Skyrim: Best Vegetarian Recipes & How To Make Them

Skyrim

By Rachael Phillips

Published Jun 4, 2024

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Skyrim

Highlights

Cooking in Skyrim offers players a comforting break from combat with hearty vegetarian dishes like Tomato Soup and Cabbage Potato Soup.
These cooked dishes provide significant health and stamina boosts, making them cost-effective alternatives to potions for surviving battles.
From easily sourced ingredients like cabbages and potatoes, players can create quick and simple meals like Cabbage Soup and Potato Soup for emergency munchies.

While Skyrim can be a high octane game, full of combat and peril, it also offers the optional simple pleasures of role-playing; coming home after a long day battling Daedric princes to a crackling fire and the smell of a hearty meal is an image that many players find comfort in. While much of Skyrim's landscape is abundant with livestock and wild meats, for vegetarian players who want to experience the joys of cooking minus the animals, there are still plenty of options.

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Although the total value of the ingredients are often more than the dishes themselves, the final cooked products offer vastly better Health, Stamina, and Magicka perks. So, whether a warm soup to enjoy on a wintry evening or 20 stews to down mid-battle, the following cooked foods are vegetarian dishes that can be made in-game with easily sourced ingredients.

7 Tomato Soup

A Well-Seasoned Classic

Ingredients: Tomato, Leek, Garlic, Salt Pile
Benefits: Restore 10 points of Health, Restore 10 points of Stamina
Total Value of Ingredients: 8
Value of Dish: 5

While requiring a bit more effort than some of the other recipes, needing four ingredients, Tomato Soup is a satisfying dish that offers instant health and stamina boosts.

If players own a house, they can find garlic hanging near their cooking pots, but it can also be easily sourced from Inns or by raiding NPCs' homes. Similarly, salt piles are sold by food and alchemy merchants or stored in fish barrels near water-dominant locations such as Riften.

6 Cabbage Potato Soup

Simple and Filling

Skyrim Cabbage Potato Soup crafting menu

Ingredients: Potato, Cabbage, Leek, Salt Pile
Benefits: Restore 10 points of Health, Restore 10 points of Stamina
Total Value of Ingredients: 6
Value of Dish: 5

If players are looking to make something with a bit more substance, the Cabbage Potato Soup might be the answer. Seasoned with salt but without the pungent flavors of garlic, this dish provides immediate health and stamina gains, making it a deliciously helpful meal to keep in players' inventories.

All of the ingredients needed for this dish can be sourced from food merchants, but this soup is one of the cheapest to make (if players decide to purchase the ingredients rather than scavenge them).

5 Cabbage Soup

An Easy-To-Make Dish

Ingredients: Cabbage, Salt Pile
Benefits: Restore 10 points of Health, Restore 8 points of Stamina
Total Value of Ingredients: 4
Value of Dish: 5

Cabbage soup is the easiest recipe to make in Skyrim, requiring only two ingredients. Cabbages can be sourced from most merchants, market stalls, lying around kitchens, or directly from farms (if players don't mind harvesting them).

While perhaps not the most hearty-sounding dish with the lowest stamina perk, it gives the player instant health and stamina gains, making it a useful and cost-effective cooked alternative to health potions.

4 Potato Soup

Cheap and Cheerful

Ingredients: Potato, Salt Pile
Benefits: Restore 10 points of Health, Restore 10 points of Stamina
Total Value of Ingredients: 3
Value of Dish: 5

For players who want the same benefits of the more complex dishes without having to source a lot of ingredients, Potato Soup is the perfect solution. Needing only two ingredients, this is an efficient recipe if players are looking for a quick, cheap health or stamina boost.

wines, snowberry crostata, and some cheeses on a table.

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Like cabbages, potatoes can be easily found in markets, shops, kitchens, and sacks at a majority of locations, meaning Potato Soup is perfect to make in bulk for emergency mid-battle munchies.

3 Apple Cabbage Stew

A Surprisingly Hearty Meal

Ingredients: Cabbage, Red Apple, Salt Pile
Benefits: Restore 10 points of Health, Restore 15 points of Stamina
Total Value of Ingredients: 7
Value of Dish: 8

An arguably rogue combination, this flavorless sounding recipe is surprisingly beneficial. With only one extra ingredient than Cabbage Soup but giving the player an extra five point health bonus, this simple dish is worth cooking.

Although slightly less common than vegetables, red apples can still often be found in barrels and be purchased (or pick-pocketed) from merchants. If players are looking to sell food, Apple Cabbage Stew also goes for a little extra gold compared to other vegetarian dishes, giving players the largest profit if ingredients are sourced without purchasing.

2 Vegetable Soup

Warming and Healthy

Ingredients: Potato, Tomato, Cabbage, Leek
Benefits: Restore 1 point of Health for 720 seconds, Restore 1 point of Stamina for 720 seconds
Total Value of Ingredients: 8
Value of Dish: 5

If players are looking for a lasting effect that restores health over time, Vegetable Soup can be used as a cheap stand-in for health regeneration potions such as Fortify Healing.

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Conveniently, all of the ingredients for this recipe can be found at Carlotta Valentia's food stall at the center of Whiterun; players can skip the meat vendors and head straight to the locally grown produce and maybe even stop for a chat.

1 Elsweyr Fondue

Rich and Magical Flavor

Ingredients: Eidar Cheese Wheel, Ale, Moon Sugar
Benefits: Magicka regenerates 25% faster for 720 seconds, Magicka increased by 100 points for 720 seconds
Total Value of Ingredients: 68
Value of Dish: 5

Elsweyr Fondue is a little bit different from other vegetarian dishes in Skyrim, but although the ingredients are slightly more elusive, its effects can prove useful for players going for a mage build and needing a quick Magicka boost.

The Eidar Cheese Wheel is slightly less common than its sliced form or Goats Cheese Wheels but can be found in Jarls' kitchens. Ale, unsurprisingly, can be found in most Inns and Taverns, "The Bannered Mare" in Whiterun being a good starting point, while Moon Sugar can be easily sourced from Khajit Caravans outside the cities or in apothecary satchels in alchemy shops.