How to Organize Recipes Easily

Recipe obsessed but don’t know how to organize them? No worries! Whichever type of recipes you have, we have the best tips to help you arrange them for practicality and aesthetic appeal. Learn how to organize recipes easily with these simple tips.

If you have recipe cards, printed recipes, recipe books, handwritten recipes and cookbooks cluttering up your kitchen, you’re not alone! My recipe collection consists of tons of meal ideas, family recipes, binders, and other pieces of paper that are in desperate need of organizing.

Here you’ll find suggestions for taming your paper recipe collection and tips for getting digital recipes in order too. I’ll be sure to use these myself also…lol.

Want to add to your recipe collection? Don’t miss my list of over 80 crockpot recipes!

Table of Contents

Recipe Organization: The Categories

Before we get into our organization tips, however, let’s have a quick discussion about categories.

Regardless of how you want to store your recipes, you need to figure out which categories you’re going to split them into. This could be as simple as breakfast, lunch, and dinner or you can specify select food types such as:

Vegetarian main
Pork main
Beef main
Beverages
Soups
Salads
Bread
Desserts
Vegetable sides
Freezing
and more

It’s all down to your preference but knowing this will make following our tips a breeze!

Top Recipe Organization Ideas

Okay, now for the fun part. We’ve categorized depending on the type of recipes you have. By “type” we mean digital, printed, magazine clippings, etc. Feel free to skip to the one that most applies to you.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at our ultimate recipe organization ideas!

How to Organize Digital Recipes

There are plenty of apps that allow you to keep track of all your favorite digital recipes but here are some of our favorites to get you started:

Paprika—Available on Mac, Android, iOS,and windows, this app allows you to access recipes from any device. It can even help you compile grocery lists so you never miss ingredients when you hit the store.

Pinterest —The mother of all inspiration can indeed help you organize. Just make a board for each recipe category and you’ll be able to access it at any time.

Evernote —If you want to make all your recipes digital, Evernote will be your new best friend. With a quick snap of the camera, you can turn recipe cards/magazine clippings into digital files.

How to Organize Printed Recipes

Our advice for organizing printed recipes is to grab yourself a two-or three-ring binder. Then, you can punch holes and effortlessly slide them in.

We’d suggest using tab dividers to separate the categories so you can find your favorite cake recipe that much easier.

How to Organize Recipe Cards

Recipe cards are cute, clear, and don’t take up much space. But, the more you own, the more you need to think carefully about how you organize them. Otherwise, they’ll end up strewn around the kitchen!

So, try to implement one of these suggestions:

Recipe Tin —They include page dividers for maximum ease of use.

Recipe Journal —Write out all your recipes in one book (preferably A4).

Accordion File —Super easy to find what you’re looking for.

Recipe Organizing Resources:

These recipe organizing resources (aff links) make getting your favorite recipes in order easy as pie!

How to Organize Recipes from Magazines

Magazine clippings tend to pile up quickly and they’re usually pretty flimsy and easily damaged. Because of this, organization and protection are vital.

Try these tips:

Lamination —For protection, you should think about laminating them. You can then store them in a binder or a box —whatever works for you.

Pouches —While a plastic binder pouch won’t keep your recipes safe in use, they’re a less-hassle way to organizing recipe cutouts.

Your kitchen is going to be one organized place from here on out! I hope that these ideas for organizing recipes are just what you need! This list of best recipe organizers and tips was just what I needed. I hope you’ll never struggle to find a recipe again.

Even More Recipe Organization Ideas:

1. If your printed recipes are out of control, try these tips about how to organize printed recipes to get started!

2. Learn how to create categories for your recipes so that you can start organizing them easily!

3. Pare down your recipes by getting one of the ones your family will never eat and keeping their favorites!

4. Find out how to choose the right binders for your recipe collection. Depending on the size of your recipe stash, you may need a pretty big size!

5. Once you’ve chosen a recipe binder, learn how to set it up so that you can find what you want quickly!

6. Prefer a more convenient recipe keeper? Make your own DIY Flip Recipe Organizer to keep tasty dishes at your fingertips!

7. What if you want that traditional recipe collection? Set up a recipe card file and stock it with your favorites!

8. Learn how to use OneNote to organize recipes in digital form! This is a perfect idea if you’re trying to live paperlessly!

9. Do you tend to collect recipes from print magazines? Try organizing recipes in an accordion file to get a handle on your paper!

10. And if you have a super big recipe collection, learn how to set up separate binders for each recipe category! It’ll save time when you’re meal planning!