Pokémon Quest Recipe Quality: Points, Tiers & Mistakes

Check the quality of five slots

Choose the ingredient in each slot. This checks the points only. It does not identify the resulting dish or promise a visitor.

Use the full recipe finder to check dish rules and attraction pools. The pot size does not multiply this score.

The four quality bands

Small ingredients contribute one point each. Big Root, Icy Rock, Honey and Balm Mushroom contribute two each. The model used here also counts Mystical Shell as two and Rainbow Matter as three. This is the same scoring convention used by our current finder.

Five full slots cannot total less than five in this convention. Some references use a zero-based score that subtracts one point per slot. Do not combine a zero-based ingredient table with the thresholds shown above.

Add points once per slot

For three Bluk Berry slots and two Apricorn slots, the calculation is 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 5. That remains Basic whether the pot spends 15 items or 100 items. The Abra guide uses this exact Brain Food mix.

Now replace one Apricorn with Honey. The total becomes six. This explains the new quality band, but it does not prove that the result is still Brain Food: Honey also changes the hard/soft balance. Always check the complete mix after replacing an ingredient.

Quality, dish and pot answer different questions

Write those answers on separate lines before an expensive cook. It is easier to spot a mistake when “Special” is not being used as shorthand for “Gold pot,” “rare visitor,” and “best recipe” all at once.

Why higher quality can be the wrong goal

Imagine that your target has a strong chance in a cheap pool. Spending precious ingredients to move into a different pool can introduce more possible visitors. You paid more, but did not necessarily improve your chance of the Pokémon you wanted.

The Machop guide shows why Good and Very Good deserve separate comparisons. Choose the target first, then choose a documented mix. Upgrade a dish because the new pool suits your goal, not simply because its label sounds better.

A useful budget question is: “How many attempts can I afford with the ingredients I have?” If your mix uses a resource you are saving for another Pokémon, compare an alternative before cooking.

Before you press Start Cooking

1. Fill exactly five ingredient slots.
2. Check the quality total using one scoring convention.
3. Confirm the dish in the recipe finder.
4. Check your chosen Pokémon’s dish-quality pool.
5. Multiply each slot count by the pot cost and check your bag.

Take a screenshot of the five slots if you are comparing conflicting recipes. A dish name alone leaves out the quality and pot details needed to diagnose the result.

Quick questions

Sources and useful next steps

These references support the game facts above. Recipe probabilities are community reference values; individual results can differ.

• Serebii: cooking and quality tiers
• Bulbapedia: ingredients and cooking mechanics