RS3 Cooking Training Guide

Cooking is a skill in Runescape 3 that can be trained in both free-to-play and pay-to-play worlds. It has long been known as one of the easiest 99 skills in Runescape. Due to its low cost, fast experience rates and minimal levels of concentration. This guide will provide a full overview of the best training methods used for the skill in Runescape 3.

Fastest Cooking Training Methods

The fastest way to train your Cooking if of course through the traditional methods of cooking well known meat and fish. Players can expect to start out with shrimp and go all the way up to cooking Sharks and Rocktails. Below is a table of the fastest route from level 1 to 99 cooking.

LevelsFood to CookBase Cooking Experience/Hour
1-15Shrimp
Anchovies
Chicken
25,000
15-28Trout
Cod
Pike
Salmon
40,000
28-52Sweetcorn150,000
52-80Desert Sole200,000
80-90Beltfish231,000
90-95Shark294,000
93-95Rocktail315,000
95-99Blue Blubber Jellyfish330,000
99+Sailfish380,000

Shrimp/Anchovies/Chicken: Levels 1-15

raw shrimp

Players should start training their cooking levels by cooking either raw shrimp, raw anchovies or raw chicken. This is extremely fast to do and only around 50 of them will need to be cooked to reach level 15.

Trout/Cod/Pike/Salmon: Levels 15-28

raw salmon in rs3

Next players should move on to cooking any of trout, cod, pike or salmon. Only around 100 of any of these fish will be required to reach the next target level of 28. Base experience rates are around 40,000/hour, although with the use of portable ranges it is possible to high as high as 50-60k cooking exp per hour.

Sweetcorn: Levels 28-52

raw sweetcorn for cooking in runescape

At level 28 cooking, players can begin to cook Sweetcorn for significantly faster experience rates. The base cooking xp should be around 150,000 per hour with this method. However, with portable ranges or cooking urns it is possible to achieve around 180,000/hour.

Desert Sole: Levels 52-80

desert sole rs3

At level 52 the Desert Sole will take up the majority of your training until level 80 cooking. Experience rates start at around 200,000 cooking xp per hour with minimal effort. With cooking urns or portable ranges this can scale up to 240k/hour.

Beltfish: Levels 80-90

Beltfish rs3 cooking

Beltfish are available at level 80 cooking, although they are only recommended if you have the cooking gauntlets due to their high burn rates without. Players can expect around 230,000 cooking experience per hour with this method. Or around 280k with portable ranges or cooking urns.

Sharks: Levels 90-93

raw shark

With level 90 cooking players should move to cooking sharks. Expect experience rates of around 294k/hour as a base. With portable ranges and cooking urns pushing that rate up to around 350k/hour.

Rocktails: Levels 93-95

rocktail rs3

At level 93, the ability to cook Rocktails is unlocked and players should begin cooking this iconic fish in RS3. Base cooking experience rates are around 315k per hour, scaling to 380k with a portable range or cooking urns being used. Additionally, with the cooking gauntlets equipped, players will stop burning Rocktails at level 94.

Blue Blubber Jellyfish: Levels 95-99

blue blubber jellyfish in runescape 3

The final push to 99 cooking will see the use of the Blue Blubber Jellyfish, which should be used from levels 95 onwards. They provide base cooking experience of around 330k per hour, scaled to 395k/hour with portable ranges or cooking urns. At level 97 with the use of cooking gauntlets you will no longer burn this fish.

Sailfish: Levels 99+

sailfish

If your goal is to go beyond level 99, maybe you want to try and get the 120 skillcape, then sailfish are the best food to cook. Make sure you have the cooking gauntlets equipped so you never burn this fish when cooking. They provide base experience of 380k/hour or around 455k/hour with portable ranges or cooking urns being used.


Alternative Cooking Training Methods

The methods used above are the fastest and most commonly used for a reason. They save players a lot of time, money and effort. However, there can still be a few good alternative methods for training the cooking skill that have their own benefits.

Wine: Levels 35-99+

This method is actually one of the fastest cooking methods, but to the vast majority of players it is far too expensive to be a worthwhile investment. Currently players lose around 100k gp per inventory.

To create the Wines players must use 14 grapes on 14 jugs of water, providing 2,800 cooking xp per inventory. The method rewards players with up to 700,000 cooking experience per hour with good levels of concentration.

Daily Churn

For this method it is important to have a farm totem and elder cow in both pens at your player-owned farm. This will quadruple the experience received from daily churn. Making it possible to receive around 215,000 cooking experience per hour, at little to no cost.

daily churn

Cooking while Training Fishing

While training fishing there is plenty of opportunities for you to cook the fish as opposed to dropping them. This will slow down the progression of each skill individually, but keeps the training a little more engaging and varied.


Cooking Equipment

ItemDescription
Cooking GauntletsReduce burn rates when worn and can fully prevent burning certain food at levels lower than without them.
Require completion of the Family Crest Quest to obtain.
Sous Chef Outfit+6% bonus experience to cooking when full set is worn or +1% per individual item worn.
Cooking UrnsIncreases experience rates by up to 20% per hour.
Crafting levels required to make cooking urns, but you can be assisted by a player who has high crafting.
Portable Ranges21% bonus to base cooking experience
5% chance of producing an additional food item
Same burn rates as standard ranges.
Can be placed anywhere, even within a few tiles of a bank.
Torstol Incense SticksUp to +2% experience boost to cooking depending on potency level of the incense sticks. They have a base timer of 10 minutes, and each additional incense adds 10 minutes to the timer up to a maximum of 60 minutes. Requires level 75 firemaking to use.
Cooking CapePrevents players from burning food when equipped.