How to perfectly cook fish, meat, Kraken, and Megalodon in Sea of Thieves

After you catch a fish in Sea of Thieves, you have the option to either turn it in to The Hunter’s Call for a flat rate, or you can cook it to increase the amount of Gold you’ll receive. You can also eat the cooked fish, which provides health regeneration on top of the normal healing effects. The same goes for any shark, snake, pork, chicken, Kraken, and Megalodon meat you acquire during your travels. That said, being able to cook these foods to perfection takes a bit of practice. You can easily under-cook or burn your food, decreasing the potential sell price and limiting your health boosts.

Finding a Stove or Campfire

To begin cooking your meats, you’ll need to find a Stove or Campfire. Because of its ease of use, we recommend using a Stove. Stoves are located below deck on any ship and are easily identifiable—they should have a pan on top and be next to a lantern. Campfires, on the other hand, can be found on most Islands and Outposts. But remember, they can’t be used during a Storm.

Unlike Stoves that have unlimited energy, Campfires use Wooden Planks as fuel. Once you have a few Wooden Planks, equip them by pressing the Menu button on controller, hovering over them, and pressing A. Go over to the Campfire with wood in hand, look down at the charcoal, and hold X to Build a pile of wood.

You’ll then need to Ignite your fire. You can either equip your Sword and hit the wood to light the fire with sparks, or you can use your Lantern. For the latter, hold Left Bumper to open your Item Radial, then select your Lantern using the Right Stick. Press Right Trigger with the Lantern equipped to light the Lantern, then hold Left Trigger to raise your Lantern toward the wood. You can now press X to Ignite the Campfire.

Related: Where to sell fish in Sea of Thieves

Cooking to Perfection

Raw

With raw meat or fish in your inventory, you’re ready to cook. Equip your food of choice by pressing the Menu button and pressing A over it. If you’re standing close enough to the Pan, there should now be a prompt to place the raw food on it by holding X.

Under-cooked

Food starts out raw when cooking in Sea of Thieves. But after it cooks for a while, the food will suddenly change to a palish, light brown color (as shown in the image above). The food has now reached under-cooked status.

Cooked

It’s only a short time from there until it turns a darker brown. You’ll also notice a slight change in the sizzling and popping noises. If it’s a fish, the eyes will usually go pale. This is how you know a food item is fully cooked and it’s time to take it off of the Stove.

Burnt

Keep it on too much longer and the food will become burnt. You’ll know it’s burnt when it chars, turns black, and begins to smoke. It can even catch on fire after a while. The image above is what you do not want to see when cooking.

Cooking Times (in Seconds)

Different foods, and even different sizes of the same food, take varying amounts of time to cook. If you’re struggling to determine when exactly that food hits the sweet spot, check out the table below.