As a novice of d&d potions seem fine.
They don't heal you that much and you waste an action.
Higher level mobs can hit you 3 times as hard as a potion ever could.
So to me cooked food is much more precious than potions.
Do you know how much pork my party eats in a hard fight?
Too much.
And I wont deny sometimes a cooked dwarf may or may not have snuck in at a critical juncture.
