Cooking is one of the most useful skills in The Sims 4. As your Sim improves, they unlock new recipes, prepare better-quality food and become less likely to set the kitchen on fire. This guide explains the fastest ways to reach Cooking level 10, including helpful lot traits, skill boosts and the Cooking cheat.
The Fastest Way to Level Cooking
The quickest natural method is to have your Sim prepare individual meals repeatedly. Individual portions create more cooking sessions than family or party-sized servings, helping your Sim practise more often without filling the fridge with quite as much food.
For the best results:
- Add the Homey lot trait.
- Add Chef’s Kitchen if you own City Living.
- Put your Sim in an Inspired mood.
- Prepare individual servings of inexpensive dishes.
- Keep your Sim’s Hunger, Energy and Fun needs under control.
- Refrigerate, sell or eat the finished meals before cooking again.
Your Sim must prepare an actual recipe to gain Cooking skill. Quick Meals do not increase the Cooking skill, even when selected from the fridge or microwave.
Best Meal for Beginners
Garden Salad is one of the safest choices for a beginner because it does not require a stove. This allows your Sim to practise Cooking without the usual risk of starting a fire. Other inexpensive recipes can also be used, but meals cooked on a stove carry a greater fire risk while your Sim has a low Cooking skill.
Install a smoke alarm close to the cooker and consider adding a sprinkler system if your household can afford one.
Make Your Sim Inspired
Inspired Sims generally learn creative skills more effectively, making this a useful mood for Cooking.
An easy way to become Inspired is to select Take Thoughtful Shower on a shower. You can also use inspiring decorations or other mood-boosting objects around the kitchen.
Try to begin cooking while the Inspired moodlet is active and your Sim’s other needs are high.
Use Helpful Lot Traits
Lot traits can make Cooking considerably easier.
Homey
Homey is available with the Base Game. It helps Sims develop Cooking and other domestic skills more quickly.
Chef’s Kitchen
Chef’s Kitchen comes with City Living. It improves Cooking skill development and can give Sims an Inspired moodlet while preparing food.
If you own City Living, use Homey and Chef’s Kitchen together for a stronger kitchen-focused lot.
Build a Tiny Home
Players with Tiny Living Stuff can build a qualifying Tiny Home Residential lot. The smallest tier provides powerful household benefits, including much faster skill development.
A compact kitchen equipped with the Homey and Chef’s Kitchen lot traits can become an extremely effective Cooking training area.
Use a Club Cooking Boost
If you own Get Together, create a club and make Cooking one of its activities. Club points can be spent on a Cooking skill boost that applies while a club gathering is active.
This is especially useful when several household members need to improve their Cooking skill together.
Other Ways to Learn Cooking
Cooking meals is normally the fastest approach, but Sims have several alternative options.
Watch the Cooking Channel
Sims can watch the Cooking Channel on television to develop the skill without buying ingredients or producing more leftovers.
This is helpful when your Sim needs to relax or cannot safely use a cooker.
Read Cooking Skill Books
Cooking skill books can be purchased from a bookcase or computer. Reading is slower than preparing meals and can only take your Sim as far as level 9.
If you own Jungle Adventure, the Peace and Quiet lot trait can improve skill development from reading.
Attend a Skill Class
With Discover University, Sims can use the Business section of their phone to attend a Cooking skill class.
Classes cost §250 and are available between 9am and 9pm. They provide skill progress without creating food, although repeated classes can become expensive.
Learn from Another Sim
Higher-skilled Sims can mentor other Sims in Cooking once they unlock the appropriate ability.
Players with Businesses & Hobbies can also use the Sharing is Caring Whiteboard to teach and learn Cooking.
Cooking With Pack Appliances
Several packs provide additional appliances that can develop Cooking while giving your Sims more recipe choices.
These include:
- Pizza ovens, waffle makers and stand mixers from Home Chef Hustle
- Cauldrons from Realm of Magic
- The Volcanic BBQ Searer from Island Living
- Pressure cookers from For Rent
- Chef stations from Dine Out
- Ice cream machines from Cool Kitchen Stuff
- The Sweets Fabricator from Businesses & Hobbies
These objects are not required to reach level 10, but they can make the process more varied.
