Vanilla Cooking Guide: 1- 300 (WoW Classic Leveling)

Welcome to our WoW Vanilla Cooking Leveling Guide! This guide works for vanilla-era, SOM, and hardcore servers. 

Cooking is an extremely useful profession to have. It provides additional consumables many raiders will use. It’s also a secondary profession anyone can learn in addition to their 2 main professions. 

Also, a lot of cooking materials will be readily available. You’ll get a lot of mats just by killing and looting mats. Furthermore, many mats can be found on the auction house for cheap.

Thus there’s almost no reason to skip leveling cooking! Cooking is usually paired with fishing, another secondary profession. However, a lot of players don’t enjoy fishing. This guide was made with as little fishing as possible. Still, doing the later parts of this guide (225+), I highly suggest you buy some fish on the auction house. Otherwise, leveling might get tedious and expensive.

Total mats needed for 1 – 300 Cooking

Cooking guide WoW Classic

Start by learning cooking from one of these trainers:

Apprentice cooking (1 – 75)

• 1 – 65
  75x Roasted Boar Meat – 75x Chunk of Boar Meat (This recipe goes yellow at 40, so you will need to make more than 65.)

These recipes are the best because you can learn them directly from the trainer, and the mats are easy and cheap to find on the auction house. 

Don’t forget to train Journeyman cooking (75 – 150) once you reach skill level 50.

Journeyman cooking (75 – 150)

• 65 – 110
  60x Boiled Clams – 60x Clam Meat, 60x Refreshing Spring Water (This recipe goes yellow at 90, so you might need to make a bit more than 55.)

This recipe is another one you learn directly from the trainer. The Spring Water can be bought from the vendor next to the trainer. And Clam Meat is usually very cheap on the auction house.

From this point on, you’ll have to purchase recipes from vendors around the world.

• 110 – 140
  30x Bristle Whisker Catfish – 30x Raw Bristle Whisker Catfish

This part of the guide can be a bit annoying without obtaining the Recipe: Bristle Whisker Catfish. It is sold by the fishing/cooking supplies vendor in Stormwind, Orgrimmar, Thunder Bluff, or Orgrimmar. 

Don’t forget to train Expert cooking (150 – 225) once you reach skill level 125. You can buy the Expert Cookbook from Shandrina in Ashenvale or Wulan in Desolace.

Expert cooking (150 – 225)

• 140 – 175
  37x Curiously Tasty Omelet – 37x Raptor Egg, 37x Hot Spices (This recipe goes yellow at 170, so you might need to make a bit more than 35.)

Alliance players can buy Recipe: Curiously Tasty Omelet from Kendor Kabonka in Stormwind. Horde players can buy it from Keena in Arathi Highlands and Nerrist in Stranglethorn Vale. 

• 175 – 225
  55x Roast Raptor – 55x Raptor Flesh, 55x Hot Spices (This recipe goes yellow at 215, so you might need to make a bit more than 50.)

What makes this recipe the best in this step of the guide is that is sold by some of the same vendors as the Curiously Tasty Omelet – Horde players can also buy it from Keena or Nerrist. However, Alliance players will have to go to Arathi Highlands and buy it from Hammon Karwn or down to Stranglethorn Vale to buy it from Corporal Bluth.

Furthermore, the mats for Roast Raptor and Curiously Tasty Omelet drop from the same mobs. That means you can farm the mats easily yourself, or they will be on the auction house in the same abundance. 

Don’t forget to train Artisan cooking (225 – 300) once you reach skill level 200.

Talk with Dirge Quikcleave in Tanaris, and start the quest Clamlette Surprise.

Deliver these items to him:

• 12x Giant Egg
• 10x Zesty Clam Meat
• 20x Alterac Swiss

Artisan cooking (225 – 300)

• 225 – 265
  40x Monster Omelet – 40x Giant Egg, 80x Soothing Spices

Alliance players will have to visit Malygen, and Horde players will have to visit Bale, both are in Felwood. If you want some alternatives, you can buy Recipe: Tender Wolf Steak from Dirge Quikcleave in Tanaris. Or purchase Recipe: Spotted Yellowtail from Gikkix in Tanaris. You can also buy Recipe: Filet of Redgill from Kelsey Yance in Stranglethorn Vale. There’s also the option of buying Recipe: Undermine Clam Chowder from Jabbey in Tanaris. My personal favorite is the Spotted Yellowtail.

• 266 – 285
  20x Poached Sunscale Salmon – 20x Raw Sunscale Salmon
  
  Or you can do:
  
  20x Nightfin Soup – 20x Raw Nightfin Snapper

You can buy the recipes for these from Gikkix in Tanaris.

• 285 – 300
  15x Smoked Desert Dumplings – 15x Sandworm Meat

This is surely the most annoying part of the whole guide. First, you’ll have to travel to Silithus, which is in the middle of nowhere. Then you’ll have to do the quest Desert Recipe and the follow-up Sharing the Knowledge. Then you’ll have to farm the meat from the sandworms in Silithus if there’s no meat on the auction house or it’s too expensive.

Thank you for reading our vanilla cooking guide! Now you are a bona fide chef. You can start looking for recipes for food you will use and start making consumables.