I have a messy, mishmash. I have an old recipe box with old recipes on cards - rarely use that. I have a small hanging file holder with some full page paper recipes - either printed from websites or word docs that I have saved on my computer. That's organized into categories. Then I have another little book that holds recipe cards and another file of paper recipes that I carry back and forth with me to the lake. And I have a bunch of word docs with electronic copies on my computer which I can access from anywhere with Office365. Then I have some online accounts where I've saved recipes - Pinterest, etc. Like I said, messy and obviously not a better way.

Ive had a recipe box for ages and still use it. I also have a large manila envelope where I keep recipes that Ive printed. Sometimes I clip those together by ”topic”., such as Thanksgiving or Banana read or Pie Crust. My headings are a bit strange, but it works for me. Years ago when I participated in the Cooking Forum, Imprinted out interesting recipes and they are under the heading of Gardenweb!

I dont cook much now but one of these days I will go back and try some of them.

My mom was a great cook and loved it. She kept her recipes in clear sleeves in a looseleaf binder. Funny because she made her favorites over and over and hardly ever tried anything new.

So I am doing like your mom did, ded? (lol I am so not a great cook- not even a good one. medicore at best)

Mtn, I have android. Will that work for me?

You can scan hardcopy in as a pdf (easy peasy on your phone) and then convert to word or google docs so as not to have to type in your old recipes .

I liken my recipe storage to a large mixed salad with lots of components you love to eat, in a giant bowl and two spoons that can scoop out as much as your heart's desire. You're so happy to be eating it that you don't care how it looks. heeheehee

I have a loose leaf binder with clear page protectors. I just recently went through it and tossed recipes I don't make anymore or some that I've never made and probably never will. I still have a bunch of recipe cards given to me by my MIL which I keep in the front of the binder.

I also have a directory on my laptop where I store recipes I find online. There's 350 recipes in that folder! Haven't made most of them, but I like to browse through for ideas.

I used to have an epicurious account with many, many good recipes saved. When they went to a pay for access model, I lost them all. I do pay for NYT cooking and regularly search through their recipes for ideas.

Mine are now mostly 3-hole punched in a tabbed binder or on my computer. I save anything I see online that looks promising. If I try it and don't like it, I delete or throw away. I prefer a paper copy when I'm cooking, rather than scrolling around an iPad and getting it all gunky. I can't imagine using cookbooks anymore. I often have several versions of something, e.g., pie crust, although I find too many options make for indecision and poor results.

I still have my little box of index cards from the 50s stained with remnants of batter from the same time period.

ETA: I'm very influenced by photos of food, so I try to include a photo of the dish when I save/print the recipe so it triggers my imagination.

Mtn, I have android. Will that work for me?

Supposedly yes? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ru-nHG_4a_k

Once you have it scanned, the latest versions of Word and/or Google docs now allow you to open a pdf as a Word file or Googledoc; amazing. That used to require special software. If memory serves it can even read handwriting; will take some editing/cleanup of course.

I, too, use google docs. So handy to have the recipe handy (on my phone) when shopping. At home, I refer to the recipes using my iPad.

Android will work, sure. But I prefer paper. In sheet protectors. In a binder. And I sometimes pull them out and write on them. :)

I am not enough of a cook for this to be a problem. A larger recipe collection might benefit from more tech.

I've scanned and printed some very old cookbook pages (mostly for candy alas) to keep from messing up the book.

I'm not old enough to have anything on notecards. Teeheehee! Just kidding, but somehow I never had any.

I keep the NYT recipes I save on their app. All others, including videos, I save to Apple Notes where I have a recipe folder. They’re easily searchable in that format. When i want a recipe from an internet site / blog I click on print and save that version to Notes, or convert it to a pdf and save to a Note. I still have cookbooks but no written recipes now. When i get one from a friend I either scan with my phone or take a photo and make a Note of either.

I also keep menus of every dinner party in workflowy, under a meals and entertaining header. Under that I have separate outline groups for Christmases, Thanksgivings, Easters and Birthdays.

I use a website called Copy Me That. It will copy any recipe on the Web including photos and store it with your own. It is great for organizing also. I have lost many recipes when my computers have died but never again. I can also search through recipes that others have stored in their own accounts and add that recipe to my own collection.

I am not a good example. A hall cupboard next to my kitchen has three long shelves full of recipe books, each book has at least one recipe I love. The recipes remain in the cookbooks. I have kept the cookbooks expecting to find more wonderful recipes. Rolling my eyes at myself. Recipes from elsewhere are either in a loose leaf binder with page protectors or a recipe card book. At my wedding shower all guests brought a recipe and the hostess added them to the recipe card book as a special gift for me. It is lovely to have all those hand written recipes from my family and friends at the shower, as well as other recipes I received back in time. However, convience wise I like the loose leaf binder, as Mtn mentioned much easier to add notes.

One of my 2023 projects is to create a family recipe book, compile everything in one spot. @mtnrdredux_gw thank you for mentioning scanning, this will help immensly. My kids will be given the recipes in themed binders and the Google Doc files; then they will have two options. This will go over well with my kids as they ask for my recipes fairly often. Making a new binder for myself as well.

A bookshelf in the kitchen for cookbooks/binders with bookmarks and many recipes on slips of paper tucked into them, and the rest in a Food/Recipes file on my desktop.

Also a number of most-used recipes stuck on the side of the fridge with magnets.

