How do you make a saddle in Minecraft? If you're wondering how to craft a Minecraft saddle the bad news is that, technically, you can't. Yet. Having been one of the greatest (and most frustrating) Minecraft mysteries over the years, a Minecraft saddle recipe finally arrives with 1.21.6.
Until then, you still need to find sandbox game right now, but we've also included the Minecraft saddle recipe and how to try it out right now.
Where to get a Minecraft saddle
Minecraft saddles can be found by opening chests in various rare structures, including dungeons, Bastions, and End Cities. They can also be obtained when fishing from the 'treasure' loot table, or by trading with a village leatherworker.
Chest loot
Prior to Minecraft 1.21.6, saddles can be found in chest loot in the overworld, Nether, and The End. We've listed every structure in which they can be found below.
- Ancient City
- Dungeon
- Desert Temple
- Jungle Temple
- Weaponsmith villager house
- Tanner villager house
- Any savanna village house
- Nether Fortress
- Bastion Remnant (Hoglin Stable)
- Stronghold
- End City
The chance of finding a saddle in a loot chest varies between locations, with strongholds being the least likely, and dungeons the most.
Trading
You can get a Minecraft saddle by trading with a master-level leatherworker. This is a guaranteed trade in Java Edition, but only a 50% chance in Bedrock Edition.
You can find out more about villager trading in our Minecraft village guide, but any employable villager can be a leatherworker when given a cauldron as a job block. Provided the villager hasn't already been traded with, place a cauldron nearby, and the villager will take up the profession.
Fishing
You have a small chance of pulling a saddle out of the water with your fishing rod, too. The important thing to note here, though, is that the item is only available in the 'treasure' loot table. This means you have to fish from a large body of water (at least two blocks any side of the bobber). This was implemented to prevent treasure from being farmed from 1×1 AFK fishing farms.
Finally, you can get saddles by killing enemies or mobs holding them. For example, a Zombified Piglin riding a strider, a Ravager, or even a tamed horse wearing a saddle will drop the saddle when killed. This is much rarer and more difficult, though, so we suggest trying the other options first.
Minecraft saddle crafting recipe
The crafting recipe for a Minecraft saddle consists of just three leather and one iron ingot. Place the iron ingot in the center of the crafting grid, with one leather above it and one to either side.
The Minecraft saddle recipe is added to your recipe book as soon as you pick up your first piece of leather, which could be as early as killing your first cow.
When the 1.21.6 update is released, saddles will no longer be found in some of the chests listed above, and will instead be replaced with between one and five pieces of leather. The chests in which these changes will occur are:
- Dungeon chests
- Ancient City chests
- Desert Pyramid chests
- Jungle Pyramid chests
- Stronghold altar chests
To play this version of Minecraft right now, you must be on Java edition, and playing any of the Minecraft snapshots from 25w20a onwards.
How to use a Minecraft saddle
You can use a saddle to ride various Minecraft animals, but each one requires a different extra step that will let you go for a ride. For example, to ride a pig, you need to equip one with the saddle and then use a carrot on a stick to actually control it. Be warned, though; you have to kill the pig if you want the saddle back. The Nether's lava-loving Striders work similarly to pigs, but you'll need a warped fungus on a stick instead.
You can also ride Minecraft horses guide for more details. Skeleton horses can also be ridden with a saddle, as can camels. Llamas, meanwhile, cannot be ridden.
That's everything you need to know about Minecraft saddles, so you can now go out into the Minecraft build ideas to put there.