Does Simple Living Make Cooking Faster?
The Simple Living lot challenge from Cottage Living requires Sims to have the correct ingredients before preparing most dishes.
This creates more realistic farming and family gameplay, but it can slow down skill grinding when your household is short of ingredients.
If speed is your priority, temporarily remove Simple Living or stock the fridge with harvested produce, eggs, milk and groceries first.
Higher-quality home-grown ingredients can help your Sim prepare better food and reduce the cost of certain recipes.
Cooking Skill Level Unlocks
| Level | Main Unlocks |
|---|---|
| 1 | Basic Cooking recipes |
| 2 | Eggs and Toast, BLT, Chips and Salsa, Fish Tacos and the Combo Add trick |
| 3 | Pan-Fried Tilapia, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Pancakes and Talk About Cooking |
| 4 | Spaghetti and Strawberry Cake |
| 5 | French Toast, Fish and Chips, Gourmet Cooking, mentoring and the Competent Cook moodlet |
| 6 | Blue Confetti Cake, Chili and additional cooking tricks |
| 7 | Blackened Bass and Omelette |
| 8 | Apple Pie and the ability to Flavorize a stove |
| 9 | Chicken Stir-Fry, Cioppino and Give Cooking Tips |
| 10 | Roast Chicken and Tuna Casserole |
Additional recipes may become available when you install expansion packs, game packs, stuff packs and kits.
How Gourmet Cooking Works
Gourmet Cooking is a separate ten-level skill that becomes available when a Sim reaches level 5 in regular Cooking.
Sims improve Gourmet Cooking by preparing gourmet recipes such as Caprese Salad, Vegetable Tempura and Garlic Noodles. Raising regular Cooking will not automatically increase the Gourmet Cooking skill.
Our separate Gourmet Cooking Skill Guide explains its recipes, abilities and level rewards.
Complete the Master Chef Aspiration
The Master Chef aspiration works well alongside Cooking and the Culinary career.
Completing the aspiration rewards your Sim with the Fresh Chef trait. Food prepared by a Fresh Chef is always high quality and never spoils, making it particularly useful for restaurants, large families and food-selling businesses.
Fresh Chef improves the finished food rather than directly increasing the speed at which Sims learn Cooking.
Best Traits for a Cooking Sim
These traits can complement a cooking-focused household:
- Creative: Helps Sims become Inspired more easily.
- Foodie: Encourages Sims to appreciate and discuss high-quality meals.
- Perfectionist: Suits Sims who care about producing excellent dishes, although some activities can take longer.
- Neat: Helpful for keeping a busy kitchen clean.
- Ambitious: A suitable choice for Sims pursuing the Culinary career.
The Savant reward trait can also increase general skill development. Morning Sim and Night Owl provide skill boosts at particular times of day.
Cooking Skill Cheat
You can instantly increase Cooking if you do not want to level the skill through gameplay.
Open the cheat console using:
- PC: Control + Shift + C
- Mac: Command + Shift + C
- Console: Press all four shoulder buttons together
Enter:
testingcheats true
To reach Cooking level 10, enter:
stats.set_skill_level Major_HomestyleCooking 10
Replace the final number with any level from 1 to 10 if you only want to increase the skill part of the way.
To maximise Gourmet Cooking, use:
stats.set_skill_level Major_GourmetCooking 10
Using cheats on a console may affect achievements or trophies, so save your game before enabling them.
Final Tips
For the fastest results, place your Sim on a Homey lot, add Chef’s Kitchen if available, become Inspired and repeatedly prepare individual servings. A Tiny Home or club Cooking boost can make the process even faster.
Start with Garden Salad to avoid early fires, keep your Sim’s needs high and move on to newly unlocked recipes as their confidence in the kitchen improves. Before long, your Sim will be producing excellent meals instead of setting them alight.
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