Recipe Organization
Your grandmother's overflowing box of stained index cards with once neatly written recipes, now smudged, are a thing of the past.
There is an easy way to organize your recipes. While this system may not be the sexiest, it will grow with you and adjust to your changing needs. And more importantly it's all wipeable so it won’t get smudged or dirty.
Before we get started you need to have a really good online based recipe organization, I personally use Paprika but a simple google folder will work as well.
To get started you need 3 items:
Heavy duty binder
Dividers with an insert (preferably plastic)
Heavyweight sheet protectors
Print all your recipes and divide them into categories. Some of my favorite categories are:
Salads
Soups
Sides (you can divide this further into vegetable sides and carb sides)
Fish
Meat + Chicken
Dairy
Dessert
Misc.
I like to divide the categories this way because it helps with meal planning. For example, if I have a main (like meat or chicken) that I want to make but I am not sure what to pair it with, this system makes it very easy.
Once all your recipes are printed and divided into categories, slide them into the heavyweight sheet protectors.
Label your dividers with each category and place them in the binder. The dividers need to have an insert for two reasons: 1. The insert is a great place to store new recipes that you want to try but haven’t tried yet. 2. The insert adds width to your dividers so they peek out over the sheet protectors (weirdly an important aspect).
Add your recipes to each category and you are done!
Note, if you’re a recipe hoarder (which is totally fine!) and you need more space don’t just invest in a huge binder. Instead, break up the categories into like categories and buy a few smaller binders. For example, salads, soups and sides can be paired together and fish, meat, chicken and dairy can go together with dessert being its own binder.
