Summer in Stardew Valley is a busy period for farming. There are many high-quality crops to grow and much high-quality fish to catch! That’s not to mention that you may want to spend your time improving tools, mine for resources, and just adventuring. Moreover, it rains only a little in summer, especially at the start of it. So with all the time you have to spend tending to your crops during the summer of Stardew Valley , you may want your cooking to be easy, fast, and efficient.
Cooking in summer is worth it, too! Aside from the buffs dishes can provide, many villagers have their birthdays in summer. And, of course, you may want to shoot for that elusive Gourmet Chef recipe by cooking all the recipes!
Well, you’re in the right place. This Stardew Valley cooking guide series contains four parts, one for every season. Every section also features the best ingredients to save up for use in other seasons. However, some dishes don’t fit in just any single season. As such, every part of this guide will also feature a section for seasonal dishes that you can also make in (in this case) summer. Without further ado, let’s get cooking!
In the meantime, check out some of our other guides on Stardew Valley:
Why buy it from Pierre when you can make it yourself?
No surprises. As the base of bread, pasta, pizza, and pie, wheat flour is crucial for all things kitchen. However, as with most things in life, the most rewarding things come with a little effort. To get this profitable resource, you first need to grow wheat seeds into wheat. That in itself is simple enough, it only takes four days. Sadly, you can’t use wheat right off the bet. You have to mill it first, just like rice. Mills are pretty expensive. With 25.000 gold, 50 stone, 150 wood, and 4 cloth, it will set you back a little. However, it’s worth it to get a steady supply of one of the most common ingredients for cooking in Stardew Valley, far beyond summer.
Yep. It’s really the most common crop in recipes.
Speaking of common crops – the tomato is one you’ll want to keep an eye on. Not only is it a highly lucrative plant that yields tomatoes every 4 days, but also because it’s used in loads, and I mean loads of dishes. Some of those are very easy crowd pleasers, like Bruschetta. So plant them early and stack up on them! Trust me, it’s going to make fall and winter easier. It’s also used in the summer crops bundle in the Community Centre, so there’s another reason to grow this amazing veggie.
No, they’re not for eating. But their purpose is far greater.
The sunflower doesn’t seem to belong on this list. It’s not edible, and although it’s good for befriending Haley , it’s not that amazing in general. However, it’s a great ingredient for o il , a common ingredient used in loads of recipes. With an oil maker, you can turn sunflowers and sunflower seeds into oil. The machine itself takes some time to unlock though. You need farming level 8, which makes sunflowers a bit of a long-term investment. But there’s nothing wrong with that, and it’s always good to be prepared.
If you ever need a tortilla…
Corn is a strange ingredient. It’s not used in any recipe, but it’s a great way to obtain two common ingredients: oil and tortillas. You can use corn for oil, just like you can use sunflowers. However, since sunflowers serve few other purposes, they’re the better option for oil. That saves you corn to make tortillas, a great ingredient for some of the best dishes in the game.
Shane would be happy that I included these.
Hot pepper is an easy crop. It takes only 5 days to grow into a plant and will continue to yield peppers from that moment. Hot peppers are key components in three dishes, some of which give good buffs to farming and foraging. Also, Shane and Lewis love them, and it just feels nice to be appreciated.
Hope you like looking for the right fish!
How to get the recipe:
Starting summer with a solid all-rounder! Although nobody loves it, nearly everyone likes it. Even my man Willy, who’s next to impossible to please when it comes to food, actually likes this dish. The recipe isn’t tough to get either – just make sure to tune in to Queen of the Sauce on Summer 7, year 1. It’s a little trickier to prepare the dish though since you can’t just slam any fish in it.
You need a sunfish, which you can only catch in the river in spring and summer between 6 am and 7 pm (as long as it’s sunny or windy). The other fish you need is a bream, which also only exists in the river. Fortunately, they’re a little easier to find. They appear in every season and under every weather condition, but only between 6 pm and 2 am. Neither fish is hard to catch, just a little specific to find. Get some wheat flour from Pierre if you can’t make it yourself yet, and presto – one lovely baked fish! Whatever happened to the other fish in this recipe, is honestly beyond me.
