You've probably heard that Cooking is a "buyable" skill. That’s the common wisdom in Gielinor. Most people just dump ten million gold into raw sharks, set a fire at the Rogue’s Den, and watch their bank account bleed out for the sake of a purple cape. It’s fast. It’s easy. But honestly? It’s a waste of potential.
Cooking doesn't have to be a gold sink. If you're smart about it, you can actually turn OSRS cooking money making into a consistent daily earner that bridges the gap between your mid-game struggles and high-level gear.
The market fluctuates. Obviously. But the core mechanic of turning raw ingredients into finished, high-demand consumables is one of the most stable economies in the game. Players are always dying to bosses. They always need food. If you're the one providing that food, you're the one getting paid.
Why Most Players Fail at OSRS Cooking Money Making
The biggest mistake is impatience. People want the 99 today. They don’t want it in two weeks. Because of that, they buy the most "efficient" experience-per-hour items, which are almost always a net loss because everyone else is doing the exact same thing.
Look at the margins. When you check the Grand Exchange, you’ll see the gap between a raw shark and a burnt shark is massive—100% loss. But the gap between a raw shark and a cooked shark is often razor-thin or negative. Why? Because the supply of people training the skill is higher than the demand for the food at that specific tier.
To actually make money, you have to look where the "efficiency" hunters aren't looking. You have to deal with items that are slightly more click-intensive or require more steps than just "use item on fire."
The Cooking Gauntlet and 100% Success Rates
You can't talk about profit without talking about the burn rate. This is the math that kills your margins. If you're cooking Anglerfish at level 84, you're going to burn a lot of them. Every burnt fish is a direct hit to your profit per hour.
This is why the Hosidius Kitchen is non-negotiable. If you haven't done the favor for the Hosidius house in Zeah, stop reading and go do it. The kitchen there provides a 5% reduced burn chance. Combine that with the Cooking Gauntlets from the Family Crest quest, and your "stop burning" levels drop significantly. For example, with gauntlets, you stop burning Sharks at level 80 instead of level 99. That 19-level gap is where the real profit lives.
The Best Methods for OSRS Cooking Money Making Right Now
Let's get into the actual items. Stop thinking about just fish.
Making Wines: The High-Volume Gamble
Wine is weird. It’s the fastest XP in the game for Cooking, usually hitting over 400k XP per hour if you're focused. Usually, this costs money. However, during certain market cycles, the price of Grapes and Jugs of Water drops so low that the finished Unfermented Wine actually stays profitable when it turns into Jugs of Wine.
The trick here is the "fermentation" delay. You make a thousand jugs, they sit in your bank, and then they all ferment at once. It's a massive XP drop. If you time your buys right on the Grand Exchange, you can sometimes break even or make a tiny profit while getting the fastest XP in the game. It's not a primary money maker, but it's "efficient" money making because of the time saved.
Cooking Karambwans: The Gold Standard
If you want consistent, reliable GP, Karambwans are your best friend. They have a unique mechanic: they can be cooked much faster than other fish if you "tick cook" them, but even if you're lazy (AFK), they're great.
The raw Karambwan market is usually flooded by bots and low-level ironmen fishing them at the Ship Yard. This keeps the raw price low. Meanwhile, high-level PvMers (Player vs. Monster) use Karambwans for "combo eating"—eating a shark and a karambwan in the same tick. This keeps the demand for cooked versions incredibly high.
- Requirements: Tai Bwo Wannai Trio quest.
- Profit: You can easily clear 200k to 300k GP per hour here.
- The Secret: Use the 1-tick cooking method if you want to sweat. You use the raw fish on the range every single tick. It’s exhausting, but it doubles your XP and your profit per hour.
Pineapple Pizzas and Professional Toppings
This is where the real "expert" money is. Most people are too lazy to do multi-step cooking. They want to click once and wait 60 seconds.
Making Pineapple Pizzas involves taking a Plain Pizza and adding a Pineapple Ring (or chunks). It sounds tedious. It is. But that tedium is exactly why it pays well. You’re essentially charging other players a "convenience fee" for doing the assembly for them.
Often, buying the Plain Pizza and the Pineapple separately results in a profit of 100-200 GP per pizza. If you can process 1,500 pizzas an hour, you're looking at a very healthy profit for a mid-level player.
The Strange World of Brewing
Hardly anyone touches Brewing. It’s located in Keldagrim and Port Phasmatys. It takes days for the "fermentation" to happen. But if you brew Chef's Delight or Mature Slayer's Respite, the margins are insane.
A "Mature" vat of ale can net you hundreds of thousands of gold for about five minutes of actual work. The catch? It's a gamble. It might turn into "Bad Ale." But if you use "The Stuff" from the Trouble Brewing minigame, your chances of getting a mature brew skyrocket. Most players ignore this because it isn't "fast," but for a 5-minute daily run, it's some of the best money in the skill.
👉 See also: Chaos Zero Nightmare Teams: Why Your Defense Strategy Probably Sucks
Raw Data: Stop Burning, Start Earning
You need to know your limits. If you're trying to make money, never cook something you have more than a 3% chance of burning. It’s just not worth the math.
- Sharks: Stop burning at 80 (with gauntlets/Hosidius).
- Anglerfish: Stop burning at 93 (with gauntlets/Hosidius).
- Manta Rays: Stop burning at 99 (with gauntlets/Hosidius and Skillcape).
Manta Rays are actually one of the best profit earners at level 99. Because they are a rare drop from the Temporal (Vathirus) and Zulrah, but widely used in high-level raiding (ToB/CoX), the cooked versions hold value incredibly well. Once you have the Cooking Skillcape, you never burn anything ever again. That cape is essentially a license to print money at the Hosidius range.
Is It Better Than Combat?
Honestly? No. If you can go kill Vorkath or Zulrah, you’ll make 2-3 million GP per hour. Cooking isn't going to compete with high-level bossing.
But you can't kill Vorkath while you're doing your homework or watching a movie. You can cook Karambwans or Sharks. Cooking is "zero-time" money making. It’s what you do when you don't have the mental energy for a raid but you still want your bank value to go up.
Actionable Next Steps for Profit
Don't just head to the GE and buy random fish. Prices change every hour based on what streamers are doing or what new boss was released.
- Check the Wiki Real-Time Prices: Use the OSRS Prices tool to see the current spread between "Raw" and "Cooked" for Sharks, Anglerfish, and Dark Crabs.
- Get Your Gear: Complete the Family Crest quest today. If you don't have the gauntlets, you're essentially throwing gold into a fire.
- Unlock Hosidius: Spend the 30 minutes getting 100% Hosidius favor. It is the single most important unlock for any Cook.
- Test the "Assembly" Market: Buy 100 Plain Pizzas and 100 Pineapple Rings. Assemble them. See how long it takes and check your profit. If it's over 200k/hr, scale it up to 1,000.
- Buy in Bulk During "Crash" Events: When a new PvM update drops, people panic-sell raw resources to buy gear. That is when you buy your raw materials. When the hype dies down and people start bossing again, the price of cooked food spikes. Buy low, cook, sell high.
Cooking is only a money loser if you're lazy. If you treat it like a business—watching margins, minimizing waste, and providing what the "pro" players need—you'll hit level 99 with a much fatter wallet than you started with.