My original recipes are on index cards in a card holder. once the internet was invented, I started printing recipes and keeping them in a three ring binder as well as bookmarking the originals in folders within my bookmarks in my browser. Then I got an ipad and stopped printing recipes, just sitting my ipad on the counter. and finding the bookmarked recipe. A couple years ago I started using the Paprika app - I can download recipes there and it gets rid of all the commentary, ads, photos. I can add my own notes, edit the recipe, even scale a recipe so I don't have to do the math myself. I still have my binders and recipe box. Slowly adding all my favorite hard copy recipes into Paprika, but will keep the printed copies as back up.

one thing that bummed me out was when Bon Appetit/Epicurious made their website accessible only by subscription. Had I known that was happening, I would have downloaded all my bookmarked favorites. Totally annoyed b/c I had a subscription for years and years, and now can't access all the favorites I stored online (gave up my hard copy subscription a couple of years ago).

I too had a lot of recipes saved from Epicurious… That was why I decided that I should just keep it in my own file rather than be beholden to another entity.

I also have paper in sheet protectors, stored in binders. I have binders for cooking method as well--grill, baking, air fryer, sous vide, slow and pressure cookers. Part of the reason for this is that DH helps with the cooking (mostly prep) and would ask me so many questions (he is very precise) that I find it much easier to ask him to check the recipe that is on the counter!

So while we're on the subject of recipes, I have to share an awesome idea my DIL brought to life. She framed a picture of herself and her sister making a pie with their grandmother when they were little kids. Along with the picture is a card with the pie recipe, written in her grandmother's handwriting. She hung it on a wall in their kitchen, and it's so special. The handwritten recipe card just makes it! The card has yellowed some with age, and it's got a little smear of chocolate on it, and the whole thing is just so charming.

I'm all over the place. Have some recipes on my computer (not Google docs), lots saved on Pinterest which does take multiple clicks but I have categories that make sense to me, a 3 ring binder with printed pages in plastic sleeves, some with notes, some entirely hand written, a hand written small binder from long ago and some recipe cards. It's nuts.

At the end of the day, probably 50% of the time if I'm using a recipe I have my laptop open and I'm on the specific website. But most of my cooking is either by rote or an improv. And I don't do enough food/special meal based entertaining that I'm itching to reinvent these wheels.

Not sure I'm invested enough in cooking at this point in my life to ditch everything for one system - as organized and tempting as mtn's system sounds. I do like the old fashioned hand written cards and notes. I love the things I have in my mother's hand or my grandmother's. Maybe someday my sons, DIL or DGD will feel the same so I'll probably keep doing what I'm doing and keep in mind to make more hand written notes.

My grandmother's recipes were written in a little book, which my darn sister has. My Mom just marked up cookbooks, which my si.....

Salon can you add an "it" to your title post it is really unsettling my sense of world order.🤣

All is right in the world. :)

I have my recipes in 3 different notebooks. Desserts, main meals and breads etc. i keep the recipes like others in a clear plastic page. My notebooks are a messey and need to be organized but I love seeing the old recipes, handwriting from friends and family, stains and spills, recipe cards, pages torn from magazines and newspapers. With that being said I often print them from the computer too.

Mostly I've been putting things in google docs these days. I do have some older written recipes that I haven't digitized somewhere in a folder. A lot of the recipes I use now are ones I found online. I find myself not using cookbooks as much and it's more convenient to use an ipad I keep in the kitchen.

I've got card files, cookbooks, looseleaf binder, and my search mechanism is to look for the ones with food stains.

A friend asked me for my recipe for kung pao chicken. I told her that I burnt the recipe She thought I meant the food. No, the paper the recipe was printed on was too close to the stove and caught fire.

I have four 3 ring binders. I keep some recipes online, but much prefer to use the binders.

We use pinterest to keep and organize favorite recipes. If one is occasionally deleted from the internet, we just search for a similar version and/or wing it based on memory. Very occasionally I find a recipe so good I must keep it forever, so I make a PDF and store it on my computer.

I do have some family recipe printouts in a binder, a gift from my mom and aunt. I only reference the cakes and cookies though. (Our family did not have great cooks, so only the baked goods are nostalgic for me.)

I also have many binders and many many cookbooks.

I'm actually having a hard time with this website on my phone these days. I know they want me to get the app. I use the recipes in this huge file folder the most.

Thanks everyone for all the answers. I guess I'm pretty much doing what most of you are doing, though this has pushed me a bit to figure out better online use and storage. Maybe I just need a bigger binder.

I really do find having the hard copy easiest to work from. Good suggestion to maybe only print out what has been tested and worth it.

I used to use Google dics, but migrated everything to a One Note notebook. I like it a bit more, perhaps because it feels like a book. 😀

HAHAHA! Oh local that is the best typo ever! Please don't fix it.

I really do find having the hard copy easiest to work from. Good suggestion to maybe only print out what has been tested and worth it.

While I still print recipes I want to try; I no longer place them in the binders until that's a done deal. I keep those in waiting within easy reach, so they aren't easily forgotten.

Before doing that I had way too many recipes in the binders that I never used. In this pic I had just culled through the binders pulling recipes I knew I would never try. That's when I changed the way I handled their storage.

I use Dropbox instead of Google Docs, but I use GD for files I want to share with my brother.

I also have printed out recipes that I make and then store them in clear plastic sleeves in binders. I remove them from binders when I need to use them, and the plastic sleeves are good for protecting the pages. I do not print out a recipe unless I am making.

I often make adjustments to recipes either while I am making them or afterwards, and I write notes on the paper. Then I go back to the recipe on my computer and make the changes, and change the title of the recipe to include the date of the latest revision.

A lot of recipes in my computer are ones that I have created myself, as I improvise a lot. If I make something that I especially like, I write down how I made it and store the recipe in my computer. I don't do this as much as I used to, but I still do create new recipes - I'm just not as motivated to save them as I used to be.

So many of the recipes I've saved over the years I will never use, so now I'm culling. I have a certain number of recipes I rely on, and lots I collected with intent to try, but I've gone through phases that have now passed, so most of those recipes are no longer relevant.