How do you organize/store your recipes?
 

How do you organize and store your recipes? Who still uses a recipe box?

I tend to clip or print off recipes, then they get in a messy pile. I have a book in which I can write my favorite recipes. I do spend summers down south, so awhile ago I started putting recipes on Google Drive, so I can access them wherever I am. What do you do?​

I keep mine on my laptop. I've scanned a lot of the older ones in and downloaded some new ones from the internet.

I use a plastic shoe box to keep most but I have a recipe album with 3x5 clear pages where I keep my favorites. The shoe box is really old and not as deep as new ones so it's perfect.

I tend to print all my recipes from online sources. I have a regular 3 ring binder notebook and use a hole punch to store the printed ones. I also have a few sheet protectors from other things that I put the smaller items from magazines and recipe cards and such. It works because when I make a recipe that one is on top. Eventually, the duds end up in the back.

I use binders and sheet protectors. As some of my favorite old soft cover books started to fall apart I took them totally apart, punched holes in the pages and put them in binders too. A very nice way to keep recipes organized.

I am kinda old school, still keep a recipe box actually a wooden box that I have had for over 50 years!! I never add to it anymore, but it is full of old old recipes that I still use. I keep any recipes I find online on my computer. I have a folder named"1A All Recipes" with sub folders inside broken down by category for example Cakes. In that folder, I have sub folders again with types ie: pound, nut, different fruits, cupcakes, dump cakes, etc. Or category Breads: subfolders: quick, yeast, and again some sub folders in those. When I am looking for something I just go to the folders and look it up. I also print some and keep them in a large 3-ring binder. I just like to have a paper recipe handy when cooking. Haven't got myself trained to use the laptop or tablet to read a recipe and cook from it. I use my hands a lot and don't see getting food bits down in my laptop.
Occasionally, I have to go in and sort.....mainly delete those I have made and don't plan to ever make again or those that just don't appeal to me anymore. I really should move them to the cloud so they would be available on all devices but just recently got high speed internet and am still in a learning curve. (I know....but I live out in the country where high speed was not available till this year)
Another learning curve as to how to do that, put in the cloud.....and how important is it to me????
Anyway, that is how I organize and store my recipes. Basically, I would just like to be able to stop cooking altogether, but that is another story.....lol

Years ago I bought a plastic photo book and stick the recipes into the little spaces. I keep desserts in the front, salads in the middle and entrees in the back. Works for me.

I keep a "Word" document of my favorite recipes and print them out when needed. It's easy to make changes to the recipe that way. I'm always tweaking them. Some of the printed copies are put in a binder in the kitchen when finished. Mostly they are stuffed into the side pockets instead of three-hole-punching them into the binder. I like being able to find a recipe fast on the computer. It's also nice being able to cut and paste a recipe to share with others.

You would think from the amount of cookbooks I have I love to cook but it's just the opposite. I don't like to cook plus DH is one of those meat and potato men. He won't try anything new. I'm always looking for new recipes with ingredients I think he'll eat so I have lots of recipes just loose on my bookcase shelf. I keep saying I'm going to organize them into categories but I keep putting it off. If I ever do get around to organizing them, it will be similar to the way cookbooks are organized. Beef, chicken, desserts, etc.

I still use the old recipe boxes. I have a metal one (mine) that I've used for 40+ years as well as DH's grandmother's wooden one (which, frankly, I never think to look in!). Because I'm older than dirt - or it least it feels that way some days, lol - I print any online recipes I find online and shove in the meal box. I don't even delude myself into thinking that 'one day' I'll copy/organize any of that stuff! I know which recipes are on 3x5 index cards; which are handwritten on various pieces of paper; which are computer printed. It works for me.

I have my mother's cookbook from 1948 (my kitchen bible). I have some online and a envelope file with ones used most. Got rid of a lot by sending to relatives and donated to soup kitchen.

I have a really big 3 ring binder filled with lined 3 ring paper. And there are tabs for types of recipes, like meat, vegetables, cookies, cakes, etc. When I clip recipes I tape them onto a page in the book. Or you can write a recipe down in there too. It's worked out well for me.

I do the same with recipes I clip or print, placing them in a "protective sleeve" and in a binder.

