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Amber’s Home and Office Organizing Blog index

Organizing Recipes

Yesterday we talked about meal planning. Here’s some tips on organizing recipes.  

 Storage options for loose recipe pages or cards:

1. For larger magazine recipe clippings or printed pages from websites, slip them into sheet protectors and then into a binder. They will be protected and you avoid the time spent rewriting them onto cards.
2. To make or store recipe cards, traditional recipe boxes and blank recipe or index cards still work. 
3. Another way to store small recipe cards is to buy a photo album that has 3x5 or 4x6 slots and store cards within the slots. Again, the album will keep the paper protected and makes it easy to flip through.

 Got a cabinet or shelf stuffed full of loose, disorganized recipes? Here’s a step by step process to How to Organize Your Recipes:

• Clear off the kitchen table.

• Empty your recipe drawer or shelf onto the table. Yes, all of it. I want you to see everything you own to determine all what you really need.

• Now you can start sorting, sifting and purging the unused recipes and cookbooks.

• Keep your supplies handy, such as a glue stick and a pair of scissors so that you can paste recipes on index cards.

• Don’t go overboard, when keeping recipes. Watch for duplicates and different variations of the same recipe or cookbook.

• To downsize and eliminate some cookbooks from your collection, photocopy a few favorite recipes from the cookbook you rarely open and then donate it.  Poof!- you’ve just gained precious space in your kitchen cabinet.

• If you come across a basic recipe that can be found in most recipe books or online, toss those as well. My favorite online recipe website that I use all the time is www.allrecipes.com. It’s the best! Check it out and tell me what you think.

• Finally, if someone in your family is allergic to or can’t stand an ingredient in a recipe, give up the idea that you will ever make it. Trust me, you won’t.

Now, unless you are a professional chef or your main hobby is cooking, try to limit your recipes to only one drawer and/or one shelf in your kitchen.  Next, set a realistic goal for trying new recipes. For example: pick 1-2 new recipes each week to cook. Put those recipes by your grocery list so you can buy the ingredients needed. If you don’t use the recipe that week toss it or if you make it, have your family decide if it’s a keeper or not.