Best food items and dishes in the game. What are they?

[Swiyss]

9 minutes ago, astareus said:

Honey ham is great, I do that dish as well very consistently, is just that I prefer to "farm" for these other veggie ones since it's easier to maintain a big amount of them, especially in multiplayer since it's easier to feed everyone by having 1 guy collect bananas, figs, stone fruits and leafy meat and cooking with them.

I guess I forgot to say the reason I prefer bacon an eggs than honey ham. But if I'm farming on this "vegetarian" setup I mentioned before, I will consequentially collect leafy meat and do jelly salad with it since my honey farm is a complete joke cause I used all combs for wax too. The surplus of leafy meat that is left out because of my bad honey farm is then turned into eggs and bundled for bacon and eggs later, so I basically do a bit of recycling. And If I were to consider doing honey hams, not only I would have to probably make a meat farm, but also extent on my honey farm all for a slower eating animation so... It's just a "me" problem really.

I will also consider that pierogi are better than bacon and eggs since I can do a lot more of with leftover frog legs, as opposed to bacon and eggs which would require an additional leafy meat or another big meat. That's also why I mentioned in the topic that I prefer pierogi and that bacon and eggs and honey ham are not "farmable" but rather a combination of circumstances that'll lead you to making them. Still I don't really enjoy pierogi slow eating animations as well, so pierogi are just my trash being recycled and bundled in case I don't wanna cook for another 5 in-game years.

[Chewabacca]

Chalk me up as another surf'n'turf lover. Easily replaced pierogies as my #1 healing food, and it's not really much more work.

Tall scotches are also very good, even though wouldn't call them a universal best because of the fairly specific set of circumstances they need to be a regular meal: you need to be basing somewhere close to tallbirds, and you need either speed boosts or another way to get tallbirds to lose aggro. If things line up the right way, though, they're great. The long spoilage time and low cost puts them over meaty stews for me.

[Wawchik]

Glommer goop.

[Walrusst]

31 minutes ago, Chewabacca said:

Chalk me up as another surf'n'turf lover. Easily replaced pierogies as my #1 healing food, and it's not really much more work.

Tall scotches are also very good, even though wouldn't call them a universal best because of the fairly specific set of circumstances they need to be a regular meal: you need to be basing somewhere close to tallbirds, and you need either speed boosts or another way to get tallbirds to lose aggro. If things line up the right way, though, they're great. The long spoilage time and low cost puts them over meaty stews for me.

Tall scotches are a circumstantial one that you can make a lot of with a bunnyman/tallbird farm but those are labor intensive and dangerous to make Imo.
In theory its excellent, as it scales really well due to the carrots/bunnypuffs coming from the relocated tallbird nest killing the bunnies forever, making it so reproducing this farm is something you can do nearly infinitely.

The cost of raising a tallbird combined with the threat it poses if a hound eats a wall and lets it into the base makes it not a fun option...

A funny subvariant I will mention though is using egg baiting to relocate your tallbirds to frog hell in the winter though, as if you grab their egg and burn their nest you can move all the tall birds to frog hell in the first winter. Eggs, legs, a lot of meat, and even more if you can build that sweet sweet bunnyman distraction and move the funny rabbits there too.
Not needing a massive pen makes relocating the tallbird a lot easier.

Edited April 5, 2025 by Walrusst

[Evelo]

My friend and I made a spread sheet that determines the best of them (with subjectivity as to the ease of acquisition for ingredients).

For Hunger: Tall Scotch Egg is the best as it is stupid easy to make and farm. Next easiest is Breakfast Skillet given the values it is very very effecient (1 egg, 1 veggie, 2 sticks is crazy good). Bacon and Eggs is always good for long preservation time hunger, and naturally Dragon Pie is also quite good.

For Health: Tall Scotch Eggs again, Dragon Pie, and Wobster Bisque.

For Sanity: Banana Smoothie, Creamy Potato Puree, Salsa Fresca, Jelly Salad, and Vegetable Stinger and all crazy easy and powerful sanity gains.

