Cooking Guide: The Best Meals

Eating meals has always been an integral part of the Monster Hunter series, and food buffs are as important as ever in Wilds. However, Capcom has introduced some substantial changes to this system.

In this article, we will explain how meals work, how to get ingredients, and the best meal combinations in the game.

This guide was written by @dxvis.

You can eat meals by using your Portable BBQ Grill item, by selecting ‘Eat a meal’ inside your Tent, or by accepting a Meal Invitation from an NPC.

• Meals will give you stat boosts for a set duration of time, which usually span multiple hunts.
• Most notably, meals increase your HP and Stamina by 50, up to a cap of 150
• They give you stat boosts – Attack, Defense, or Elemental Defense – as well as special Food Skills.
• Meal buffs do not disappear upon fainting, and you can check the remaining duration in the top left corner of the screen when pressing L1.
• The meals you cook consist of a Ration, an Additional Ingredient, and a Finishing Touch. Ingredients can be of one of these three types.

The main way to obtain food ingredients is via Item Trade. You can, however, find random Ingredients when gathering plants, Honey, or fish, or as quest rewards, but trading is the only guaranteed way to get them.

Rations

Rations add basic stat buffs to the meal.

• Meat: +2 Attack
• Fish: +4 Defense
• Veggies: +2 Defense, +3 Elemental Resistances

Additional Ingredients

These add Food Skills to the meal, and extend the duration of the meal buffs.

• Droolshroom: Black Belt Meal - Reduces stamina depletion when performing stamina-draining moves such as evading, etc.
• Egg: Caprice Meal - Repeatedly activates a temporary attack boost at random intervals.
• Kunafa Cheese: Defender Meal - Sometimes decreases damage taken.
• Sild Garlic: Moxie Meal - Prevents fainting one time when damage taken exceeds your remaining health.
• Shrimp: Tumbler Meal - Extends the invulnerability period when evading

Finishing Touches

These also add further Food Skills to the meal, as well as +5 Elemental Resistance.

• Truffle Du Conga: Sometimes increases the number of resources per gather of bones, ore, and other gatherable items.
• Wild Herb: Lessens the effects of a variety of ailments.
• Eastern Honey: Increases the amount of health recovered when healing.
• Monster Chili: Negates the effects of hot or cold climates and increases defense while in such areas.
• Wild Seed Oil: Increases potency of abnormal status attacks.
• Jeweled Mullet Roe: Increases attack when wet.

Random Food Skills

When using both an Additional Ingredient and a Finishing Touch, a random Food Skill will be added at random.

Below, we'll cover the best meals based on stats on food skills.

Keep in mind that some Food Skills benefit certain weapons more than others. For example, Black Belt Meal is particularly advantageous for Dual Blades and Bow, as they continuously drain stamina.

Additionally, some Skills can become useful depending on the environment. Eating a Jeweled Mullet Roe will increase your attack when wet, which is always the case in the rain during the Scarlet Forest’s inclemency.

Offensive

This meal provides the highest damage boost. Caprice Meal will give you noticeable attack buffs at random intervals, while Meat will net you a flat damage boost.

Defensive

Use this meal when facing strong endgame monsters that can cart you with powerful attacks. Fish grants defense, and Moxie Meal will prevent you from fainting once, and Eastern Honey will increase the effectiveness of healing items, allowing you to stay healthy during difficult fights.

General

This meal is great in any given situation due to the universal utility of its buffs. Defender Meal will often lower any damage received, whereas Immunizer Meal lowers the effect of all status conditions on the player.