Cooking From to , there is no recipe too obscure or odd to attract notice from the chefs of Azeroth . Food is used in the game to heal players out of combat so that they are able to get back to fighting as quickly as possible . As you are traveling around the world , you will notice that you often receive pieces of meat which , instead of being sold to merchants , could be used to create food . If you are a player who relies on food , such as a non - healing player or a player who solos , cooking will be very important to you . You can buy food from merchants , but the food gained through cooking is nearly free and it is actually much more effective . Additionally , even if you don ' t eat it , cooked meat is still worth more than raw meat when resold . Cooking is also a great " flavor " secondary skill because you can entertain players with the funny and interesting dishes you can create . Hand someone a portion of , a , or some and you ' ll see what we mean . Additionally , certain cooked foods have a 15 - minute , 30 - minute , or 60 - minute Well Fed buff effect in addition to the immediate health boost all foods have . ( Know you ' re going in to battle and have a few minutes ? Eat that first and gain 2 Spirit and 2 Stamina for 15 minutes . + 2 stamina equates to 20 health points and + 2 spirit makes you get health and mana back quicker . ) A list of recipes and the buffs they give can be found under Well Fed . In the Burning Crusade , cooking is improved for other classes as there are buffs such as increased agility , spell damage , healing , etc . A " treat " can also be given to a Hunter pet or a Warlock minion . Suggested classes . All classes benefit from cooking : melee , ranged , Tank s , spell damage and healers alike . With the addition of the new recipes available in Outland and Northrend , there is something for everyone ! Requirements . Creating food requires three components : A recipe , ingredients , and heat . Summary of Skill levels . Advancement . In order to advance your Cooking skill , you must constantly challenge yourself to create increasingly advanced dishes . Every time you create a new food item , you have a chance of earning a Cooking skill point . The color of the recipe in your cooking window ( menu ) indicates whether you will gain a skill point in Cooking when you create the item . The color codes are as follows : When you gain enough Cooking skill points , you will need to visit a Cooking trainer to advance to the next skill level ! Master . The overall minimum Cooking skill level requirement remains at 275 . Specializations . There are 6 cooking specializations introduced with Mists of Pandaria . Specializations require 530 cooking skill to learn . There is no level requirement to learn cooking specializations . However level 80 is required to learn Zen Master Cooking , which is needed to reach 530 skill . Level 85 is needed to learn recipes for all of the higher - tier specialization dishes . Specialization stat buffs . Each cooking specialization is associated with a buff stat . All the single - person ( non - feast ) dishes taught by one specialization will buff their specific stat ( or other effect ) : The Way of the Brew single - person dishes simply have descriptions like " known to cause massive headaches " and " may induce delusions of grandeur . " The benefits of these are unknown . Feasts are an exception : Every specialization offers 2 feast dishes , each of which grants precisely the same buff - 275 Useful ( class - specific ) stat . This means one only needs to train one specialization to be able to cook raid feasts . There are no specialized dishes for other buff stats , however there are non - specialized dishes offering Hit and Expertise buffs . Two of these dishes are trained by the Halfhill Market trainers , while is trained by Cooking Trainers everywhere . Recipe classifications . All recipes have classifications as of Mists of Pandaria : Pandaria recipes . Recipes upcoming : Garrison . Players building their garrison s while on Draenor that have cooking should consider building a level 2 Barn for rare meats . The Barn is classified as a medium building . This quest is no longer required for Artisan Cooking . You can still do this quest to receive the recipe Clamlette Magnifique , or you can buy the recipe from the vendor at Steamwheedle Port . This recipe goes yellow at 250 . Pilgrim ' s Bounty . This event can be used to level Cooking from 1 to 350 in about 30 minutes without traveling to other places than just to your faction ' s capital cities . To get started , buy the from the Pilgrim ' s Bounty vendor outside any capital city , and learn all the recipes you can from it . Most of the mats for each recipe can be bought from the same vendors . Cook one recipe until you ' ve raised your Cooking level enough to learn the next recipe ; repeat as needed until you can learn at Cooking 280 , then hunt and kill around Elwynn Forest or Tirisfal Glades .