Cooking Guides
Pokémon Quest Ingredients: Quality Points & Substitutions
Your five selected ingredients determine the dish and quality. Use this chart to identify the items in your bag, then check the complete mix before making a substitution.
All ten cooking ingredients
| Ingredient | Recipe properties in our model | Points per slot |
|---|---|---|
| Rainbow Matter | Special ingredient | 3 |
| Big Root | red, soft, plant | 2 |
| Icy Rock | blue, hard, mineral | 2 |
| Honey | yellow, soft, sweet | 2 |
| Balm Mushroom | gray, soft, mushroom | 2 |
| Mystical Shell | mythical | 2 |
| Tiny Mushroom | red, soft, mushroom | 1 |
| Bluk Berry | blue, soft, sweet | 1 |
| Apricorn | yellow, hard, plant | 1 |
| Fossil | gray, hard, mineral | 1 |
These point values follow the same community dataset used by the homepage. They describe a slot’s contribution to quality. Putting that ingredient in a larger pot spends more items but does not multiply the slot’s points.
Turn ingredient points into recipe quality
| Quality | Total points from five slots |
|---|---|
| Basic / Normal | 5 |
| Good | 6–7 |
| Very Good | 8–9 |
| Special | 10 or more |
For example, three Icy Rock slots and two Bluk Berry slots total 8 points: 3 × 2 plus 2 × 1. The included table identifies that mix as Very Good Blue Soda. Five Icy Rock slots total 10 points and produce the Special-quality example shown in the Dratini recipe guide.
Very Good Blue Soda
Very Good · five slots
Bag cost: 9 Icy Rock, 6 Bluk Berry
Why a same-point substitution can still change the dish
Quality points are only one part of a mix. Ingredients also have properties such as color, hardness, sweetness or mushroom type. Two ingredients can add the same points but satisfy different dish requirements.
Keep a recipe intact if you want to reproduce it. If you run out of one item, use the homepage ingredient checker or exact-mix filters. Do not assume that a matching color alone is enough, or that every higher-point ingredient is an interchangeable upgrade.
Use Rainbow Matter and Mystical Shell deliberately
Rainbow Matter contributes three quality points in this model. That does not mean adding it automatically preserves a target dish. Check the resulting five-slot combination before spending it.
Mystical Shell is important for Ambrosia of Legends. One shell slot is different from one shell item: its cost still depends on the selected pot. Our legendary recipe guide gives an exact Special-quality mix and separates Mew’s chance from Mewtwo’s.
Build an ingredient budget instead of guessing
Pick the recipe you want to repeat and calculate how many batches your bag supports. If one basic-pot batch needs 9 Honey and 6 Balm Mushrooms, two identical batches need 18 and 12. Inventory results on the homepage are alternatives for one batch; they do not reserve ingredients for a multi-batch queue.
When collecting ingredients, track what actually drops in the expeditions you can clear reliably. A route that looks attractive on paper can be inefficient if your team regularly fails it. This page does not claim a universal best farming stage or guaranteed rare-item drop rate.
Questions players ask
Does Mystical Shell contribute four points?
The model used here assigns it two points per slot. Older guides disagree; that is why this site states its source model instead of mixing incompatible values.
Does Gold quality mean a gold cooking pot?
No. Special is a dish quality; Gold is a pot upgrade. Read the pot-cost guide to keep the two decisions separate.
Can I search recipes that avoid rare ingredients?
Yes. The homepage exact-mix browser can exclude Mystical Shell and Rainbow Matter and filter for a required ingredient.
Continue your cooking plan
Sources and data notes
Recipe examples use the same Hidden50/pq community model as the homepage. Probabilities are source-model values, not independently verified in-game trials. Read our editorial and data policy.
Pokémon face and ingredient visuals: Hidden50/pq asset snapshot. Dish visuals: Serebii cooking reference. Pokémon artwork belongs to its respective rights holders. Independent fan resource; not affiliated with Nintendo, Game Freak or The Pokémon Company.
3 thoughts on “Pokémon Quest Ingredients: Quality Points & Substitutions”