Food is your health bar in Valheim. Every point of health and stamina you have beyond the bare minimum comes from what you ate, so knowing what to cook at each stage matters more than almost any gear choice.
Every number below is pulled from the wiki, so these are the real values.
How to read this
You have three food slots and you want three different foods in them at all times. Broadly, pick two health foods and one stamina food if you are fighting, and flip that if you are travelling.
Meadows and Black Forest
What you can get in your first few hours.
| Food | Health | Stamina | Lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
 Raspberries | 7 | 20 | 10 min |
 Blueberries | 8 | 25 | 10 min |
 Honey | 8 | 35 | 15 min |
 Mushroom | 15 | 15 | 15 min |
 Grilled neck tail | 25 | 8 | 20 min |
 Cooked boar meat | 30 | 10 | 20 min |
 Cooked deer meat | 35 | 12 | 20 min |
 Boar jerky | 23 | 23 | 30 min |
 Queen's jam | 14 | 40 | 20 min |
Best three to aim for: Cooked deer meat for health, Boar jerky because it lasts 30 minutes, and Honey for cheap renewable stamina.
Swamp and Mountains
Once you have farming and better cooking going, the numbers jump.
| Food | Health | Stamina | Lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
 Carrot soup | 15 | 45 | 25 min |
 Turnip stew | 18 | 55 | 25 min |
 Sausages | 55 | 18 | 25 min |
 Minced meat sauce | 40 | 13 | 25 min |
 Cooked serpent meat | 70 | 23 | 25 min |
 Onion soup | 20 | 60 | 20 min |
Plains
Barley and flax open up the strongest conventional foods in the game.
| Food | Health | Stamina | Lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
 Bread | 23 | 70 | 25 min |
 Blood pudding | 25 | 75 | 30 min |
 Lox meat pie | 75 | 24 | 30 min |
 Fish wraps | 70 | 23 | 25 min |
 Serpent stew | 80 | 26 | 30 min |
| Blood pudding | 25 | 75 | 30 min |
Mistlands and Ashlands
The current top end, including the eitr foods you need for magic.
| Food | Health | Stamina | Lasts |
|---|---|---|---|
 Misthare supreme | 85 | 28 | 25 min |
 Seeker aspic | 28 | 14 | 30 min |
 Mushroom omelette | 28 | 85 | 25 min |
 Piquant pie | 105 | 35 | 30 min |
 Mashed meat | 100 | 34 | 25 min |
 Fiery svinstew | 95 | 32 | 25 min |
 Honey glazed chicken | 80 | 26 | 30 min |
 Ashlands gourmet bowl | 75 | 75 | 50 min |
Which old foods are still worth a slot
This is the question most tier lists skip, and the answer is genuinely useful:
Boar jerky keeps a slot far longer than it should. 30 minutes is the longest early duration in the game, so it is superb for long sailing trips where you do not want to re-eat.- Honey stays relevant the whole game as filler stamina. It is renewable at base and costs you nothing.
- Carrot soup is still a perfectly good stamina food well past the swamp.
- Queen's jam is worth keeping for the same reason: cheap stamina from berries you walk past anyway.
The pattern is that stamina foods age well and health foods do not. A Plains health food is roughly ten times an early berry, but a good early stamina food is still within reach of a late one.
For the full ranked list of every food in the game, see the Valheim food guide. Happy cooking!