[xDarkSoul18x]

I live off Surf n turf and bananas 90% of the time lol.

[oregu]

On 4/5/2025 at 4:07 AM, gaymime said:

100% this. zero out of the three characters i play have a high enough hunger even at 0 to benefit from meaty stew

every character except wurt benefits from meaty stew. the 12 hp is good. id rather convert 3-4 meats into 12 hp than the 3 hp that 1 meat gives from meatballs. meatball ingredients tend to give more hp as well, so often you dont gain any hp from making meatballs (unless ur fillers do 0 or negative hp). meatballs tend to spoil faster on average because it uses more non-meat ingredients (assuming you cook/light everything on fire that ur planning on putting on the crockpot). even if youre not fully benefiting from the dish if you dont have 150 hunger to fill, it doesnt make it any worse than meatballs if you can afford to make it. even if i was wes i would make meaty stew if i could afford it over meatballs (but obviously id go for honey ham over stew).it depends more on how often you hunt for stuff but you're more likely to get more food than you can eat as well as the ppl ur playing with and whether they get their own food. i see meatballs more as a 'rationing' food i guess.

also i dont tend to cook with ice cause it feels more slower to get filler than other means. ice is kind of like a "it's winter and i didnt plan ahead so this is the only filler i can get." its good for backup but i wouldnt say its the best filler unless you somehow have a farm for ice. ice is much better for flingomatics, using it on recipes feels a bit wasteful.

Edited April 6, 2025 by oregu

[Hollow soul 3]

Souls 

[gaymime]

2 hours ago, oregu said:

every character except wurt benefits from meaty stew. the 12 hp is good. id rather convert 3-4 meats into 12 hp than the 3 hp that 1 meat gives from meatballs. meatball ingredients tend to give more hp as well, so often you dont gain any hp from making meatballs (unless ur fillers do 0 or negative hp). meatballs tend to spoil faster on average because it uses more non-meat ingredients (assuming you cook/light everything on fire that ur planning on putting on the crockpot). even if youre not fully benefiting from the dish if you dont have 150 hunger to fill, it doesnt make it any worse than meatballs if you can afford to make it. even if i was wes i would make meaty stew if i could afford it over meatballs (but obviously id go for honey ham over stew).it depends more on how often you hunt for stuff but you're more likely to get more food than you can eat as well as the ppl ur playing with and whether they get their own food. i see meatballs more as a 'rationing' food i guess.

also i dont tend to cook with ice cause it feels more slower to get filler than other means. ice is kind of like a "it's winter and i didnt plan ahead so this is the only filler i can get." its good for backup but i wouldnt say its the best filler unless you somehow have a farm for ice. ice is much better for flingomatics, using it on recipes feels a bit wasteful.

it's ok to play however you wish. ^^ i you want you make meaty stews then you should keep doing that

[Mr Giggio]

bananas large meat blue caps and butterfly wings in general is all what I gravitate around

[FillerText]

I honestly feel like Pierogi is only as popular as it is just because everyone happened to develop the exact same style of play, that happened to be greatly beneficial for amassing them. I have always found Pierogies to be very niche, and a headache to make. Usually resorting to different means(jerky, Spicy chili, Froggle Bunwich, trail mix, flower salad, bunny stew, sleeping, farm crops, tall scotch eggs), that were simply much more convenient to me at any point in time. Never really having felt the need to change things up due to each season having their own super-food along with some All-rounder options that are just easy to make. I very often make Spicy chili with double monster meat in spite of it having a chance to be a monster lasagna. Because there is actually very little reason to make Spicy chili with regular meat due to you just being able to to use drying racks. There is just a variety of different stuff that I prefer to use, although it's probably related to me never really sticking around until late-game.

[Walrusst]

Another honorable mention for fish trap chads is fishsticks cause you can genuinely flood that recipe with everything except corn with almost no consequences.
Since, you know, one minnow is near free peirogi for only two any random items that isn't a stick.

Those almost rotted stonefruit? Fishsticks!
Monster meat? Yep you can use two too.
Berries, ice, nightmare fuel? Pretty sure its hard to brick it with these.