A great dish, but you’ll have to invest in it…
How to get the recipe:
2/3rd of this recipe is simple enough. As long as you take care of cows you have a steady supply of milk, and sugar is easy to get by milling beets in fall- or simply buying it from Pierre. This recipe has 5 stars in both categories due to the unlockable Ginger Island , where you have to find both bananas and the recipe. Only once you completed the Community Centre or the Joja Community Development form if you have no soul and repaired Willy’s expensive ship can you even reach the island. Safe to say that Stardew Valley cooking recipes that force you on Ginger Island are some of the very toughest.
Once you’re there, find the Island Trader . You’ll need both bananas and the recipe. Fortunately, the merchant has both. However, they don’t come cheap. You need five Dragon Teeth for a Banana Tree, which you can find deep in the local Volcano dungeon. You can get the recipe itself in return for 30 Bone Fragments, which you can find by slaying foes in the Volcano Dungeon and the Skull Cavern. Safe to say, this recipe has you put in some work. That desert better tastes amazing!
After the Banana Pudding, this dish is a real breather.
How to get the recipe:
Did you mentally recover from the Banana Pudding? Great. Fortunately, the Blueberry Tart is a lot easier. The only real tricky part of this dish is gathering the ingredients. Wheat flour and sugar are easy to grow and later on mill. Until then, Pierre always has them in supply, so that’s simple enough. For eggs, just a coop and a chicken are enough. It may be tricky to get that in the early game, but once you’ve got it going you will have a very steady supply of eggs. Blueberries aren’t that difficult either. You can purchase seeds cheaply, and they grow in 13 days. After growing, the plants give continuous harvests of at least 3 blueberries every four days. This pie is simple as pie!
There are few things easier than preparing bread in Stardew Valley.
How to get the recipe:
It’s high time for a recipe that’s a little more… manageable. Fortunately, not all Stardew Valley cooking is difficult. Bread is a simple dish, that only requires a single ingredient – wheat flour. You can get it yourself by milling wheat or buying it from Pierre. You get the recipe early on, so there’s no waiting game involved. Although this recipe may not seem like much, it makes for a great ingredient in other recipes, much like hashbrowns.
It’s a simple and delicious crowd-pleaser!
How to get the recipe:
Speaking of recipes you can make with bread, bruschetta is a good option. Nearly everybody likes it (except the good old trio of impossible-to-please people) and it’s easy to make. A tomato harvest should be enough. Wheat flour and oil are both for sale at Pierre’s – but you can make them yourself as well as long as you have a mill and an oil press. Although this recipe is good, there’s little that sets it apart from the competition. It’s not used in any bundles nor does anyone love it. But if you’re going for that Gourmet Chef achievement, you may as well try your hand at it!
No idea how you make a chocolate cake without any chocolate.
How to get the recipe:
Chocolate cake, a great dish that contains absolutely no chocolate. But all joking aside – this recipe is very good for giving. With three residents who absolutely love it, chocolate cake is a key weapon in the arsenal of the Stardew Valley diplomat. It’s pretty easy to make too. As long as you have a coop, you’ll be fine in terms of egg supply. Wheat flour and sugar are both available at the General Store if you don’t have a mill yet – or if you’re out of wheat or beets. It will take a while before you can make this recipe, but from year 2 onward, it will serve you well.
How to get the recipe:
There’s not that much to say about coleslaw. It’s not particularly easy to make, nor is it very hard. You can grow red cabbage during the summer and vinegar is always purchasable at Pierre’s. You can’t make vinegar, so there goes the autarky. Oh well. The tricky part in preparing this recipe is the mayonnaise. You’ll need a mayonnaise machine, which you can unlock by reaching farming level 2. It’s quite inexpensive to build and only requires a single egg to make mayonnaise. So just a few extra steps, but nothing too challenging. The recipe is one of the earliest you’ll unlock in the game since it pops up on Day 14 of spring in the first year.
Great as they are, they’re basically a shittier chocolate cake.
How to get the recipe:
It pains me to say this, but there’s barely any reason to make cookies. It’s a simple recipe, that only requires wheat flour, sugar, and egg – easy enough to get by with a coop, a mill, or Pierre. The more observant of you may have noticed that this dish contains the same ingredients as chocolate cake – only is chocolate cake far better. It gives you more health and more energy. It also makes a far better gift to others. Cookies are used in the Children’s Bundle on the Remixed Bulletin Board in the Community Centre, but that’s the only real use for them. Sorry, cookies.
