Cooking is one of the first things your sim is likely to do, so it’s important to understand all the perks that come with this skill. The homestyle cooking skill comes with lots of base game recipes for your sim to unlock. Many packs add even more recipes to the game and new cooking gameplay features such as having to source all your own ingredients with the Sims 4 Cottage Living expansion pack.
What is the Homestyle Cooking Skill in the Sims 4?
The homestyle cooking skill is often simply referred to as the cooking skill. The homestyle part is only crucial when needing to differentiate between the cooking and gourmet cooking skills (the latter is unlocked by reaching level 5 of the homestyle cooking skill).
Homestyle Cooking Skill Levels (What You Unlock At Each Level)
Below is a table of everything your sim unlocks at each cooking skill level. Note that I’ve only mentioned the base game recipes that they unlock.
| Level | Unlocked Perks |
|---|---|
| 1 | N/A |
| 2 | New Recipes: Eggs and Toast, BLT, Chips and Salsa and Fish Tacos |
| New combo add trick move (sims will do it automatically) | |
| 3 | New Recipes: Pan Fried Tilapia, Chocolate Chip Cookies and Pancakes |
| New Social Interaction: Talk about Cooking | |
| 4 | New Recipes: Spaghetti and Strawberry Cake |
| 5 | New Recipes: French Toast and Fish and Chips |
| New Skill: Gourmet Cooking skill | |
| New Moodlet: Competent Cook | |
| 6 | New Recipes: Blue Confetti Cake and Chili |
| New trick moves | |
| 7 | New Recipes: Blackened Bass and Omelet |
| 8 | New Recipe: Apple Pie |
| New Action: Flavourise a meal to increase its quality | |
| 9 | New Recipes: Chicken Stir Fry and Cioppino |
| New Social Interaction: Give Cooking Tips | |
| 10 | New Recipes: Roast Chicken and Tuna Casserole |
Quality of Meals in the Sims 4
Cooked dishes can have a range of qualities, Poor, Normal or Excellent. You can determine the quality of a dish by hovering over it with your cursor (you could also just look at it because poor meals look bad too).
Cook meals of higher qualities by being inspired, liking cooking, using more advanced appliances or having a higher cooking skill level.
How to Gain the Homestyle Cooking Skill in the Sims 4
1. Cook (oven or fridge)
Click on a stove, oven or fridge and select the option to cook a meal. This is the easiest way to increase your sim’s cooking skill!
2. Cook with cupcake machine (requires The Sims 4 Get To Work)
Buy a cupcake machine from buy mode for 1,200 simoleons (there are many ways to cheat for money if you need to!). Make sure to select the Cook Cupcakes option on the cupcake machine and not the option to bake (then you’ll gain the baking skill).
3. Read Cooking Skill Books
Purchase a Cooking Skill Book by clicking on any bookcase or computer in game and select the “buy a book” option. To easily find the book that you want, filter the books in the dropdown menu to only show “Skill” books.
Purchase the volume appropriate for the level of cooking skill that your Sim currently has.
- Vol. 1: Let’s Cook! (Beginner) for levels 1 to 3 (75 simoleons)
- Vol. 2: Let’s Keeping Cooking! (Intermediate) for levels 4 to 6 (150 simoleons)
- Vol. 3: I’m Here to Cook! (Advanced) for levels 7 to 9 (250 simoleons)
4. Sit in on Skill Class (requires The Sims 4 Discover University)
Use the phone to “Sit in on Skill Class” for 250 simoleons. This option can be found under the Business category on your sim’s phone. Your sim will disappear into a rabbit hole for a few hours and increase their cooking skill.
5. Watch Culinary Training Videos (must be in culinary career)
If your sim is employed in the culinary career, then there will be a Culinary Training Videos option on the TV. By watching this channel your sim’s cooking skill will increase.
How to Gain the Cooking Skill Faster
There are many ways for your sim to increase their cooking skill faster than normal. Here are all my tips:
- Be Inspired!
- Like Cooking: Modify your Sim’s likes and dislikes in CAS (you can use this cheat to modify it).
- Live in a Tier 1 or 2 sized tiny house (requires The Sims 4 Tiny Living): Gain all skills faster on this lot type!
- Purchase the “Cooking Boost” Club Perk (requires The Sims 4 Get Together): Join or create a club and then with 400 club points you can purchase the Cooking Boost club perk which will increase the speed your sim gains the baking skill during active club gatherings.