Its no fast eating healing item like chili, trail mix, or figatoni abuse where you can get away without the long meaty chew animation, but its the definition of dirt cheap and readily available.

No waking the bird up at night for it either, you can just stop by base and just make them after checking your stuff.

Edited April 7, 2025 by Walrusst

[FillerText]

4 hours ago, oregu said:

every character except wurt benefits from meaty stew. the 12 hp is good. id rather convert 3-4 meats into 12 hp than the 3 hp that 1 meat gives from meatballs. meatball ingredients tend to give more hp as well, so often you dont gain any hp from making meatballs (unless ur fillers do 0 or negative hp). meatballs tend to spoil faster on average because it uses more non-meat ingredients (assuming you cook/light everything on fire that ur planning on putting on the crockpot). even if youre not fully benefiting from the dish if you dont have 150 hunger to fill, it doesnt make it any worse than meatballs if you can afford to make it. even if i was wes i would make meaty stew if i could afford it over meatballs (but obviously id go for honey ham over stew).it depends more on how often you hunt for stuff but you're more likely to get more food than you can eat as well as the ppl ur playing with and whether they get their own food. i see meatballs more as a 'rationing' food i guess.

also i dont tend to cook with ice cause it feels more slower to get filler than other means. ice is kind of like a "it's winter and i didnt plan ahead so this is the only filler i can get." its good for backup but i wouldnt say its the best filler unless you somehow have a farm for ice. ice is much better for flingomatics, using it on recipes feels a bit wasteful.

Every time I make a meaty stew it just spoils before I can get full value from it due to topping off all my other stats with random scraps, and dishes I make from said scraps. I only use Meaty Stew as Warly because of that. 

[Dingle]

7 hours ago, Hollow soul 3 said:

Souls 

Tall scotch eggs for me, when I can switch over as Wortox. I always loved doing that. He can really collect eggs fast.

That and eventually banana shakes.

[reddocc]

meaty stew, jelly beans and jelly salad

[readkey]

On 4/7/2025 at 7:31 AM, FillerText said:

I honestly feel like Pierogi is only as popular as it is just because everyone happened to develop the exact same style of play, that happened to be greatly beneficial for amassing them. I have always found Pierogies to be very niche, and a headache to make. Usually resorting to different means(jerky, Spicy chili, Froggle Bunwich, trail mix, flower salad, bunny stew, sleeping, farm crops, tall scotch eggs), that were simply much more convenient to me at any point in time. Never really having felt the need to change things up due to each season having their own super-food along with some All-rounder options that are just easy to make. I very often make Spicy chili with double monster meat in spite of it having a chance to be a monster lasagna. Because there is actually very little reason to make Spicy chili with regular meat due to you just being able to to use drying racks. There is just a variety of different stuff that I prefer to use, although it's probably related to me never really sticking around until late-game.

Pierogi is popular because as a healing food, it is one of the easiest to make before RWYS update, and that 40 health is hard to beat. Also it has 20 days spoilage time, one of the longest among all crockpot recipe. 
 

That said, after the update I usually just spam potatoes or tomatoes in the early game because how easy they can be mass produced. 

Edited April 9, 2025 by readkey

[ApoIIo]

Bacon and eggs are a hunger food, I find them more useful than pierogis.

Stew is the supreme food. Also banana shakes are easier to make because I can read again for more bananas without needing to go that far for ice.

3 hours ago, readkey said:

Pierogi is popular because as a healing food, it is one of the easiest to make before RWYS update, and that 40 health is hard to beat. Also it has 20 days spoilage time, one of the longest among all crockpot recipe. 

People sleep on butterfly wings/bat bat too much tbh

[_mylilsunshine_]

1 hour ago, ApoIIo said:

People sleep on butterfly wings/bat bat too much tbh

butterfly wing is cute for the early game healing, but there's not much to it to talk abt tbh, unless we want to discuss butter muffin which is a decent food item, especially for wx

i've recently used bat bat for the first time when i got it in the ruins, and was pleasantly surprised to witness its healing power. but then again, unless you are wormwood or warly who does not have easy, immediate access to healing, a bat bat won't do much for you, enough for you to go out of your way to craft it, compared to just tanking with armor, doing big damage with a real weapon, and healing with food/jellybeans instead.

