Your character will often go hungry and even Pals will need food from time to time to keep their Nutrition level high enough.
A lack of Nutrition will cause your character to go hungry and when this happens, you will not be as efficient with the things that you do.
Another reason you will want to prevent your character from going hungry is that this will prevent you from recovering and may even result in your health dropping.
Nutrition
Nutrition is a stat that measures the amount of sustenance your character has and with each action you perform, this will be decreased.
The same goes with your Pals as the more actions they perform, the lower their Nutrition will go, which eventually leads to hunger.
When you or a Pal become hungry, you will need to consume food to increase your Nutrition to avoid having your stats reduced.
How To Cook in Palworld?
To cook, you will need to interact with a Cooking Station, which can either be a Campfire for beginners or a Cooking Pot for those who have progressed a bit.
Interacting with a Cooking Station will open its menu, which allows you to select which recipe you want to cook.
The ingredients that are required will be pulled from your inventory or any storage nearby if it is within range of your Palbox. (Within your base area)
Once you select a recipe, you will need to select the option that says “Start Production” to put the recipes in the queue. (You can prepare to cook multiple amounts of food)
Now that the food is in a queue, you may hold the interact button/key to begin cooking or wait for a Fire Pal to cook the food for you. (They will do this automatically or you may assign them)
Once food has been cooked, you will need to claim it from the Cooking Station by interacting with it again. (This works even if there are still some in progress)
How To Make Pals Cook Food?
Once you have selected a recipe to be cooked, any Fire Pal that is not busy will attempt to cook the food for you if it has the Kindling Skill.
You can assign a Fire Pal to focus on cooking by picking it up and tossing it at the Cooking Station, which will set it to focus on the task.
You may also cook with the Fire Pal to speed up the process or may do other tasks and return when the food is cooked to claim it.
Cooking Stations
Currently, there are 2 Cooking Stations available during your earlier parts of the game, which are the Campfire and the Cooking Pot.
The Campfire may be unlocked once you reach Level 2 while the Cooking Pot requires that you reach Level 17.
Once you have unlocked a Cooking Station in your Technology Menu, you may build it to begin cooking food as you please.
Cooking Recipes
The following are the Cooking Recipes available for cooking food as well as the ingredients needed to make them.
Normal Recipes
| Recipe | Nutrition | Sanity | Recipe |
| Baked Berries | 21 | 1 | 1 Red Berries |
| Baked Mushroom | 18 | 1 | 1 Mushroom |
| Bread | 27 | 4 | 1 Flour |
| Broiled Dumud | 70 | 1 | 1 Raw Dumud |
| Broncherry Rib Roast | 252 | 3 | 1 Broncherry Meat |
| Cake | 656 | 82 | 5 Flour, 8 Red Berries, 7 Milk, 8 Egg, 2 Honey |
| Fried Egg | 23 | 1 | 1 Egg |
| Grilled Chikipi | 50 | 1 | 1 Chikipi Poultry |
| Grilled Galeclaw | 50 | 1 | 1 Galeclaw Poultry |
| Grilled Kelpsea | 50 | 1 | 1 Raw Kelpsea |
| Herb Roasted Caprity | 80 | 1 | 1 Caprity Meat |
| Hot Milk | 16 | 1 | 1 Milk |
| Jam-filled Bun | 51 | 6 | 1 Flour, 2 Red Berries |
| Lamball Kebab | 52 | 1 | 1 Lamball Mutton |
| Mammorest Steak | 252 | 3 | 1 Mammorest Meat |
| Mozzarina Steak | 80 | 1 | 1 Mozzarina Meat |
| Roast Reindrix | 252 | 1 | 1 Reindrix Venison |
| Roast Rushoar | 60 | 1 | x1 Rushoar Pork |
Special Recipes
| Recipe | Nutrition | Sanity | Buff | Recipe |
| Carbonara | 129 | 16 | +20% Defense | 1 Flour, 2 Egg, 2 Milk |
| Chikipi Saute | 92 | 12 | +30% Workspeed | 1 Chikipi Poultry, 2 Red Berries |
| Dumud Chowder | 170 | 21 | +50% Workspeed and Full for longer | 1 Raw Dumud, 2 Lettuce, 2 Tomato |
| Eikthyrdeer Loco Moco | 174 | 22 | +20% Attack | 1 Eikthyrdeer Venison, 2 Red Berries, 2 Egg |
| Eikthyrdeer Stew | 212 | 27 | +20% Defense | 2 Eikthyrdeer Venison, 1 Mushroom, 2 Milk |
| Fried Chikipi | 108 | 14 | +30% Workspeed and reduces SAN decrease | 1 Chikipi Poultry, 1 Flour, 1 Egg, 1 High Quality Pal Oil |
| Fried Kelpsea | 108 | 14 | +10% Defense and reduces SAN decrease | 1 Raw Kelpsea, 1 Flour, 1 Egg, 1 High Quality Pal Oil |
| Grilled Lamball | 147 | 18 | +30% Workspeed and slightly reduced SAN decrease | 1 Lamball Mutton, 2 Lettuce |
| Herb Roasted Lamball | 94 | 12 | +10% Defense | 1 Lamball Mutton, 2 RedBerries |
| Marinated Mushrooms | 60 | 7 | +10% Defense | 1 Mushroom, 2 Red Berries |
| Mozzarina Cheeseburger | 288 | 36 | +20% Attack and gain Fullness | 2 Mozzarina Meat, 1 Flour, 2 Tomato, 2 Milk |
| Mozzarina Hamburger | 162 | 20 | +50% Workspeed and slightly reduced SAN decrease | 1 Mozzarina Meat, 1 Flour, 2 Lettuce |
| Mushroom Soup | 52 | 7 | Gain Fullness | 1 Mushroom, 2 Milk |
| Omelet | 67 | 7 | +10% Attack | 1 Tomato, 2 Egg |
| Pancake | 42 | 5 | Slows down SAN decrease | 1 Flour, 1 Milk |
| Pizza | 184 | 23 | +30% Workspeed and gains Fullness | 1 Flour, 2 Red Berries, 2 Tomato, 2 Milk |
| Reindrix Stew | 132 | 17 | Gains Fullness | 1 Reinderi Venison, 2 Tomato |
| Rushoar Bacon ‘n’ Eggs | 167 | 21 | +10% Attack | 2 Rushoar Pork, 2 Egg |
| Rushoar Hot dog | 140 | 18 | +20% Defense | 1 Rushoar Pork, 1 Flour, 2 Lettuce |
| Salad | 84 | 11 | +30% Workspeed | 2 Lettuce, 2 Tomato |
| Stewed Galeclaw | 92 | 12 | Reduces SAN decrease | 1 Galeclaw Poultry, 2 Red Berries |
How To Get Ingredients?
Ingredients are obtained by defeating Pals as well as collecting them from the wild and later, you can create plantations to grow some of them.
Most of the meat used for cooking can be obtained by specific Pals while the vegetables or fruits that you need can be grown at a plantation.
Other resources such as Flour need to be processed and you can always check where they can be obtained or made by viewing the ingredients when selecting the food you want to cook.
Verdict
Cooking is vital for making better food so that you can increase your Nutrition faster without having to consume so much, allowing you to save certain ingredients for better options.
Some of the food restores SAN (Sanity), which can be a big help when it comes to keeping your Pals free of stress so they can continue to work.
Food items that have buffs can make a huge difference in certain situations, such as fighting in a tough area or when facing off against bosses.