Leveling up your cooking skill in New World doesn't have to be a long, expensive grind. With the right strategy, you can reach level 250 with minimal effort and without spending a single New World Coins. In fact, you might even make gold while progressing through the levels. In this guide, we'll walk you through a step-by-step process to get from level 1 to 250 as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Step 1: Preparing for the Journey

Before you dive into the leveling process, it's important to set yourself up for success. Start by ensuring you have a fast travel point set in the Marauder Shrine, which is located in the Everfall region. This fast travel point is your base of operations for the early stages of your cooking journey. You don't need any starting gold to begin the process—just a bit of patience and dedication.

Once you've set your fast travel point, head towards the nearby Beginners Beach area. This is where your farming and gathering will begin. You'll be collecting essential ingredients that will be used for the meals you'll be crafting as you level up.

Step 2: Gathering Ingredients from the Beach

At this stage, the key to leveling up your cooking skill is gathering. Your primary goal is to collect the following:

Pork: A tier one cooking ingredient, which will be your main source of protein for early meals.

Red Meat: A tier two ingredient, which comes from predators like wolves. You'll need to farm or buy red meat to craft certain recipes.

Herbs and Berries: These are essential for seasonings and other meal components. You'll find an abundance of berry bushes and herbs in this area.

Raw Hide: As you skin the Boars (BS), you'll collect raw hide. Raw hide can be sold to make gold, which will help fund your purchases of ingredients that are harder to get.

The best part? These resources are all gathered within the same area, allowing you to perform a circular route around the beach. This circular route lets you gather resources quickly without ever needing to venture too far. Fill your inventory with pork, red meat, herbs, and berries, and once your bag is full, head back to town to sell the raw hide and re-stock on the necessary items.

Step 3: Leveling from 1 to 50

Now that you have your ingredients, it's time to start cooking. For levels 1–50, you'll primarily be focusing on crafting the Light Ration, which is the first meal you'll be making consistently. The first part of this process is as follows:

Gather Red Meat: You'll need about 255 pieces of red meat for this phase. While you can gather these from predators like wolves, they drop less frequently and are slower to collect. Instead, consider placing a buy order for red meat on the marketplace. Even if you need to pay a bit for it, the raw hide you've been collecting can be sold to fund this purchase.

Use Pork: You've already been gathering pork from the boars on the beach. This ingredient is essential for making your light rations.

Berry Harvesting: Berries are a key component of light rations and are abundant on the beach. Gather as many as you can during your rounds.

To craft the light rations, you'll need 85 pork, 255 red meat, and 255 berries. This will take you to level 50. Remember, since you're selling your raw hide, you'll make enough gold to cover the cost of the red meat and other materials as you progress.

Step 4: Leveling from 50 to 100

At level 50, you unlock the Light Meal recipe, which is the next major step in your cooking journey. At this point, you'll still be using the ingredients you've already collected—pork, berries, and red meat. However, the amount required for crafting increases:

170 Light Meals are required to reach level 100. To craft them, you'll need approximately 510 pork, 510 red meat, and 510 berries.

Once again, you can continue gathering the necessary ingredients from the same location and use your raw hide sales to fund any additional purchases of red meat. After crafting your 170 Light Meals, you should be around level 100.

Step 5: Leveling from 100 to 150

From level 100 to 150, things slow down a bit, and you'll need to adjust your ingredient gathering. At this point, you'll be working with Tier 4 ingredients, which can be a bit harder to gather.

Fish: Some recipes require rare fish, which are hard to find and time-consuming to fish for.

Farm Ingredients: Other tier 4 ingredients, like wheat or cauliflower, can be difficult to obtain through gathering alone. They often require you to buy from the marketplace or get them from provision crates.

Since you've already been selling raw hide for gold, use that to fund buy orders for the ingredients you need. For example, wheat is a good option to buy since it's relatively cheap (but prices can fluctuate, so keep an eye on the market). Cauliflower, delicate fish, and other tier 4 ingredients can be purchased this way as well.

For this stage, you need to make 239 Satisfying Meals, which will bring you from level 100 to 150. These meals require red meat and other ingredients like wheat or cauliflower, depending on what you decide to buy.

Step 6: Leveling from 150 to 200

From level 150 to 200, you'll be crafting Hearty Meals, which can be made with the ingredients you've been gathering all along. You may need to gather more tier 5 materials, including:

Bananas: These can be gathered easily around the Monks Bluff area, where banana trees are abundant.

Honey: You may need to buy honey from the marketplace, but it's generally cheap.

Seasonings: If you've been collecting herbs, you may already have access to seasonings, but if not, you can buy them from the marketplace or gather them from the wild.

To craft hearty meals, you'll need around 762 red meat and a mix of the other ingredients, depending on your recipe choices. These meals will bring you to level 200.

Step 7: Final Push to Level 250

At level 200, you're in the home stretch. From here, you'll either continue making hearty meals or switch to crafting higher-tier recipes, like Stat Bonus Recipes. These recipes give you a chance to sell your meals on the marketplace, especially since stat foods are valuable for PvP players.

Alternatively, you can continue crafting hearty meals until you reach level 250. This final push requires 762 red meat, plus any other necessary ingredients, including bananas and honey. Keep crafting, and you'll soon reach your goal.

Conclusion: Efficient and Cost-Effective Cooking Leveling

By focusing on gathering in the Everfall region and using buy orders to purchase harder-to-find ingredients, you can level your cooking skill in New World to 250 with minimal gold investment. This method allows you to progress quickly while making New World Gold from the raw hide you gather, making this a highly efficient leveling route.

Remember to focus on efficiency, gather as much as you can during each trip, and use the marketplace wisely to purchase any missing ingredients. With these steps, you'll be a level 250 cook in no time!

MMOexp New World Team