Skip to Content

Minecraft: 10 Best Food Items

In the vast world of Minecraft, food is crucial for survival. In this article, we will list the best food items in the game. From hearty steaks to suspicious stew, join us as we explore the best Minecraft food items for your adventures.

Back in the first days of survival mode in Minecraft, food was just there to recover health. There was no hunger level of any kind, making it a huge request by the Minecraft community.

In the adventure update of 2011, hunger was added, as well as a few other things.

Since then, farming has become a staple of any survival world.

Even if you spend a lot of time dedicated to producing crops, it can be tough to get a real grasp of your resources. Long adventures are particularly tough, running out of food is a nightmare.

I’ll be going through all this in each entry!


10. Bread

Food: 5

Saturation: 6

Requiring 3 wheat to craft, bread is a staple of most early game play-throughs as wheat seeds are commonly found by breaking grass.

While bread should certainly be made whenever you have spare wheat, providing good food & saturation levels, your wheat is far better being used for different means.

Wheat is best used for breeding cows, healing horses & creating hay bales.

It can take anywhere from 20 minutes to 2 hours (real life time) for a wheat crop to fully grow, then it’ll yield 1 wheat.

So you’ll need a huge farm to get masses of bread, and that’s something that takes time to create and manage.

Overall, there are better food options available.


9. Golden Apple

Golden Apple, one of the best food items in Minecraft

Food: 4

Saturation: 9.6

While you’re out adventuring, exploring caves and tackling mobs, the Golden Apple is one of the best food items you can get.

Although it doesn’t restore that much hunger, at a measly 2 food levels, effectiveness comes in different ways. It’ll instead heal up to 2 hearts over a few seconds, as well as providing 2 absorption levels.

To craft a Golden Apple, you’ll need to surround an Apple with 8 Gold Ingots.

Alternatively, you can find this item in chests in places like Strongholds, Igloos, Underwater Ruins, Dungeons, Desert Temples, Mineshafts and Woodland Mansions!

More uses come in the form of curing zombie villagers. If you hit them with a Splash Potion of Weakness, you can use a Golden Apple on them to turn them into a normal villager.

Also useful for breeding horses.


8. Dandelion/Blue Orchid Suspicious Stew

Suspicious Stew, one of the best food items in Minecraft

Food: 6

Saturation: 7.2 (+ bonus saturation from Dandelion or Blue Orchid)

Mushroom Stew is another great food item, easily available as mushrooms are quite common in caves and biomes. However, you can add any flower to the crafting recipe of mushroom stew, to make a suspicious stew. Adding a Dandelion or Blue Orchid adds extra saturation, keeping you full for longer. You can see the full list on the wiki.


7. Cooked Cod

Food: 5

Saturation: 6

Providing some decent food stats, cod is relatively easy to get en masse via fishing or fish traps.

If you’re close to ocean blocks, you can build around 4 or so pieces of water, and underneath, to have plenty of fish spawn inside. The simply murder them every few in-game days for a ton of fish to cook!


6. Cooked Chicken

Food: 6

Saturation: 7.2

Chickens are a hugely common, easily breed-able animal mob that provides meat, eggs, and feathers.

Requiring only seeds to breed as well, every player should have a bunch of chickens.

While cooked chicken is a decent food item, the amount of chickens you need to slaughter is a hassle and not worth it, compared to other meats and food items you can obtain.

Plus, you have to deal with the constant clucking which, of all animal mobs, is the most annoying. As well as them escaping every time you enter their pen.


5. Cooked Mutton

Cooked Mutton, one of the best food items in Minecraft

Food: 6

Saturation: 9.6

Sheep drop 1-2 raw mutton chops, making it one of the more common food items you can stock up on. Found all across most biomes, Sheep are easy to find and breed. Every survival play-through needs some space dedicated to animal keeping.

A little tip if you didn’t already know, if a Sheep burns to death, it’ll drop cooked mutton instead!


