Achieving an Organized Recipe Binder

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Achieving an organized recipe binder; options to organize your binder; links to the material you may need; helping you figure out your needs for your organized recipe binder

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Lately, I’ve been thinking of upgrading my recipe binder. I have pages that keep falling out and I’m also running out of space in my binder… Years ago, I started gathering my recipes with a recipe binder I got at Costco. It included labelled dividers as well as tips and conversion pages but it’s now falling apart, literally, so I believe it’s time for an update.

I’ve decided to look into the different options there are out there to organize a recipe binder which will possibly get me motivated enough to get my recipe binder organized.

This is what my recipe binder currently looks like. As you can see, it’s full to its maximum capacity. The dividers have been well loved and used but they now need to be changed because I can no longer keep fixing them with scotch tape and reinforcement labels for the torn up hole-punches.

I’ve been debating between two options:

• Move everything to a larger binder of more than 3″ or into multiple small binders OR
• Scanning my recipes into a recipe keeper application accessible on my phone and tablet

For the ones of you who would rather have a physical paper copy, I decided that I would share the process of getting your recipe binder organized. I will also be sharing how my current cook book is organized and share the changes I plan on making to it.

Recipe Binder Organization process

Like anything else that you are sorting, it’s important to go through it all to make sure that what you have is still valid and that you are still using it.

Do you really use all the recipes you have printed in your recipe binder? I know that I personally don’t use all of mine yet I have a hard time getting rid of the ones that I’ve never even tried and I’m not sure why… Regardless of the reason why, I will be discarding the ones I’ve never tried. If I haven’t tried them by now, I never will, right?

The trick is to go through them all and sort your binder. This step is important not only to gain possible space in your binder, but also because your tastes may have changed throughout the years and your organized recipe binder should reflect your current taste. There might be recipes that you no longer like that you are still keeping and if that’s the case, those recipes should be discarded. Once the sorting is done, you can now organize your recipes.

Recipe Binder Categories

Here are the divisions I currently have in my recipe binder:

• Appetizer
• Soups & Salads
• Main Dishes
• Side Dishes
• Desserts
• Miscellaneous

Like I mentioned before, these categories are from the very first recipe binder that I bought at Costco years ago. I did feel like the categories worked at some point in my life but that they don’t as much anymore.

I’ve added subdivisions to some categories to make it easier to find recipes. Because of this, I’ve created a visual aid for you to better assess what would work best for you in your organized recipe binder.

Really, you can have as many categories as you’d like. You could even add a categories that I have not listed. For instance, if you like making smoothies, add a smoothies category. You could even have a category devoted to drinks and sub-categorized with non-alcoholic drinks, alcoholic drinks, etc. The options are endless!

The important aspect of it all is that your recipe categorization needs to reflect who you are and what you like to cook (or drink). All cookbooks are different and so will be the one you put together.

Before you get to shopping for the dividers and supplies you will need, make sure to make a plan of how many main categories you would like to have in your recipe binder. That way, you will know how many tabs the divider pack you are looking for needs to have.

Binder Organizing Accessories

Here are some accessories that you may need in order to create (or upgrade) your recipe binder.

Binders

You could use a thick 4 inch round ring binder to add all of your recipes in. Or, you could use smaller 1 inch binders and group different types of recipes in them to create a collection. I personally really like the multiple binders option but I don’t think I’d have room to store them all with my cookbooks.

There also are many “pretty” and good-looking binder options available made especially to store your recipes. Pick one that you like and that motivates you to keep your recipe binder organized and that may motivate you to eat better and plan your meals weekly if that’s something you would like to achieve.

Binder dividers

Here are some binder divider options I found on Amazon. You will notice that depending on the brand and style that there are different amounts of tabs. Make sure you know how may you need so that you know which ones will work best to accomplish your recipe binder vision.

Recipe boxes

Instead of using a binder, you may be the type of person that would rather use something decorative and/or smaller than a binder because you don’t have as many printed recipes. A recipe box might be an option for you. I searched for them on Amazon and was actually surprised how expensive they can be yet so pretty!

Recipe holder & Stand

Here is another option that is both a recipe holder and a stand. This concept of combining both a recipe book and a recipe book stand together is genius and may be the perfect option for some of you.

Cookbook holders options

Weather you chose to keep a paper copy of your recipes of to transfer them to an electronic version, you may still want to consider a stand to stand your recipe in when cooking. There are a lot of different options out there so make sure you know what you are looking for so that it works best for you. Here are some ideas of questions you may want to consider before investing in one:

• Do you want it to cover your pages so that they don’t get dirty from cooking? If so, you may want to consider an acrylic cookbook holder.
• Do you want to leave it out on your kitchen counter or not?
• Do you need it to be foldable so that you can store it when done with it?
• Would you like for it to make a statement of would you rather have it blend into your kitchen?
• Do you need for your cookbook holder to have more than one purpose? If your answer is yes, you may want to consider one with cooking measurements on it, one that can also hold knives or even one that serves as a chalkboard.
• Would you like for your cookbook holder to hold you cookbook open and hold your pages down? If so, make sure it has at least two page holder brakets or a ledge.
• Would you rather have one that can hold both a cookbook and a tablet or just one of the two?

Make sure to pick something that YOU love and not necessarily what the current trend is. Take your time to make a choice that represents you and you will not be disapointed. What I like the most about an organized recipe binder is that it offers options to personalise and customize it to your style. It’s also a nice project to do while chilling and listening to a show on Netflix in the background.

How do you organize your paper recipes? In a binder or on recipe cards? Let me know in the comments below.