My Top Strategies for Organizing Your Recipe Collection
If you’re like most home cooks, you have an assortment of recipes spread across cookbooks, recipe cards, Pinterest boards, emails, or albums that you started to organize and never quite managed to finish. Rather than a one-size-fits-all solution, I have a few strategies to share so you can pick the best approach for you!
Organize for ease-of-use
Start by thinking of how you want to actually use your recipes. Do you prefer a physical piece of paper or cookbook on your counter while you’re cooking? Do you tend to use your phone or tablet to access recipes? How often do you use a recipe when cooking? If you’re consolidating digital and physical recipes, first decide which you prefer to use when actively in the kitchen. Also, consider whether other members of your household like to refer to those recipes. Most of my family do not cook, however, my husband sometimes makes blueberry muffins on his day off. I definitely don’t want it to make it hard for him to find that recipe!
Consider how (and how often) you add to your collection
Are you someone who enjoys trying out new recipes? Do you frequently ask friends or family members for a recipe, or share recipes with others? Your system may need a way to organize incoming recipes that you haven’t tried yet versus tried and true recipes. If you mostly get physical copies, or want to print them out, create an “inbox” for new recipes. If you use Pinterest or another online source, be sure to create subfolders. Google Drive would be a great way to organize recipes if you mostly get new ones online, via email, or screenshot from a group chat or text. You can save links, photos, or simply copy and paste into a new document and access those files on your phone, tablet, or computer. This would also make sharing with friends and family much easier than hand-copying or typing out a recipe.
Consolidate your most used recipes to a single storage method
If you prefer physical copies of recipes, it’s worth going through any digital recipes you have on Pinterest, your computer, or old emails and printing them out. Simply drop them into clear page protectors and set up a three ring binder. If you have a lot of recipes, you could make separate binders for the holidays, baking, main dishes, etc. If you prefer looking for recipes digitally, it’s worth taking the time to scan and upload your favorites so everything is accessible in one place. I have a fantastic scanner that can quickly convert your favorite physical recipes to digital files in your preferred storage method. You can also download a scanner app to your smart phone and use it to snap photos which are converted to PDF files and saved in Google Drive or another cloud storage system.
Instead of trying to fit into someone else’s ideas of how you should be organized, I encourage you to consider the best method for how you’re using your recipes today. Start with how you want to access them, and then take a few minutes to consolidate your recipes to that preferred storage. As you use your recipe collection this holiday season, I encourage you to take a few minutes to remove what you aren’t using to make room for the way you’re cooking today. You can always archive older recipes if you don’t feel you’re ready to let go. They don’t have to take up physical space in your life or get in the way while you are trying to cook!
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Cheers,
Karina
