Gold nuggets are useful items you’ll grab a lot during your Minecraft survival runs. You can get them by breaking down gold ingots or mining nether gold ore. This guide covers both methods on every version of Minecraft.
Crafting Gold Nuggets from Gold Ingots
The easiest way to get gold nuggets is to break down a gold ingot. One gold ingot gives you nine gold nuggets, which is handy when you need the smaller denomination.
What You Need
- 1 Gold Ingot
- A crafting table
Crafting Steps
Open your crafting table and place a single gold ingot in any slot of the 3×3 grid. You’ll get 9 gold nuggets in the result. Move them to your inventory and you’re done.
Mining Gold Nuggets from Nether Gold Ore
If you’re in the Nether, you can mine nether gold ore blocks directly for gold nuggets. These spawn in the Crimson Forest, Warped Forest, Soul Sand Valley, and Nether Wastes biomes.
What You Need
- A pickaxe (any tier works, but faster is better)
- Access to the Nether
Finding Nether Gold Ore
Nether gold ore looks like a gold-colored block with darker speckles. It’s fairly common in all Nether biomes. Just look around when you’re exploring the Nether and you’ll find it.
Mining It
Hold your pickaxe and break the block by clicking and holding (Java), tapping and holding (Pocket Edition), or pressing and holding RT (Xbox One), R2 (PS4), or ZR (Nintendo Switch).
Each block drops 2-6 gold nuggets, so they stack up fast. Pick them up before they despawn.
What to Make with Gold Nuggets
Gold nuggets are mostly used for combining back into gold ingots or crafting special items:
- Combine 9 nuggets into 1 gold ingot
- Craft golden carrots (for night vision potions)
- Craft glistering melon slices (for healing potions)
Technical Details
Item ID
Java Edition: minecraft:gold_nugget
Stack Size: 64
Give Command (Java Edition)
/give @p gold_nugget 1
Use this command to give yourself gold nuggets in creative mode or with cheats enabled.