If you like to cook and bake it can be easy to lose track of all the recipes you have made over the years. As you add more and more recipes to your collection, it can be impossible to keep them all in one organized place.
Luckily, there are many easy ways to organize your kitchen recipes so you never lose a precious recipe again.
This guide has all the best ways for recipe organization from using your mobile phone to buying a special recipe organizer.
Download a Recipe Book App
If you use mostly online recipes rather than a recipe book app is the perfect solution. You can import recipes from the website you’re on onto the app and then have it to read and refer to later. Some apps even allow you to scan recipes from print like magazines and cookbooks.
There are also specialty apps that you can use if you want to meal prep with your recipes. These allow you to easily find recipes specifically for meal planning so you can plan out the whole week with your cooking ideas.
Sharing recipes is also a whole lot easier with apps because you can share them with just one click rather than having to find the paper of an original recipe and take photos of it.
Make a Filing System
If you use mostly recipes from print materials like magazines and recipe cards, the best way to organize them is by using a three-ring binder. There are some specifically meant for recipes so you can find one that is decorated just for use in the kitchen.
Since you will be using the book around food and spices, consider protecting the pages with plastic page protectors. You can also use colorful tab dividers to sort the recipes. For example, you can make one tab for desserts, one for soups, one for vegetarian meals, one for chicken meals, etc.
The page protectors will also protect the pages from grease if you are frying items or if your hands have oils on them.
Protecting your recipes is especially important if you have special recipes that have been in the family for years as you want to preserve them.
Consider Getting Rid of Books
Recipes and cookbooks are a great addition to any kitchen, but most of the time, you will find yourself only using one or two recipes from a cookbook and the rest of the book is never used.
Rather than crowding your home and kitchen with cookbooks, consider just scanning the recipes you actually use and then adding them to the binder that we discussed above.
You can then donate the book or give it to a friend if you know someone that will be able to make better use of it.
Try to Switch to Online
While a helpful binder is better than using recipes from all over the place, cooking with recipes online is much easier because they can never get lost. If you prefer your paper though, no problem! Just keep the pages well-organized and clean. If you’re using family recipes, you probably have no option then to use paper as well.
However, if you use paper recipes from cookbooks and magazines, you should easily be able to find them online. Almost all cooking magazines post the same recipes online so you can easily find them on their website and then save it for later.
This also saves you money because you can stop buying magazines and cookbooks. Some online cooking websites offer paid subscriptions though where you can get recipes early and view as many as you’d like in a week. If you use one website frequently, it might be worth it to pay for the subscription so you can save all the recipes and have access to more of the ones you want.
Mark Your Pages
If you are set on keeping your magazines and cookbooks, consider buying metal page markers so you can mark the recipes you use often or the ones you want to try in the future.
Metal page markers work the best because they do not fall off. With a page marker, you never have to fold down the corner of the page or wrinkle the page. You can also buy page markers in many different colors according to your style.
Make a Book Nook
Some people love their cookbooks and they prefer to keep their books rather than using line resources. The only issue is that cookbooks can easily crowd the kitchen and make it near impossible to find what you’re looking for.
The best thing you can do is make a designated and organized space for all your cookbooks. Just make sure you do not put the books in a place where they could be exposed to grease or too much heat. Next to the stove for example is not a good place for your cookbook collection.
You can add in some shelving to make a nook. If you do not have enough space for extra shelves, consider adding one of the steel shelves seen in kitchens where steel pots hang. This way you have created a two-in-one functional space for your books and your pans.
Declutter and Categorize
No matter which of the organization methods you choose, make sure to first declutter your recipes. Get rid of all the ones you never use or the ones you tried and didn’t like. Then categorize the ones that are left to make it easier to find recipes when you are ready to cook.
Final Thoughts
There are many different ways to organize your recipe collection whether it be online or in a binder. If you want to use cookbooks, you can also mark the pages of the recipes you use often and then make a nook for all your magazines and books.
The best part about recipe organization is that it makes cooking and baking in your new luxury kitchen much easier and fun.
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