How I Organize My Recipes-Part1

The Cupboard

I love cookbooks, I love recipes, and I love cooking. I also love being able to find a recipe when I need it! So, here is the way I organize my recipes. I struggled with the best way to do this for a long while before I decided on the "Binder Method." I knew this would work best for me because most recipes I get that are not from cookbooks, come from my printer. Either from recipe sites, bloggers, or my email, they all end up being printed on standard paper. This is precisely why a recipe box would not work for me.

Now, I have a lot of different recipes that come from different sources as previously mentioned. I usually remember a recipe by where I got it. I knew I couldn't properly organize everything into one binder and still be able to find everything. So this is the system I came up with. The photos explain how I do it.

A few things I have to do to keep everything in order are: I always print out a recipe I think I will like right away. Otherwise, when I go to look for it later, I will never be able to find it in cyberspace. Also, I am working on getting a photo with each recipe. Recipes in the "recipes to try" binder have to be cooked and liked, THREE TIMES before they graduate to the "tried and true" binder. Last, I have a divider in my "tried and true" binder marked "holidays." I think it is important to note, because some things are remembered simply by that.

How do you organize your recipes?