Free-to-play Cooking training

Cooking is an easy skill to train, even in Free worlds, because of availability of fish everywhere and large amount of experience that cooking yields over a relatively short amount of time. Also, power levelling is efficient and cooking only incurs a low level of cash loss. All players are recommended to complete Cook's Assistant as it opens up access to a new range in Lumbridge, which is close to a bank and reduces the chance of burning the food.

Cooking level table
This is a cropped table indicating what can be achieved starting at certain levels. It only covers items efficient for training cooking.

Training routes
Below are some training routes suitable for different kinds of players.

Training with Fishing
For players willing to train cooking along with fishing, this route is suitable.

Level 1
Crayfish and shrimps can be caught without any requirement. Crayfish can be fished much faster, though both of them yield 30 experience per successful cooking. Cooked crayfish and shrimps don't sell much in Grand Exchange, thus they should be used for food only. The best place to net shrimps is Draynor, and the best place to cage crayfish is west of Lumbridge combat hall.

Level 15
Trouts can be caught in Barbarian Village or in Lumbridge, provided 20 you have Fishing. Trouts are very handy and each of them would give 70 experience. Power-cookers can even grab dropped raw trouts from powerfishers and cook them. If you go to Barbarian Village in World 1, or a populated world, there are usually people giving away free raw trouts and salmon.

Level 30
Tunas can be caught in Musa point in Karamja, provided 35 fishing is attained. Tuna yields 100 experience each cooking, though catching speed is slow. The dropped raw tunas from powerfishers can be taken to cook. If a player decides to use this method to train cooking, a very busy world should be selected.

Level 40
Lobsters can be caught in Musa point in Karamja, provided 40 fishing is attained. Lobster yields 120 experience each cooking, catching speed is comparable to harpooning. There are rarely any lobster drops from powerfishers, thus fishing them is better.

Level 50
Swordfish can be caught in Musa point in Karamja, provided 50 fishing is attained. Swordfish yields 140 experience each cooking. With the swordfish gloves obtained from the Fist of Guthix activity, players can earn double the amount of experience in catching a swordfish. However swordfish catching speed is the slowest among all fish, with the fact tunas are often caught when harpooning. Also, a higher cooking level should be attained before starting cooking swordfish, as the burning rate is high among them.

Dungeoneering training
The reason this method is placed in a small part, is fishing is also involved in the part, and dungeoneering cannot yield stable cooking experience. The working principle is simple. Just chop/buy some high tier branches, fish and cook them into cooked food. There are several points to notice:
 * Fishing speed is much faster, and each fishing spot yields 11-14 fish before depletion.
 * Wood for burning can greatly affect the burning rate, choose the best wood to cook.
 * Buying wood would be much more expensive than cutting them, but fish do not have great cost.
 * Do it after defeating the boss.

An alternate method to level
This is an alternate method to level cooking without burning fish; however, it will most likely be slower than the method suggested above. It is recommended to use the other methods to attain level 50 cooking before beginning.

To avoid losing a lot of cash, avoid burning by cooking:

This works because players lose money on the 1000 shrimps needed, but then make that money back with anchovies, then lose a small amount with trout. Cooked salmon sells for about 100 coins, and raw salmon sells for on average 102 coins. Take note: it requires about 143,000 salmon to raise it to 99, which costs about 14 million coins.

Also another method is to cook pizza from the level you're able to cook them all the way to 99. It is better experience than swordfish and you make 100 coins per pizza. The prices change all the time though, so check the prices before selling the pizzas.

Training via Cooking guild
Please notice, 32 Cooking is needed to enter the guild. Some equipment, like a Chef's hat should be brought before entering the guild as well.

Level 32
Although apple pies can be made at level 30 cooking, only the cooking guild has free and fairly abundant resource for mass making them. One jug, pot, pie dish and three cooking apple respawn are available in guild. Process can be sped up if some jugs, pots are brought prior. Wheat can be harvested in the field north of guild, then made into flour. Collecting flour, water and mixing pastry dough can all be done at ground floor, then cooked at first floor, while the equipments obtained from the first and second floor.

