Organize Your Recipes (As-Is)
- Shawndra Holmberg
- Feb 7, 2017
- 2 min read
Updated: Mar 5
Instead of waiting for 'someday' to organize your recipes perfectly, organize them as-is and use them today.
Build a recipe notebook or use an expanding file folder. All suggested materials are available at Amazon.com (click on each photo to check it out on Amazon).
RECIPE NOTEBOOK
Buy a notebook that is intended to be used with sheet protectors and dividers. The notebook will be extra wide.
Use sheet protectors to hold recipes as-is.
I suggest Snap-In protectors so that you don't have to open the rings to move the recipes but any sheet protector will do.
Top-loading is best. Just drop your recipe in, whether it's cut from a magazine, printed from the web or written on a recipe card.
Use tabbed dividers that are made to be used with sheet protectors. Otherwise the tabs will disappear.
RECIPE FILE FOLDER
Use an expanding file folder to sort your recipes into categories. No additional preparation needed. Choose an expanding file folder that makes you smile every time you use it.
The one main drawback to using a file folder is that you may have to pull all the recipes out of a section to find the one you want, but it certainly would be less time than going through a stack of unsorted recipes.
You can even create a category TO TRY. Grab one once a week or once a month. Then drop it in the appropriate category or toss it when you're done.
CATEGORIES
Consider categorizing by time or appliance. Instead of sorting by ingredient (chicken, beef, vegetarian, etc.) or by type (entree, appetizer, soup, etc) organize by appliances, time, or ease.
Ultimately, you want to be able to grab a recipe for meal planning that fits your needs. If you decide you want to have a slow cooker meal, it would be easier if you could just flip through that section. Or if one night you know you'll be tired and you just need to have a meal that takes little or no effort to prep and is quick, grab one from the QUICK & EASY section.
Create the categories to support your choices today.
PAPERLESS
If you want to go paperless, I use Notion for web clipping and meal options for planning. You could also use Evernote or OneNote. I also have scanned or created recipes in my favorite word processing software and organized my digital file folders with keywords to include ingredient, meal (breakfast etc.), appliance, and time. Then I let the computer search for my options.