You’re going to want to pay Clint a visit for that upgraded axe, though.
How to get the recipe:
Fiddlehead risotto is one of those dishes I forget about pretty easily. It doesn’t offer amazing boosts, and it’s pretty convoluted to make. The recipe is more of a waiting game, however. You’ll need to wait until fall 28 of year 2, making it one of the last recipes you’ll unlock. Not that it matters a lot. Garlic, a key ingredient in this dish, is only available at Pierre’s starting in year 2. Make sure you grow it in spring because that’s the only season in which it grows. Fiddlehead fern is the other challenge.
The main source of it is in the Secret Woods during summer. However, good luck getting in. The entrance is blocked by a large log, that you can only break with a steel axe or better. So this dish is all about Clint – he’s the man to get the ingredients for this dish, and he just so happens to love the dish. Let’s show Clint some love for once.
If you’re going fishing, a good stew is a great start!
How to get the recipe:
The fish dishes this season are pretty picky. Whatever happened to “1 any fish?” Welp, apparently you can only make stew from a crayfish. Although this dish is great for fishing, ironically it involves very little fishing to make. It’s all about tripping. Crayfish, the dish’s main ingredient, has a 20% catch rate in freshwater crab pots. You can also catch periwinkle in freshwater crab pots, against the same catch rate. For the mussel, move to the beach. You have a 10% chance of catching it in a crab pot, but you can also forage them here.
Of course, when you have the Mariner trait, all the catch rates go up to about 33%, or 14% in the case of the mussel. Simply add tomato and presto – fish stew! Reaching seven hearts friendship with Willy can be tricky, especially since he hates food. Check out the birthday guide to find out how to make this difficult eater happy!
Loads of fishing this season, right?
How to get the recipe:
Another picky fish dish. This time, fishing is a lot simpler. Tuna is a fairly common ocean fish that shows up between 6 AM and 7 PM – but only in summer and winter. A tortilla is a simple recipe similar to bread and hashbrowns – simply use one corn to make one tortilla. You can grow red cabbage on your farm, and mayonnaise comes from eggs in the mayonnaise machine, a contraption unlocked through reaching farming level 2. It will take some time to get the actual recipe since you have to reach 7 hearts friendship with Linus. That’s not tough, it’s more time-consuming. But hey, there’s no rush in Stardew Valley! Especially not when it comes to cooking.
A delicious and fresh energizer!
How to get the recipe:
Like coleslaw, there’s fairly little to say about this dish. Although it replenishes a lot of health and energy, it doesn’t give you any buffs, so it’s never the perfect dish but always a good option. Unless you’re trying to befriend Haley, in which case it’s the perfect dish. Making it is a little tricky. Blueberries and melons are easy to get by. You can plant seeds for melons and blueberry trees during summer for a pretty low price, and nature does the rest. Apricots are the difficult part. You need them from an apricot tree, which takes 28 days to grow and only yields fruit in spring. Just like getting the recipe, getting apricots is playing the waiting game. Unless you planted your apricot trees in a greenhouse, in which case they consistently yield fruit throughout the year.
Another Ginger Island recipe, so it’s gonna be a doozy.
How to get the recipe:
Yep, it’s back to Ginger Island for this one. It’s mostly the same story as the banana pudding – only this time, mango is the difficult ingredient. To reiterate, only once you completed the Community Centre and repaired Willy’s expensive ship can you even reach the island. Fortunately, obtaining the recipe is a lot easier and doesn’t require trading in strange commodities. Unfortunately, it’s still tough, since you have to befriend Leo, who is another difficult eater. Find out in the birthday guide how to get to him, and unlock the recipe.
For the ingredients, you can get mango saplings from the island trader for 75 mussels, and coconuts are easy to find in the Calico Desert. Rice is always purchasable at Pierre’s General Store – or maybe you have some leftovers from spring.
You say hot peppers, I say Shane.
