Fast Cooking levelling 1-450

If you want to level cooking up to its maximum level, the best way to do it is to keep using it while you level to 80. Few people do, however, and the fact that level 80 toons can spend a fortune in the Auction House buying materials means many people choose to sell their cooking mats at a good price, preferring gold to skills. This guide will point you in the direction of hitting 450 with your cooking skill as quickly as possible, and assumes you're of a high enough level to travel and collect mats, do quests and grind mobs freely.

Although most recipes are bought from vendors, in many cases you'll have to travel to different continents to buy recipes and farm materials. There's just no easier way, trust me!

If there's one piece of advice it's this: buy all of the vendor ingredients before you start - nothing's more annoying than having meat or eggs, being out in the wild and having to hearthstone back to a city to buy 1s worth of spices! And don't forget you'll need a [Flint and Tinder] too - you'll need one to create a [Basic Campfire] to cook on.

First, visit any trainer in Darnassus, Ironforge or Stormwind - if you can't find one, ask a guard - and learn Apprentice Cooking.

1 - 40
60 x [Spice Bread] - 60 [Simple Flour], 60 Mild Spices

40-80
40 x [Smoked Bear Meat] - 40 [Bear Meat]

Next step is to head back to the trainer and learn Journeyman Cooking.

80 - 130
[Boiled Clams] - 1 Clam Meat, 1 Refreshing Spring Water
[Crab Cake] - 1 Crawler Meat, 1 Mild Spices
or
If you're grinding crawlers for their meat, you'll find they also drop Crawler Claws - you can use these to make:
[Cooked Crab Claw] - 1 Crawler Claw, 1 Mild Spices

At this point, head back to the trainer and learn Expert Cooking.

130 - 175
50 x [Curiously Tasty Omelet] - 50 [Raptor Egg], 50 Hot Spices
Again there's a handy grinding tip here - Raptors drop [Raptor Flesh] too, which you can use for the the next recipe.

175 - 225
50 x [Roast Raptor] - 50 [Raptor Flesh]

Head back to the city again and have the trainer teach you Artisan Cooking.

225 - 250
25 x [Monster Omelet] - 25 Giant Egg, 50 Soothing Spices

250 - 285
40 x [Juicy Bear Burger] - 40 [Bear Flank]

285 - 300
In order to complete the next step, there's a straightforward two-stage quest for the recipe:
1. Desert Recipe
2. Sharing the Knowledge
15 x [Smoked Desert Dumplings] - 15 [Sandworm Meat], 15 Shoothing Spices

Once you're completed this step, you can go to Outland to learn Cooking Master from a trainer.

300 - 325
30 x [Ravager Dog] - 30 [Ravager Flesh]
or
30 x [Buzzard Bites] - 30 [Buzzard Meat]
Again, there's a short quest chain here for you to get the recipe for Buzzard Bites:
1. Ravager Egg Roundup
2. Helboar, the Other White Meat
3. Smooth as Butter

325 - 350
At this point, you have a selection of recipes you can cook to get you up to 350 skill. Of the three, Warp Burgers sell better at the Auction House because they're a better buff food. But of course the Warped Flesh you'll need to cook them is harder to grind out.
35 x [Talbuk Steak] - 35 [Talbuk Venison ]
35 x [Roasted Clefthoof] - 35 [Clefthoof Meat]
35 x [Warp Burger] - 35 [Warped Flesh]

You're ready now to head to Northrend where you can learn Cooking Grand Master from a trainer.

350 - 365
There's another quest here - Northern Cooking - which is fairly easy to complete. As a reward, you'll learn the recipe [Northern Stew]
20 x [Northern Stew] - 20 Chilled Meat

365 - 400
At this point, be prepared to spend a while gaining skill points. Your trainer has plenty of recipes but they'll go green well before 400. Just keep churning them out until you hit the 400 level. The good news is that most are buff foods - one of the best is Rhino Dogs, which provide mana for casters.
50 x [Rhino Dogs] - 50 [Rhino Meat]
400 - 425
From now on, you have to earn [Dalaran Cooking Awards] to buy recipes. These are rewards from the daily cooking quests given by Katherine Lee. All of them are reasonably straightforward - you won't even need to enter combat if you have plenty of Rhino Meat and Chilled Meat. The other rewards from those quests are [Northern Spices], which you'll also need. If you need more than you have, the good news is that the price in the Auction House had plunged as more and more people earn them and choose to sell them, so buying them isn't out of the question.

Cook whichever recipe gives you the best buff for your class, or whichever seems to sell best at the Auction House. The recipes are sold by Derek Odds.

425 - 450
[Gigantic Feast]
or
[Small Feast]

Both recipes are sold by Derek Odds.

And that's it - you're a grandmaster cook! Congratulations - now keep going at the daily cooking quests because you can spend those [Dalaran Cooking Awards] on a [Chef's Hat], which speeds up production when you're cooking.