Overcooked: Tips and Tricks

We play a lot of Overcooked on our Nintendo Switch. It’s one of our favorites. Along the way we’ve learned a thing or two. There are some basic strategies plus a few cheats.

Overcooked is primarily about efficiency. When you play as a chef, there are few tasks to perform: cooking, preparing, serving, and cleaning. As long as your players remain busy doing those tasks you’ll probably earn 3 stars.

Idleness is the biggest enemy in Overcooked. The more you stand around figuring out what to do or waiting on another player, the more likely it is to earn fewer stars.

Preventable errors, such as a fire or mistakes in an order, cause huge wastes of time. Avoid those as much as possible, but don’t get too down when mistakes happen. It’s easy to do in Overcooked.

Most rounds have a target amount of points to earn the most stars. The points equate to a certain amount of orders. The orders equate to a certain amount of tasks to complete. There’s only so much chopping, mixing, cooking, and serving that needs done for each level.

Doing any more or less than is necessary amounts to a waste of time. So Overcooked is primarily about being very efficient. While there isn’t any one size fits all way to play, there are some strategies and important points to know.

When I think of strategy games, Starcraft or Call of Duty come to mind. Not Overcooked. Yet, there are strategies to this game. Each round has a different layout or challenges. So it would fill a book to write a strat for every round.

Instead, here are some are general strategies for Overcooked:

• Make individual players responsible for specific tasks
• Bring empty pots to the choppers, not ingredients to empty pots
• Swap pots or pans when it makes sense
• Don’t leave chopped items on the chopper
• Never move from one area to another empty handed
• Don’t stand idle for more than a few seconds, do something else
• Use dash as much as possible

When we play, each player is responsible for certain tasks. One player does the chopping, another does the washing, another does the serving, and another does the cooking. It doesn’t mean another player can’t help chop or cook, just that the one task is primary the responsibility for one player.

For example, when a round starts everyone grabs ingredients and starts chopping. Then near the end of a round everyone is washing or serving.

One thing that really helped us get better was assigning each order to a chef. Chef A was responsible for the first order, while chef B handled the second order. And so on throughout the round.

The other chefs played a supporting role by chopping, washing, and serving.

While individual players are responsible for the main tasks, everyone is responsible for the side tasks. Such as bringing back dirty dishes, bringing ingredients to the chopper, putting cooked food on a plate, etc. The closest person should always grab food about to catch on fire.

Throughout the round cooking is the main bottleneck. Be sure to get that task going as soon as possible and for as long as possible.

This was a game changer for us. Putting empty pots near the chopper saves many trips back and forth. You can chop and place all the ingredients quickly then make one trip with a full pot.

In general this is about saving steps. We also do this with empty plates, empty mixing bowls, etc. It’s more efficient to bring any vessel that holds two or more items to those items.

Bring an empty mixing bowl to the flour and eggs. Take an empty plates to the ingredients. Use the plate to load up Hamburger buns, hot dog buns, soft shells for burritos, the green paper thing, cooked rice, chopped ingredients, or anything that goes on a plate besides cooked food.

There are only a few levels where swapping the pots for rice and pans for cooking meat makes sense. But this strategy is about thinking outside the box. Don’t play the game the developers want you to play, make your own rules.

If they don’t give you much counter space don’t play that game. We found there’s plenty of room or the floor.

When a level only gives you limited access to ingredients, grab more than you need and leave them on the floor. If they move the ingredients around to confuse you, grab a bunch of ingredients and leave them in one area, the floor.

This is probably more of a best practice than a strategy. But when you’re finished chopping move the item closer to the player doing the cooking or serving.

When we play our chopper lays out ingredients efficiently and in groups. So the player doing the cooking or serving doesn’t need to search or run to items. They know exactly where chopped lettuce is the entire round.

It’s the choppers job to layout chopped items in groups. If left randomly it adds to someone else’s workload. When the ingredients are organized we can also easily see which items we’re low on.

This also applies to getting ingredients, cooking, and serving. Leaving finished orders in the same location saves the server from searching for it. Leaving items that need to be chopped on the chopper or next to it saves time for the copper.

Some levels this is impossible, but as much as you can stick to an efficient routine.

There’s an old adage about empty hands, or is it idle hands? Anyway, as a rule you shouldn’t move from one area to another empty handed. Grab dirty dishes, ingredients, empty mixing bowls, etc.

The more efficient everyone is the better your team will score.

This time I know the old adage about not eating from the bread of idleness applies. It’s fine to wait 2 or 3 seconds for an order to finish cooking or mixing. But in general, you should jump in and help with side tasks rather than sit idle for 5 seconds.

There’s as such thing as being counterproductive too. Don’t disrupt someone else’s routine to avoid being idle. It may cause confusion. Instead, speed up chopping or washing by doubling up on the same task.

Get in the habit of mashing that dash button whenever you need to go somewhere. The only exception is the levels with ice or when you can fall off a platform. During those levels, ease off the dash button.

For most levels using the dash is fine. Some levels are laid out to punish you for walking instead of passing items across a counter or conveyor. We found dashing is just as good as the step saving methods.

One cheat in Overcooked is using the dash to sort of throw ingredients. Drop an item as you’re dashing and it will travel across short gaps. Such as between the two trucks on the highway or the two rafts in the river.

Another cheat in Overcooked is using the dash to move from one platform to another. On the levels with lava or water, where you’re supposed to stay in your kitchen. You can move from one kitchen to another by dashing across short gaps.

Cheat by dropping mixing bowls, pans, or kabob things off the map instead of taking them back. Why walk it back when it will just reappear?

This may qualify as a cheat, but stop chopping an ingredient before it’s done. The rats don’t bother partially chopped items. Or those in pots.

This doesn’t work for every level and many times playing the game the way they set it up is better. But be on the lookout for shortcuts.

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