[Johnny_Waffles]

I usually eat different things depending on who I play, but on most characters I usually make a tall scotch egg if I need quick HP and hunger.

Then for hunger, I either just eat cooked meat,berries and other things I find or make them into meaty stew/meatballs if I'm near base.

Healing I either just use things like healing salves and honey poultice or blue shrooms and butterfly wings.

Sanity I just use cactus or jelly salad

And then for characters with easy to get favorite foods like Wolfgang, Wanda, Wormwood, etc I just mass produce those. And kelp with wurt is stupidly OP.

Edited April 9, 2025 by Johnny_Waffles

[BB Marioni]

Omelette is a good long lasting substitute for meatballs and only needs 3 eggs, which could just be 3 monster meats. 

Fish sticks is also easy to make and heals for a lot.

Edited April 10, 2025 by BB Marioni

[ApoIIo]

On 4/9/2025 at 2:11 PM, _mylilsunshine_ said:

butterfly wing is cute for the early game healing, but there's not much to it to talk abt tbh, unless we want to discuss butter muffin which is a decent food item, especially for wx

Absolutely not, those things build up so quickly that they are the only thing I bother using for healing until I get jellybeans.
Butter muffin takes too much filler and too long to cook, it's the opposite of everything that makes butterfly wings as convinient as they are. 

On 4/9/2025 at 2:11 PM, _mylilsunshine_ said:

i've recently used bat bat for the first time when i got it in the ruins, and was pleasantly surprised to witness its healing power. but then again, unless you are wormwood or warly who does not have easy, immediate access to healing, a bat bat won't do much for you, enough for you to go out of your way to craft it, compared to just tanking with armor, doing big damage with a real weapon, and healing with food/jellybeans instead.

I hope you are not suggesting using bat bat as your primary weapon. You swap to it from your main hand when you need to heal. It's not like eating food deals damage either so I don't get this thing people bring up all the time? Why do people think using bat bat entails using nothing but battle spear with 75 uses and nothing else?

You really don't go out of your way too much to craft it either, bats just spill out of every hole, purple gems build up pretty soon and I honestly find the living log cost the biggest restrictive factor early on. Then again a fresh bat bat is 510 entire health so I think that cost is very meager for something that can last me multiple major bosses including BQ.

Edited May 11, 2025 by ApoIIo

[Echsrick]

souls, BUT ONLY for naughty imps, and meaty stew

[RexySeven]

Goop, preferably wet

[GimplyGoose]

So, when the hallowed nights event was active, I started a new world as Wormwood and for a good portion of the lifespan of that world, I just ate year round pumpkins. A lot spawn around the deciduous biome during the event that you can easily use to kickstart your seed supply. I didn't grow giants, instead I just lazily planted a full field of them at a time. With a minimal amount of care (watering or tending once) you get 1-2 seeds back, depending on the season, and can repeat indefinitely.

I mostly did this just for the sake of variety, but I think it is a pretty good strategy for Wormwoods. Compared against bee boxes there are a few pros/cons. The main disadvantage with the pumpkin strategy is that you need to attend to the crops before they rot so you periodically need to harvest and plant them. With bees, you can just harvest the honey whenever you feel like it. Pumpkins also only stack to 20, but since their hunger value is more than twice as high as honey, you get more hunger value out of a stack of pumpkins compared to a stack of honey. In terms of spoilage, honey is better, but not by that much. Honey spoils in 40 days, while pumpkins spoil in 10. Pumpkins can be stored in a salt box and if needed, their freshness can be partially restored by cooking them. It is much easier to set up and expand a pumpkin farm compared with a honey farm (especially so with hallowed nights active).

Pumpkins don't work that well into the late game since you can't store them in a bearger bin, but before that point, I think they are all right.