Organizing Recipes

I love to collect recipes! I have some recipe books, but what I really enjoy is collecting recipes from magazines. Used to, I would just throw them into the bottom of the Hoosier cabinet, along with the books. Then when I wanted one, I spent a good deal of time looking for it.


I've tried several different methods of organizing all this paper. At one time, I had untried recipes glued into an album. But if I tried one and we didn't like it, it was forever glued in beside recipes we did like. Nixed that idea.

I've tried recipe cards, but I don't want to spend the time writing down recipes we haven't tried yet and besides, sometimes I want to see the photo of the dish while I'm making it for the first time. Not a usable idea.

I tried a Rolodex system for awhile. I liked having the cards, but I wanted to be able to remove the individual card when I was making the recipe and after awhile, the cards became too bent to stay on the wheel. Nope.

I think I've hit on something that finally works for me.


I've taken my Rolodex cards and put them into a recipe box by category. On the cards, I have copied recipes that 1) we know and love and 2) are fairly short and able to fit onto one or possibly 2 cards and 3) I am not interested in keeping special directions or photos of the finished dish.

What to do with all those ripped-out magazine pages and recipes printed from the internet???

For a while I had them in big envelopes, but the envelopes eventually tore up. Nada.

My hubby, who loves these envelopes, gave me a pile for my own use. So for awhile, I had a couple or three of these stuffed with recipes I had tried and those I hadn't tried yet. But when I wanted a particular one, I had to hunt it before I could commence cooking. Frustration.

I have some bright file folders, which I had bought to use for lapbooks.

I remembered those and got out a few. I divided my tried-and-true recipes into categories and labeled the folders: breads, main dishes, desserts, breakfast, miscellaneous. Then I placed the folders into the plastic envelope.


I did the same thing with my new recipes: divided them by categories into file folders and into another plastic envelope.

Viola! Now I can pull out only the folder I need. If I want to try a couple of new recipes for lunches this week, I can pull out the main dish folder and quickly look through it. If I need a particular quick bread recipe, I can pull out the bread folder and find the one we want.


I love it!