I like your idea about a cookbook falling apart. I have one of those red Betty Crocker cookbooks that is on its last legs......lol I think I will get some supplies from Staples and save my cherished cookbook.

i have 2 recipe boxes. One is for sweet and the other for everything else. I also have my MIL's, and 2nd MIL's recipe boxes along with my maternal grandmother's recipe box. My dad made the recipe box for her and painted it red! My grandmother (same one) also gave me her HS home economics book (from before 1920) with handwritten recipes in it. It's heartwarming to me to see their handwriting and think of them cooking for family and friends.

the only recipes I have are on 5x7 cards in those metal boxes that every one collects now. from my high school cooking class.

I had to laugh when I read this request. I have a recipe box that I use, a binder with protector sheets, scads of cookbooks I seldom look into anymore, an online recipe box at Epicurious, and a few recipe boards on Pinterest. Plus I have some lying around that I printed out or wrote on scrap paper. I love to cook, but more than that, I love to collect recipes!

Lately, I have little slips of paper stuck in a box - very disorganized. But my favorite recipes (from when I owned a B&B) are in sheet protectors in a recipe holder on top of the refrigerator. One of these days...

I use a program called Mastercook. Took a while to get the recipes in but now it works really well. Can print it out or share with my kids. Gave a copy to my nieces when they got married. (I'm known as a good cook in my family)

Like Auj, my recipes are everywhere!

I have a binder my dad put together of family recipes (printed off and in paper protectors) along with household tips.

I have a binder of recipes I've printed off, also in paper protectors, where the favorites work their way to the front.

I have a photo album for 4 x 6 photos where I store any small recipes and cards.

I email recipes to myself so they are always available, as long as I have internet access.

I also store them on "the cloud" so I can access them from home or work. And on a pinterest board (although this is my least favorite method, because when a website goes dead, you lose whatever you had pinned).

My favorite cookbooks are on an open shelf by the stove, and I have more in a cabinet. I recently went through a box of recipes (mostly clipped from magazines) and tossed any I won't be making, organized the rest.

I love to try new recipes, but I can also be a recipe collector. At least they don't take up much space!

I have my Moms old wooden recipe box that I keep just because it was hers, but never use it. I have loose recipes that I have clipped, copied, etc., all in a messy stack that one of these days I think I'll just pitch out, as I've never used any of them. I do have cookbooks that have post-it notes sticking out at the top, some I've done, others maybe some day.

I have a few 3-ring binders for my collection of hand-written recipes on foolscap, and an old plastic tray-like recipe holder for others that I had typed-out on small cards that fit into.

I have my mother's hand written book that I have added to. I love looking at her wonderful handwriting, and comparing it to mine.

I made a cookbook about 20 yrs. ago and it has been a life-saver! Gave each child a cookbook and they actually use them!
I did it all on the computer and have recent recipes in the pockets of the cookbook. I also have a folder for new recipes I like and the family will eat.
Nothing is "fool proof," but this is a big help to me.
Had a friend of a friend make the cookbooks--copy, organize, ect. Cost $150 for the 3 extras for the kids and 1 for us, but it was worth it. He made a CD for each book, so it seemed cheap to me!
Mariah

I have Living Cookbook on my computer. It is a purchased software package that is very good. I no longer have scraps of paper around. I can copy a recipe from the internet and then put it into the software - no writing It is great!

I, too, have some handwritten recipes of my mom's and so love to see her hand writing. I so enjoy having her hand writing that I have been trying to do hand written labels on the quilts I make for my kids and grandkids, thinking they might like that, too.

Back to the original question, I am a big collector of cookbooks and have lots of older ones and some newer ones. Recipes on scraps of paper and notebooks full of recipes I've printed from the internet. One thing I need to stop saying to my DH is this is I new recipe I wanted to try! He does not like "new" recipes. Meat and potatoes, with mushroom soup on top, best ever for him!

I pin mine in a pinterest board when i get them on line. If given as a hard copy, I put them in my wooden recipe box on a 3x5 index card or folded paper.

I have some written in the computer, but it's tough taking that into the kitchen. :)

Mostly they are in a book, hand written. Many are in my mother's beautiful hand writing, as she started it when I was a teenager.

I have a really old recipe box that the top just this week broke off of! I also have a binder which is a mess. My most used recipes are taped up inside my cupboard doors.

My favorites are in a book with recipe card sleeves. Others are sorted in a shoe box size plastic box. I try to keep them orderly because I don't want to spend time hunting.

I still have a recipe box that my husband made me when we were first married so I'm very sentimental about it.
I don't collect too many recipes these days though. He does almost all the cooking. He's a foodie, both career and home :)
I love it!