How to Become Inspired
- Take a thoughtful shower
- Do creative activities such as painting, cooking or playing an instrument
- Purchase and drink the inspired potion
- View items with an inspired aura
- If your sim has the foodie trait, they can watch Cooking Shows for Ideas on the TV to become inspired
- Cloudgaze or stargaze (requires The Sims 4 Outdoor Retreat)
- Do Brain-boosting yoga (requires The Sims 4 Spa Day)
Helpful Traits
Foodie (can watch cooking shows on the TV and become inspired more easily)
Creative (become inspired more frequently)
Overachiever (increases all skills quicker) (requires High School Years)
Helpful Likes
Cooking
Helpful Reward Potions and Reward Traits
Access the rewards store via the aspiration panel and use satisfaction points to purchase reward potions and traits. You might need to use the satisfaction points cheat. Here’s a list of useful rewards to increase your sim’s cooking skill faster:
Inspired potion (200 satisfaction points)
Morning sim (1,000 satisfaction points)
Night owl (1,000 satisfaction points)
Savant (4,000 satisfaction points)
Stoves and Grills Master (1,500 satisfaction points) (requires The Sims 4 Outdoor Retreat)
Helpful Lot Traits
Chef’s Kitchen
Homey
Sunny Aspect (increases likelihood of household members’ being inspired)
Peace and Quiet (learn skills faster from reading)
Helpful Neighbourhood Action Plan (requires the Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle)
Foodies Unite!
Cooking Skill Cheat
Here are the steps for the Sims 4 Homestyle Cooking Skill Cheat:
- Open the cheat bar by pressing:
- CTRL + Shift + C on PC or Mac.
- All four triggers on console (i.e., PS4 or Xbox one).
- Activate cheats by typing in testingcheats true and then press enter.
- Type into the bar stats.set_skill_level major_homestylecooking X (Replace X with the number of the skill level that you want for your sim).
- Press enter and your sim’s cooking skill level will change!
Homestyle cooking skill cheat post: Let’s cook!
Gourmet cooking skill cheat post: Let’s cook fancy!
What is the Cooking Skill Useful for in the Sims 4?
Careers that Require the Cooking Skill
Culinary
Food Critic (requires The Sims 4 City Living)
Aspirations that Require the Cooking Skill
Grilled Cheese (useful to create better quality grilled cheese but not required)
Master Mixologist (will need to get promoted in culinary career)
Appliance Wiz (will need level 10 to create pleasantly-unpleasant waffles) (requires The Sims 4 Home Chef Hustle)
Market Magnate (needed to create the ambrosia to sell for milestone 4) (requires The Sims 4 Home Chef Hustle)
Fount of Tomarani Knowledge (requires The Sims 4 For Rent)
Helpful Degrees (Discover University)
Culinary Arts
Can You Make Money With The Cooking Skill in the Sims 4?
Yes, you can! Here’s a list of ways to make money via cooking in the Sims 4:
- Sell from your sim’s personal inventory – drag cooked dishes into your sim’s inventory sale section
- Use food stalls – You can purchase sales tables from build mode and then host a food sale directly from your sim’s home lot (requires the Sims 4 City Living, Crystal Creations and Homechef Hustle).
- Run a Dessert Shop (requires the Sims 4 Get to Work) – This method allows you to sell your items at different price markups.
How do you get Ingredients for Cooking in The Sims 4?
Vegetables and fish can be found utilising gardening (purchase seed packets) and fishing skills respectively. You can also find some produce and seed packets when you choose to “Purchase Gifts” on your sim’s phone. This post goes into more detail on how to find ingredients in the game via plants spawning in the worlds, using the debug cheat, and frequenting various vendor stalls.
Fresh ingredients and those required with the Simple Living lot trait, are added to the game in the Sims 4 Cottage Living. You can buy many food products (such as wrapped red meat, eggs, milk, herbs, fruit, vegetables and so much more!!) from the Grocery Shop stall in Henford-On-Bagley, from your own farm, or using the grocery delivery feature on your Sim’s phone.
Final Recipe Notes
That’s it for now! Everything you need to know about the cooking skill in the Sims 4. I hope that all you homestyle chefs found this post helpful! If you have any questions, comments or requests, please let me know in the comments below.
Have a lovely day and keep simming!
