TotK Tough Recipes: Ingredients, Tough Elixir and More
Tough food and the Tough Elixir in Tears of the Kingdom: every ingredient that carries Defense Up, how strong each is and the dishes using them.
What does Tough do?
Tough food raises your defense. The elixir’s description gives the moment to use it: before facing hard-hitting enemies.
Which ingredients give Tough?
Seven ingredients carry it, mirroring Mighty: Armored Porgy is the strongest in the cooking data (3); Armored Carp, Fortified Pumpkin, Ironshell Crab and Ironshroom give 2; Rugged Rhino Beetle and Armoranth 1. The game describes three levels.
- Effect
- Defense Up
- Dish name prefix
- Tough
- Elixir
- Tough Elixir
- Levels
- Lv1–Lv3
The game says“Grants a low-level defense boost.”
The elixir's description“Grants a low-level toughness effect, which fortifies your bones to strengthen your defense. Best to use before facing off against hard-hitting enemies.”
Ingredients with this effect
| Ingredient | Type | Strength¹ | Sells for | Where it's placed² |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Armored Porgy | fish or seafood | 3 | 10 | — |
| Armored Carp | fish or seafood | 2 | 10 | — |
| Ironshell Crab | fish or seafood | 2 | 8 | — |
| Fortified Pumpkin | plant or vegetable | 2 | 5 | — |
| Ironshroom | mushroom | 2 | 5 | Necluda 171 · Lanayru 52 · Hyrule Field 20 |
| Armoranth | plant or vegetable | 1 | 5 | Akkala 105 · Hyrule Field 73 · Lanayru 27 |
| Rugged Rhino Beetle | critter | 1 | 4 | — |
¹ The number the game's cooking data gives each ingredient for this effect: higher is stronger, and a pot adds them up. Levels follow set thresholds on the total; the “easiest way” section below lists the combinations that reach them.
² How many times the game's world data places the ingredient at a fixed spot, and the three areas with the most (a region is the one of the nearest shrine). Ingredients from animals, monsters, ore deposits, shops or random spawns are not counted, and those listed can also turn up elsewhere.
Tough Elixir: Cook one or more of the critters above with one or more monster parts.
Dishes that ask for one of these ingredients by name
- 6 Seafood Skewer
- 24 Crab Stir-Fry
- 34 Salt-Grilled Crab
- 44 Porgy Meunière
- 54 Veggie Cream Soup
- 65 Vegetable Curry
- 72 Seafood Curry
- 75 Pumpkin Stew
- 79 Meat-Stuffed Pumpkin
- 80 Vegetable Risotto
- 83 Crab Risotto
- 88 Seafood Paella
- 92 Seafood Fried Rice
- 93 Crab Omelet with Rice
- 128 Pumpkin Pie
- 158 Roasted Armoranth
- 161 Baked Fortified Pumpkin
- 173 Toasty Ironshroom
- 188 Roasted Carp
- 189 Roasted Porgy
- 208 Frozen Carp
- 209 Frozen Porgy
Any other dish whose recipe takes an ingredient of the same type ("any mushroom", "any fish") also carries the effect when you use one of these.
What is the easiest way to max out Tough?
Level 2 needs 5 points and level 3 needs 7, the same as Mighty. The game’s cooking parameters give Tough the same level rate as Mighty (0.45 per point, rounded down), which works out to exactly those thresholds.
| Pot | Points | Level |
|---|---|---|
| Armored Porgy ×3 | 9 | 3 |
| Ironshroom ×4 | 8 | 3 |
| Fortified Pumpkin ×4 | 8 | 3 |
| Armoranth ×5 | 5 | 2 |
| Rugged Rhino Beetle ×4 + monster part (elixir) | 4 | 1 |
Five Armoranth, a plant with no healing of its own, only reach level 2. Swap two of them for Ironshrooms (two Ironshrooms and three Armoranth = 7) and the same five slots make level 3. The elixir is a dead end again: the Rugged Rhino Beetle is the only Tough critter and is worth 1, so a Tough Elixir tops out at level 1. Like Mighty, each ingredient adds only 50 seconds.
Where do you find Tough ingredients?
Counts are fixed placements in the game’s world data; area names follow the Skyview Tower areas.
| Ingredient | Where most are placed |
|---|---|
| Ironshroom | 281; Necluda (171) — Popla Foothills (84), Sahasra Slope (74), Rabella Wetlands (73) |
| Armoranth | 234; Akkala (105), almost all around Ulri Mountain (96) |
| Armored Porgy | 135 fixed spots, 109 around Rabella Wetlands |
| Armored Carp | 38; Mount Lanayru (16) and Upland Zorana (15) |
| Ironshell Crab | 19; Rabella Wetlands and Upland Zorana (7 each) |
| Rugged Rhino Beetle | 18; Popla Foothills (11) |
| Fortified Pumpkin | only 13 fixed spots, 6 of them in wells such as Carok Bridge Well and Cucco Hideaway (3 each) |
The item text calls the Fortified Pumpkin a pumpkin “raised for food”, which fits its rarity in the wild; the wells page has the two with the most. Ironshrooms and Armored Porgy share the Rabella Wetlands, so one trip there covers both a mushroom and a fish route to level 3.
Related
- Recipe finder — tick what is in your pouch, or pick Tough and see every dish that can carry it
- All recipes — the whole recipe book in the game’s order
- Best recipes — the 15 effects side by side, incredible success and the Horse God
- Mighty, Hearty, Electro — related effects
FAQ
Which ingredients give Tough?
What is the strongest Tough ingredient?
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