Tears of the Kingdom – Where to Find Golden Apples & Best Recipes

Tears of the Kingdom’s Hyrule is brimming with materials and resources for Link to collect. Almost all of them can help him along his journey in some way, and none are more important than food. Even amongst food, there are top-tier items that can boost Link’s cooking to a new level, giving him security in any boss encounter. This guide explains where to find and farm Golden Apples in TotK, so Link can buff every meal and take Ganondorf down without any trouble.

Related: Tears of the Kingdom – How to Find & Solve the Kimayat Shrine Puzzle

Where to Farm Golden Apples in Tears of the Kingdom

Golden Apples grow on apple trees, so the best place to farm them in Tears of the Kingdom is any location with many apple trees. While there’s no single location in Hyrule that’s best for farming Golden Apples, we’ve found that they appear more frequently on Sky Islands. This is where, purely by chance, in most cases, we’ve found the majority of our Golden Apples.

A fairly reliable location to farm Apples and have the best chance of finding Golden Apples on TotK’s Hyrule is in the Akkala Highlands region, up the road from South Akkala Stable, at map coordinates 3207, 2143, 0126. The only way to farm Golden Apples is by climbing apple trees and picking Apples around Hyrule until Link comes across the special variant. 

Best Golden Apple Recipies in Tears of the Kingdom

Golden Apples restore 1.5 Hearts instead of the usual 0.5 that standard Apples restore. They can be used in all the same recipes that Apples can, but they provide a bit of a boost to the resulting effects of each meal. This can only happen if the fruit is cooked with other foods that have an effect on Link, such as restoring stamina or providing protection against the cold. Below, we’ve listed the best meals Golden Apples can cook. The effects of each meal will vary depending on the food used, but they will always be greater because of the Golden Apple.

Baked Apple

Place an Apple close to a fire, and it will start to cook. Leave it for a while, and eventually, it will turn into a Baked Apple. This is a great recipe to cook up in a punch when Link needs meals that will heal a good chunk of health but doesn’t have the supplies for larger meals or Elixirs.

Simmered Fruit

Combine any two or three fruits in a cooking pot, and this is the meal Link will create. The effects of healing and other status impacts will change based on the fruit used. Link should cook this meal when he has a tough fight ahead and needs as many healing items as possible.

Copious Simmered Fruit

This recipe requires any four fruits to be combined in a cooking pot. As with Simmered Fruit, the effects of the meal will change based on the fruit Link cooks. A good recipe to cook up when Link is at a Stable and has a decent supply of fruits.

Meat Skewer

Link will make this meal using one fruit and one piece of meat. It heals many hearts and is a great meal to cook up in times of plenty when Link has a lot of meat in his pack, meaning that has a lot of life-giving items to fall back on in the future.

Fruit and Mushroom Mix

One fruit and one mushroom will result in this meal being cooked. It’s a great way to use up the dregs of resources that Link has gathered in his travels, turning them into helpful resources for bosses or just long stretches of exploring and fighting enemies.