How to Organize Recipes Effectively

It's important to organize recipes effectively to take the hassle out of preparing meals for your family. Here's how to do it:

• Get rid of incomplete recipes, or those you will never prepare
• Categorize the remaining recipes in whatever way works best for you
• Store them all together, either electronically or in hard-copy form
• Add to your well organized recipe collection as you find new recipes

Being organized is important in many different aspects of life. People who are disorganized have a much harder time making their way through the day efficiently, since they are constantly looking for things or trying to figure out the next step. Staying organized in the kitchen is just as important as other areas of life. This is why you'll want to know how to organize your recipes effectively.

Cookbooks, recipes, and kitchen tools are all important elements of a healthy, palate-pleasing diet. Knowing how to organize your recipes will make it much easier for you to feed your family healthful meals. This will help you avoid the temptation to throw in the towel and settle for dinner at a fast food joint! Staying organized in the kitchen is a powerful weapon when it comes to feeding your family right.

Cooking for your family will become a much easier project if you organize recipes properly. You won't have to wonder and fret about what to cook for the day, since you'll have many options that you can easily access right at your fingertips. Here's how to organize recipes for maximum effectiveness.

To start with, get rid of any recipes that are incomplete, or that you know you do not like and will never use. Once you've whittled down your selection of workable recipes, you will then begin to categorize them.

Keep the categories simple. If you designate too many, you'll quickly become overwhelmed and won't know where to find what you need. Think of several main categories, like appetizers, soups and salads, breakfasts, lunches, dinners, snacks, and so on. You can also sort them by region, for example, Mexican, Italian, and Chinese recipes. Within these larger categories, sort them into their meal subcategories.

As you begin to use your new system to organize recipes, keep an eye on the categories you use most often to see if there are ways to make your system even more helpful. Add or eliminate categories as necessary.

Make sure you keep all your recipes together in one place. If you prefer to have them in hard copy form, print out all the recipes you may have stored on your computer. Gather up recipes you've clipped from newspapers and other sources and tape, staple, or glue them to standard size paper. You can store them in a tabbed three ring binder, or put them on recipe cards and store them in a box organizer. Make sure to store the recipes in plastic sheet protectors to avoid losing a well-loved recipe from kitchen splatters!

If you prefer to store your recipes on the computer, then create a special file for recipes only, with all of the appropriate subcategories. Whether you choose to store your recipes electronically or in hard copy form is entirely up to your preferences. The most important thing is keeping them all together and properly categorizing them.

Now that you know how to organize recipes to make cooking a much easier task, you'll have loads of fun finding new recipes to add to your collection.

back to top of page

Return from Organize Recipes to Quick and Easy Recipes

Return to Life Organize It