best meal i can make with the starter ingredients

[pepesito1]

i only have the default ingredients the cat sells pls whats the best thing i can cook?????????????????????

[Risky(Glyph)]

The best meal varies by the season, as each season changes what buffs/debuffs a given meal will give. I think health is usually way more useful than stamina (nutrients/mega nutrients are a lot harder to come by than well done steak), so that's usually what I prioritize. Here's a list for each season, with ingredients you can buy from the Myarket Felyne and then other recipes you can use later on, once you have the ingredients or

Spoiler

the Gregarious Grocer has come to the village

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SUMMER
Summer is the hardest season to get good buffs from food, for some reason. You'll be stuck with +10 Health until you can get better food items, and even then it's hard to get more than that without wasting rare materials.

War Wheat & Rice Bug: +10 Health. You can buy both of these from the Myarket Felyne.
Sliced Cactus & Rice Bug: +10 Health, +25 Stamina. Rice Bug is extremely common and sliced cactus can be found in the desert early on. This is my main summer meal, even at the end of the game, just due to how many Rice Bugs I have!
Note Fish & Spicy Grub: +20 Health, +25 Stamina. You won't be able to use this until you can gather Spicy Grubs

Spoiler

from the Tower, in the flooded area with the Great Thunderbugs

.

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WINTER
Winter is SO easy for food, surprisingly. Pretty much anything with Ancient Beans or Silver Ricegrass will give you extremely solid Health and Stamina buffs

Jungle Onion & Rice Bug: +10 Health. You'll pretty much always have these or can buy them from the Myarket Felyne. Easy way to boost your health.
Jungle Onion & Silver Ricegrass: +50 Health, +25 Stamina. ONE OF THE BEST MEALS. Jungle Onions are super common, and you'll never run out of Silver Ricegrass so long as you make sure to

Spoiler

collect it from the abandoned camp in the Snowy Mountains - you can get at least 3-4 each quest there

.

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SPRING (I'm not calling it the other one)
Spring is also pretty good for food, but not as easy as winter.

Jungle Onion & Rice Bug: +10 Health, -25 Stamina. This one does give a debuff, but -25 stamina isn't too bad, just bring an extra steak.
Fatty Tomato/Rare Onion & Mixed Beans: +30 Health, +25 Stamina. Fatty Tomatoes and Rare Onions are a little harder to come by, but the +30 Health is very nice.
MIxed Beans & Powerlard: +40 Health, +25 Stamina. You'll probably only do this one after the

Spoiler

Gregarious Grocer

comes to your village, but it's a good buff.

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Finally, if you ever need to come up with a meal using different ingredients than what I've listed here, check out this link:
https://monsterhunterdos.weebly.com/useful-tables.html

It's got PDFs for each season.

Good luck, and good hunting!

[pepesito1]