Don’t Starve Together is the online multiplayer adaptation of Don’t Starve, a wilderness survival game uniquely built in RPG format with open-world exploration elements. In it, you choose a character to play from the game world’s heroes, each with a unique set of skills and inherent talents, and try to make it through the long winters and scorching summers without starving, falling ill, or losing your mind.
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But you can’t eat meatballs forever! The longer you make it, the more options reveal themselves to you with the mysteries of this magical world, including more and more ingredients that you can cook in your makeshift crock pot into delicious life and sanity-saving recipes. Here are some of the most essential dishes you need to know.
10 Pierogi
Some of the easiest dishes are those that require a filler, an indistinct food item of a certain type that completes the recipe. To make Pierogi, you need one egg, one vegetable, any meat, and any filler. This not only makes it a highly accessible dish to starting players, but also one of the known go-to healing recipes, especially after boss fights.
This is because Pierogies render an astounding 40 Health, with a convenient shelf life of 20 days. This significantly long spoil-time makes it suitable for long trips, as you can make a large amount and stockpile them according to need.
9 Surf ‘N’ Turf
If your home base camp is somewhere near a pond or a running river, Surf ‘N’ Turf will take care of everything you need. Rendering 60 Health and 33 Sanity, this dish will keep you going through dreary long nights, especially ones that are full of terrors.
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To make it, you need nearly equal part fish to meat, using two fish and two meat morsels, three small fish and one part meat, or two eels and two meat morsels. You can also include an inedible to fill the remaining slot if you’re running low on resources, and if you’re playing Wickerbottom, you’ll enjoy 52.5 Hunger instead of the usual 37.5. You can even give it to Yaarctopus in exchange for a Boat Lantern if you happen to pass by the Coral Reefs.
8 Ice Cream
If you find your Sanity is low — which happens a LOT, nothing to be ashamed of — ice cream is your go-to food for Sanity restoration. Counting as a vegetable in the world of Don’t Starve Together, which makes a lot of sense if you think about it, this dish renders a mind-blowing 60 Sanity, turning the world the right side up at the first lick, and reducing temperature by up to 40 degrees on hot summer days.
To make it, you need one dairy product, one piece of ice, and two sweeteners. If you’re not a huge fan of ice cream, a number of other sweet treats are also great for your Sanity, including Banana Shakes, Jelly Salads, Vegetable Stingers, Soothing Teas, and Taffies.
7 Froggle Bunwich
If you’re slumming it, with not that many ingredients left to whip up a good meal, a Froggle Bunwich is a nice snack that will do the trick and extinguish your hunger. All you need to do is head on over to the nearest swamp, catch a couple of frogs, of which there are aplenty, and fill up the remaining slots with vegetables and twigs.
Rendering 20 Health and 37.5 Hunger, two frogs are enough to give you two Froggle Bunwiches that will last you through the night, until you get a chance to catch something more nutritious. Froggle Bunwiches also take 15 days to spoil, so take them with you the next time you go hunting and foraging. You never know how long you’ll stay out.
6 Beefy Greens
For those with a green thumb, leafy meat can be an excellent alternative to animal meat. Significantly easier to hunt, and a lot easier to come by if you have a few Lureplants conveniently placed on floating lily pads — where they can’t hurt you or take over your home base — Beefy Greens is one of the best meals you can learn to make.
Rendering a prodigious 75 Hunger and 40 Health, Beefy Meat can be made with one morsel of leafy meat and three vegetables. If you find it lying around, however, be careful not to pick it up lest you anger the fearsome Bunnyman. They can also sense any meats or eggs you might be carrying around in your backpack, so be sure to befriend them with a carrot first, and a Sanity aura of 25/min for 20 whole minutes.
5 Honey Ham
If you know your way around bees, Honey Ham is another dish that will give you 75 Hunger and 30 Health a pop at a conveniently slow spoil-time of 15 days. To make it, you need only one comb of produced honey to two pieces of meat, but it must have at least three different ingredients to work.
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Like a lot of the filling dishes in Don’t Starve Together, Honey Ham is one of the recipes that can be produced regularly with the right setup, making it a little hard to concoct for starting players who are still figuring out how to best build their home base.
4 Meaty Stew
Meaty Stew gives you the best bang for your buck, especially since it provides double the value of its ingredients, sometimes equally even as its ingredients are about to spoil. Rendering 150 Hunger, this dish is great on an empty stomach after a full night’s sleep or a long trip out in the wild. This dish is vital for an upgraded WX-78, who has a higher hunger capacity and a much higher tolerance for spoiled food.
To make it, you can fill out your crock pot slots with meat, or add three meats to one red mushroom or an egg. Make sure not to add more than one monster meat, however, or you’ll find yourself with a Monster Lasagna instead.
3 Turkey Dinner
Picture yourself stranded out in the wild, fighting magical creatures of the night and shadows in the dark that move and steal your light. Wouldn’t you like a Turkey Dinner? It’s even better as Gobblers are not known for their high IQ, and can quite easily be lured into your quarters with the help of a berry bush and a cleverly placed fence.
To make it, you need three parts meat to one part berry or cactus, a minimum of two of which should be Turkey. Any character you play — but especially Wigfrid — will most definitely enjoy this dish as an occasional treat, getting 75 Hunger and 20 Health and a lovely boost of warmth against colder weather.
2 Dragon Pie
Dragon Pie is another high HP dish that you can make on a regular basis with the right home base setup, rendering a propitious 40 Health to 75 Hunger a pop. To make it, you only need one dragon fruit and a variety of non-meaty filler items.
Unlike other meaty dishes, Dragon Pie is particularly safe around the Bunnyman, and has a long spoil time of 15 days, making it a great carry-on for daringly long trips into the caves or woods. Its short chew time also makes it particularly useful for Wolfgang, who needs to stay strong during fights, but absolutely useless to Wigfrid, who can only eat meat-based dishes.
1 Veggie Burger
A Veggie Burger is a well-rounded dish that equally serves all your character’s needs, rendering 37.5 Hunger, 30 Health, and 33 Sanity, and is considered a meaty item despite its name. To make it, combine Leafy Meat, Onions and Vegetables with a value of at least 1.0.
Although some players prefer to save the ingredients for Jelly Salads, gaining 50 Sanity with nothing but Leafy Meat and Sweetner at the expense of Hunger and Health, or Beefy Greens, raking up Hunger and Health at the expense of Sanity, Veggie Burgers are much more versatile in comparison, satisfying all three at once. They are also great if you want to fill up your recipe book and survive the unforgiving wilderness with style.
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