How to get the recipe:
If you’re ever in a farming rush, this dish is sure to help you out! With its +2 farming and +1 speed, you’ll be all over your farm in no time, watering and harvesting like crazy. The dish only contains two ingredients. Hot peppers are very easy to acquire – in just 5 days, a hot pepper plant will grow and continue to yield 1 hot pepper every 3 days. Cheese is trickier. You need a barn, cows, and a cheese press to start. After that though, it should be simple enough to get a steady supply of it.
The recipe is easy too – just be nice to Shane, give him a nice present during his birthday in spring. As gratitude for the recipe, you can give him the dish now and then! He’ll love it.
I called some dishes crowd pleasers before, but this one takes the cake.
How to get the recipe:
Oh boy, this is a season of crowd pleasers! And there’s nothing like pink cake. Sure, it’s good for your energy and health too, but it’s the diplomats’ ultimate weapon. With a whopping four villagers for whom it’s a perfect gift, a pink cake is the dish to make. The recipe isn’t that tricky either. It’s the same recipe as chocolate cake and cookies, only with a melon added. Melons are easy to grow. You can just buy the seeds from Pierre and wait 12 days for the crops to mature. It will take some time before you unlock this recipe, but it’s definitely worth the wait.
Who doesn’t love pizza?! Leah, apparently.
How to get the recipe:
I don’t know why, but pizza is a very controversial cooking recipe in Stardew Valley . There are a lot of people who dislike it, or just straight up hate it. However, let’s still prepare a pizza for all those who do appreciate it. The ingredients are pretty simple. Tomato is a common summer crop that takes 11 days to mature. Wheat flour comes from milling wheat, or a quick trip to Pierre. Cheese is the trickiest – you need a barn, cows, and a cheese press, which you unlock at farming level 6. But after you have it, it’s gonna be raining pizzas – it’s pizza time!
I’ve never heard of Poi before in my life. Thanks, Stardew Valley!
How to get the recipe:
Yep – it’s that time again, we’re going back to Ginger Island! This time for Poi, a strange dish since it consists of four times the same ingredient – taro root. This ancient root is the crop yield of taro tubers, which you can easily get all across Ginger Island. You can grow the seeds in Stardew Valley as well, as long as it’s in summer. The recipe is pretty simple. You get it from Leo, but you need only 3 friendship hearts before he sends it to you. Just give him Taro Roots you can’t use for Poi yet – he likes those, too.
Let’s be real, what else are you going to do with Poppies?
How to get the recipe:
Everyone hates poppies, for some reason. Seriously. It’s by far Stardew Valley‘s most hated flower. However, add wheat flour and sugar to it, and suddenly Poppies become universally liked. Although it will take almost 2 years until the Queen of the Sauce finally pops up, it’s a simple recipe that’s good to give. Sugar and wheat flour are always purchasable at Pierre’s General Store, or you could mill them yourself. Poppies aren’t difficult either – they take just 7 days to mature during summer.
Finally. Truly, a simple dish. Great for giving, too!
How to get the recipe:
We’ve had plenty of dishes that took a long time to show up on Queen of the Sauce. So now, here’s a dish you get almost immediately, and you don’t have to do anything for it. Radish salad shows up in the spring of the first year, so that’s a nice change of pace. It’s pretty simple to make too. Radish takes only 6 days to mature in spring, and oil and vinegar are always available for purchase at Pierre. You can make the oil yourself of course, but an oil maker is a pretty late unlock, only showing up after farming level 8. Once you have it though, it makes the dish even easier.
When you got a lot on your plate, just eat a red plate.
How to get the recipe:
The red plate is one of the best dishes to eat when you’re looking for a quick energy burst. With its +50 max energy, it provides a buff matching the complete breakfast and the lobster bisque. Although it takes a while to get the recipe, since you have to reach 7 hearts friendship with Emily, it unlocks an easy dish that will serve you well. You can grow both the red cabbage and the radish on your farm, where the former takes 9 days and the latter only 6. Both are summer crops, so this recipe is straightforward and rewarding.
The designers did a great job making it look both very fancy, and very gross.