Level 35
Jugs and Grapes can be taken in the guild, with the jug filling water and grapes squeezed in it, a wine would be fermented. Wine gives the highest cooking experience per success, though grape spawning is slow. Nothing is needed to be brought prior. This method of training is somewhat expensive, but can give up to 2800 experience per inventory (14 grapes/14 jugs of water).

Training with complex food
Complex food requires time to make and some base fund, but can be very rewarding. Complex food basically has varied trips, ranging from Draynor to Wilderness.

Level 10
Redberry pies are the first complex food that can be made. As these pies serve no purpose at higher levels, a quick method shall be shown here. Redberries can be bought from Beefy Bill site, buckets or jugs bought from general store, but it's better to get them from the bushes south east of Varrock, straight north from the entrance to al-Kharid. Wheat can be harvested near Millie Miller's windmill, and ground inside it. After that pots can be bought to collect the flour. Flour can be stored at Beefy Bill, although he does take a 10% commission. Buying pots takes some money too, so remember to take some coins. Pie dishes are best bought in the Grand Exchange. After that, redberry pies can be made en masse.

Level 20
Meat pies can be made, with method similar to redberry pies, except cows can be killed at the old Gnomecopter site and banked for quick storage.

Level 25
Stews can be made, by picking potatos in the potato field between Lumbridge and Draynor Village, and killing cows for their beef. Bowls can be taken from kitchen of Lumbridge cook, purchased from Grand Exchange, or manufactured with the Crafting skill (requires level 8 Crafting at a minimum).

Level 35
Plain pizza can be made. Plain pizza is composed of tomato, cheese and pizza base, which pizza base can be made in cooking guild or bought from Fat Tony in Bandit Camp (Wilderness) for 4 coins each. The Bounty hunter bank is the closest bank to Fat Tony. To ensure quick buying of pizza bases, exactly 51 coins can be brought to buy exactly 10 pizza bases, and immediately move to and from the bank. Due to personal shop update, the respawn rate of shop supply is low and players might choose to make the pizza bases themselves. Cheese and tomato can be taken from Aggie's house or Fat Tony's camp, but both of them have disadvantages. Draynor lacks a support of cooking ranges, and Fat Tony is in Level 23 Wilderness, which might be dangerous as revenants often patrol in the camp.

Level 45
Meat pizza can be made. Please notice making a meat pizza out of plain pizza and cooked meat is always a success. Please refer to previous parts for making the respective ingredients.

Level 55
Anchovy pizza can be made. Making an Anchovy pizza out of plain pizza and anchovies is always a success. Raw anchovies can be fished south of Lumbridge, in Al Kharid and in Draynor.

Sell and buy, or just trade
Fish, particularly the high level ones, play a big role in the cooking market. They make up the bulk of the food market, with high demands of both raw and cooked forms.

When training on lobsters or swordfish, players may wish to use the RuneScape food forum to buy raw fish and sell cooked ones.

Note that buying most fish raw from the Grand Exchange and selling the cooked product in the Grand Exchange is no longer profitable due to many players buying mass amounts of fish to get to 99 Cooking. For many fish there is a significant price difference between cooked and raw fish. If players wish to be profitable, they should sell on demand (Near Bounty Hunter - when many players are buying small amounts of food at above Grand Exchange prices). This, however, is a slow way to sell food. A way to train cooking and gain a profit would be to make foods containing many steps. These foods give much more experience than fish when made from scratch, many cannot be burnt, and can be sold for modest profit in the Grand Exchange. The downside to this method is that takes much longer to prepare the ingredients for combining.

Cost Control
Anchovies are one of the few fish that players can buy raw, sell cooked, and gain profit. This is due to the fact that people buy cooked anchovies to make anchovy pizza, the highest Free-to-Play food.

Another good way for training cooking for no loss is to buy raw trout. The market buying price is coins and selling price is  coins. This is a good way to gain cooking exp without spending lots of money. However, cooked trout takes a very long time to sell because there is not a high demand for them.

However, in exchange for the low cost, these methods provide very slow experience rates. At higher levels, players may wish to move on to higher-level foods that give better experience.

All in all, cooking is not a very good money making skill, and it should be warned that it is not a very useful skill to train unless you are trying to boost your overall skill level for the high scores or get a skill cape.

Hot spots
Some places are more suited for cooking than others. Here are some recommended places.