4. Steak

Steak, one of the best food items in Minecraft

Food: 8

Saturation: 12.8 

Finding herds of cows is not uncommon, they’ll provide a great source of beef and other useful items. Able to drop between 1-3 raw beef upon death, or steak (cooked beef) if they burn to death. You can also feed steak to wolves if needed, to make them mate or grow up faster. 

Filling up 4 food levels by itself is pretty awesome, especially combined with the high saturation level.


3. Cooked Porkchop

Cooked Porkchop, one of the best food items in Minecraft

Food: 8

Saturation: 12.8

Completely identical to the previous entry in terms of stats, cooked porkchops are another good food item. I put it higher because it’s slightly more efficient to get, requiring carrots to breed pigs, rather than wheat (which is a useful item itself) for cows.


2. Cooked Salmon

Cooked Salmon, one of the best food items in Minecraft

Food: 6

Saturation: 9.6

Craft yourself a fishing rod and head to some water for 20 minutes, you’ll get a decent supply of fish. Salmon is the best overall, filling 3 hunger levels and providing some decent saturation. There’s a 25% chance you’ll find salmon while fishing, which is a relaxing exercise you can do to take a break from cave exploring!


1. Baked Potato

Food: 5

Saturation: 6

Once you’ve acquired your first potato, you’ll be fine for food for the rest of your play-through. Zombies, and their respective variants, have a 0.83% chance of dropping a potato. 

Your best bet is to visit villages, as the house chests have a high chance of containing multiple potatoes. Shipwrecks and Pillager Outposts also have a decent chance of containing them.

So why are potatoes so good?

Food/saturation levels aren’t the best but once you plant a potato, it’ll yield 2-5 more within an hour (real-time).

Other potato uses are for breeding pigs, or trading to the amazing farmer villagers for Emeralds.

No other food item is as easy to get as baked potatoes, you can acquire stack after stack from just a few hours of game-play!

Conclusion

By understanding the unique benefits and characteristics of each food item, you can strategically plan your inventory and ensure that you’re well-prepared for any Minecraft adventure that comes your way.

Are you focusing your efforts on the best food items?

You might only be focusing on how much food level your item restores, rather than considering the saturation level which is just as important!

What is the difference between food level and saturation?

If you’re having trouble keeping your food bar topped up, saturation is likely the culprit. Saturation is a hidden value, eating more saturated foods will deplete your hunger level slower.
Eating a variety of foods in a specific order can further increase efficiency.

Check out our related Minecraft guides below:

BOB

Tuesday 22nd of December 2020

On top of what vest was saying Rabbit Stewart isnt stackable so I wouldn't even consider that an option because it takes up to much space.

Vest

Thursday 12th of November 2020

This list doesn't consistently take availability into account. It considers it when comparing pork chops to steak, but not with other entries.

I would put salmon a lot higher on this list simply because you can literally pull it out of any body of water at the expense of some durability on a fishing rod - or not even that considering the fact that you can fish up a mending rod or book and have an unbreakable rod to use (remember, fishing always gives exp every time you pull something out of the water, and it's always more than enough to restore one use on a fishing rod).

Similarly, I'd flat out remove enchanted golden apples since they're not craftable at all. While they do give really good additional effects, they're way too rare to use as a food item and should be considered more of a stat booster like potions or the more "exotic" forms of suspicious stew.

Ryan McKenna

Saturday 21st of November 2020

Fishing is an excellent source of food...if you have an enchanted rod. I've found it's easier to build some dirt around ocean water blocks as the fish spawn in there, you can check in every 15 minutes and get 10+ fish in a few seconds :)

Abel

Tuesday 26th of November 2019

can this list be updated? There are many foods that r really good, but not on this list.

Ryan McKenna

Thursday 28th of November 2019

Which ones?

JP

Friday 13th of September 2019

FYI: The first line of the #1 choice "Enchanted Golden Apple" (under the pic), says "Enchanted Golden Arrows" instead of Apples. Thanks for a Great write-up!

Ryan McKenna

Sunday 15th of September 2019

Thanks for the report, fixed it :)