How to get the recipe:
If the Ginger Islands recipes didn’t exist, this dish would be five stars difficulty in both categories. However, compared to those dishes, this dish is pretty simple. It’s a late unlock – the last dish that appears on Queen of the Sauce actually, all the way on the last day of winter in the second year. Tomatoes are easy to come by, but the other ingredients are trickier. Wild horseradish appears throughout the valley in spring, so if you want to make this recipe you have to start preparing for it in that season.
Shrimp involves trapping, much like crayfish and periwinkle. You have to trap them in a crab pot in salt water, where they only have a 10% chance of showing up. So get ready to place a load of crab pots – the more you place, the higher the chances you catch one.
Always a viable option for dinner.
How to get the recipe:
Another simple dish! You can make Spaghetti with just 1 tomato and 1 wheat flour, making it a very easy recipe to prepare. Tomatoes grow quickly in summer, and wheat flour is always available at Pierre – as long as you haven’t got a mill yet to make it yourself. The recipe is a simple unlock too, just get Lewis to three hearts of friendship. Although it doesn’t do miracles for yourself in terms of energy and health, it’s a good gift to give. Especially to Robin, who’s easy to please. All thanks to spaghetti!
It really doesn’t get much easier than this.
How to get the recipe:
Hashbrowns, bread, and tortilla – they’re all simple dishes and all key to something greater. You may already have seen the tortilla as an ingredient in the fish taco or the lucky lunch. It’s very easy to make, requiring just a single piece of corn, and very easy to get the recipe for. Moreover, tortillas are universally liked. So although they’re not perfect, the ease to prepare them makes it an amazing way to build relations very, very fast.
It’s back to Ginger Island! But if you ever plan on foraging…
How to get the recipe:
I promise this is the last Ginger Island recipe. But, in Ginger Island style, it’s a fun one. You need to get the recipe from the beach resort, but that takes a while to open. You first need to get to Ginger Island, rebuild the Island Farmhouse with 20 Golden Walnuts, and then repair the beach resort with another 20. It takes a lot of time and effort, so definitely check out our Ginger Island guide . Once you have the resort open, you can buy the recipe from Gus for 2000 gold.
The other challenge in this recipe is getting your hands on pineapple. Good news – there are many ways to get pineapple seeds! Bad news – they’re all difficult. The most common ways are to exchange one magma cap at the Island Trader or to get them from a seed maker, which you unlock at farming level 9. Fortunately, the coconut and the hot pepper are a lot easier. Coconuts pop up in the Calico Desert , and hot peppers take only 5 days to grow in summer. Done!
In seasonal style, it’s a fish dish finish!
How to get the recipe:
There were a lot of fish dishes this season, so it’s only appropriate that we finish with one. Trout soup is one of the easier dishes to make since it only requires two ingredients. Green algae are very common, so that shouldn’t give you any trouble at all. Rainbow trout is a little trickier. To catch one, fish between 6 AM and 7 PM in either the river or the mountain lake. However, the weather has to be sunny, or the fish won’t be there. Trout soup doesn’t give you that huge a buff compared to other fishing dishes, but if you’re going for that Gourmet Chef achievement, it’s worth making at least once.
Again, not all dishes in Stardew Valley are easy to categorize for cooking per season. As you’ve also found with some of the dishes in this season – they don’t fit perfectly in summer. A shrimp cocktail requires wild horseradish, which you can only find in spring. On the contrary, other dishes are perfect year-rounds, that are equally available in every single season. Here’s a list of recipes that you can also prepare during summer, the season of nature’s crescendo!
Author’s note: Links to some of these recipes will be added once the guides for fall and winter/year-rounds are up.
Algae Soup | Carp Surprise | Chowder | Complete Breakfast | Crab Cakes | Crispy Bass | Fried Egg | Ginger Ale | Ice Cream | Lobster Bisque | Maple Bar | Miner’s Treat | Omelet | Pale Broth | Pancakes | Sashimi | Spicy Eel | Strange Bun | Rice Pudding | Triple Shot Espresso
I hope you enjoyed this first part of the complete Stardew Valley Cooking Guide. I will see you again soon in the next installment when we tackle the season of nature’s twilight– Fall!
From a young age, I’ve been an avid gamer, filling up most of my time with all kinds of games. Over the years, I developed a similar passion for writing, which I mostly gained from my studies in History and New Media. Now, I can bring my two greatest passions together.
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