Best meals to cook in Project Zomboid

Most good meals in Build 42 are evolved recipes. You start from a base, such as a pot of water, a frying pan, a bowl or bread slices, then add ingredients one at a time from the right-click menu. The finished dish carries the combined food value of everything you put in. The cooking guide covers heat sources and the basic steps; this page is about what to put in the pot.

The limits above come from pzfans, checked against Build 42.20.4. Pie, cake and bread are listed as evolved recipes in the Build 42 files, but no source we used gave their ingredient caps. Pindrop lists pie dough, cake batter and bread dough among the recipes unlocked at Cooking 7 (one source). Full recipe lists live on the recipes page.

Each ingredient has a fixed share it adds to each dish, and that share depends on the dish. A mutton chop adds 15 hunger units to a soup, stew, pie or stir fry, but only 5 to a cooked sandwich and 10 to a burger or salad. Meat in a pot is worth far more than meat between two slices of bread. In the stew list, a turkey leg adds 31 and a chicken leg 30, the highest values on that list.

Calories, carbs, fat and protein come along in proportion to the share taken. Happiness works differently: each new, different ingredient gives the dish a small unhappiness and boredom bonus. Older guides put this at about 5 points per ingredient (one source). Adding the same ingredient three times cancels that bonus, and a fourth copy turns it into a penalty. Six different vegetables beat six potatoes.

The dish also takes on the freshness of its base. A stale bread slice makes a stale sandwich no matter how fresh the filling is.

Higher Cooking makes each ingredient go further. In the Build 41 data, a level 0 cook uses the whole portion, while a level 10 cook uses 70 percent of it for the same result, and nutrition per ingredient rises to about 117 percent. We could not confirm that this table is unchanged in Build 42. What is confirmed for Build 42: from level 7 you can add rotten ingredients, worth about 5 percent of their normal hunger value at levels 7 and 8 and about 10 percent at 9 and 10. Below level 7 the game refuses them. See skill books to level faster.

Spices are the cheapest way to raise happiness. Salt, pepper, dried herbs, garlic, ketchup, mustard and similar items sit in a separate spice slot, add a boredom reduction and strengthen the dish's unhappiness reduction. In stew, fats and starches count as minor ingredients too: flour adds 6, vegetable oil 5, and butter or lard 4. Eaten on their own, salt and pepper each add 20 unhappiness, so they only help inside a dish. For more on the mood side, see the mood guide.

Opinion These are the dishes we would aim for, built from the rules above. The figures are base item values from pzfans, not tested dish totals.

For weight gain, the dense staples are peanut butter (2,660 kcal, 224 fat), vegetable oil (2,120 kcal, 130 fat), cereal (2,360 kcal) and a can of oats (1,500 kcal). Peanut butter goes into soup, stir fry and sandwiches. Oil goes into almost every savory dish. Weight ties into the nutrition system and limits fitness training when you are outside the normal range.

You do not need canned food to eat well. Foraged berries, mushrooms and wild herbs fill soups and salads, and wild herbs count as spices. Garden crops such as potatoes, cabbage, carrots and tomatoes are the backbone of a long-term stew. Fish and game from fishing and trapping supply the meat.

For weight loss, cook bulky, low-calorie vegetables such as radishes, broccoli, carrots, onions and tomatoes, plus berries, and leave out oil, butter and peanut butter.

• Rotten ingredients below Cooking 7. The game will not accept them. Eating rotten food straight is a common cause of food sickness.
• Raw meat in uncooked dishes. Soups, stews, pies, stir fries, rice and pasta take raw meat and cook it. Sandwiches, burgers and salads need meat you have already cooked.
• Burnt food. Burnt items cannot be added to anything. A sandwich left on heat burns after about 20 minutes (one source).
• Three or more of the same item. It wastes the happiness bonus.
• A stale base. Use fresh bread for sandwiches, since the dish ages with it.

To keep meals from spoiling once cooked, see food preservation, and check spoil times in the food list.