing and other activities: You may occasionally find cooking recipes as a reward for participating in activities like fishing.
Mastering the Art of Cooking in ACNH
Cooking in ACNH is similar to crafting. Instead of a DIY workbench, you’ll need a kitchen stove. With a stove and the necessary ingredients, you can start creating culinary masterpieces.
Gather ingredients like fruit, fish, pumpkins, mushrooms, wheat, sugarcane, tomatoes, potatoes, and carrots from your island. Consider starting a farm to cultivate ingredients like wheat, sugarcane, and root vegetables.
To cook, interact with your stove and select a recipe. The game will show you the required ingredients and whether you have enough of each. Once cooked, you can use dishes as decorations, gifts for friends or villagers, sell them for Bells, or eat them for a temporary boost allowing you to break rocks or dig up trees.
Essential Ingredients for ACNH Cuisine
Ingredients are crucial for cooking. You’ll need a variety of items, from readily available fruit to seasonal mushrooms. Some ingredients, like flour and sugar, require processing other ingredients first.
Store your ingredients in your house storage or a Storage Shed for easy access. Keep track of your ingredient stock to avoid running out of essential items like flour, which is used in many recipes. The DIY Recipes app on your Nook Phone allows you to view unlocked recipes and check required ingredients.
