How to Centralize and Organize Your Digital Recipes

Nowadays, most people find their recipes online.

From sites such as allrecipes.com to yummly.com, you can find hundreds of recipes and that is where the problem lies.

With access to all these digital recipes, how can we keep them organized so that we can find the one we want when we need it?

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links that I have provided for your convenience. Click here to read my full disclosure policy.

Ways to Organize Your Digital Recipes

Digital Recipes Websites/Apps

One way to organize your digital recipes is to use the ‘save‘ options on most recipe websites.

Most of these sites make it easy to save recipes within their site by simply signing up as a member.

Other sites like allrecipes.com have a profile/collections page where you can tailor your digital recipe book.

These are great for creating individual sections for your digital recipes.

It’s sort of like what index or divider tabs are for physical recipe binders.

Many of these sites also have accompanying apps so that you can access and watch videos from your phones and tablets.

One Site to Bind Them All

While it is great that many recipe sites provide the above service, there is still the matter of having to visit each site to find a recipe.

And what happens if you want to make a recipe you’ve made before?

If you don’t remember which site you got it from, chances are that you will need to visit a few sites to find it.

So, to centralize ALL your digital recipes, I suggest using Pinterest.

Here are the benefits of using Pinterest:

• You can create multiple boards for each recipe category.
• Each board can be segmented into multiple sections.
• Almost every image on the internet including recipe images are pinnable.
• Pinned images are clickable taking you directly to the site you pinned it from.
• Pin descriptions can be edited (more on this below).
• Many recipe pins offer rating/reviews from other pinners, the time needed to cook recipe, as well as a listing of ingredients within the pin description.
• You can make your recipes secret in case you don’t want anyone to know you used a recipe to make that awesome chocolate souffle.

Using Pinterest for Digital Recipes

Create an Account

In order to organize your digital recipes using the following instructions, you will need to create an account on Pinterest if you do not have one yet.

If you do have an account, great!

However, if you have an account with hundreds of boards, with a variety of topics, you may want to create a separate account for your digital recipes (read more below to see if this may be a better option for you).

By the way, Pinterest users can have multiple accounts so long as each account has a unique email address attached to it.

Creating Digital Recipes Boards

There are several ways you can organize your digital recipes on Pinterest but let’s talk about how best to create boards.

There are three ways to create boards according to your pinning habits.

A Single Recipe Board

If you don’t usually pin or save digital recipes frequently, then you may only need one board named “Recipes.”

Once you have a variety of pins on this board, you can then add sections such as “Chicken Recipes” or “Soups”.

Later, if your recipe collection is becoming large, then you may want to use the next way to create boards.

Multiple Recipe Boards

If you have a lot of recipe pins or know that you will be pinning a lot of recipes, then I suggest creating a board for each food category.

See below for how best to name your multiple boards.

Secret Boards

Prefer to keep your digital recipe boards secret?

Simply toggle the button when prompted as you create your board.

This is a great alternative if you have a business account and your business does not involve recipes.

Naming Your Digital Recipes Boards

If you have multiple boards along with various irrelevant boards, it’s best to name your recipe boards “Recipes”, followed by a colon or dash, and then the food category.

For example, if you have a board for soups, name it ‘Recipes: Soups’

This way, when you are scrolling through your boards, they should be located in the same area of your feed.

This only works if you sort your boards alphabetically.

Don’t prefer to alphabetize your boards? 

Use the drag/drop feature so that you can keep your recipe boards together.

If you opted to have a separate account for your recipes, then you can name your boards according to the food category.

However, keep your boards set on the alphabetical option so that you can easily find your digital recipes.

Want to create a ‘favorite recipes’ board with pins of various food categories?

Try using a heart emoji to separate this board from the rest.

By the way, Pinterest actually allows a variety of emojis but not all. Click here to see which ones are available on Pinterest.

Board/Section Name Suggestions

Create a board or section within a board for ‘untested recipes‘.

In this way, they don’t get lost on the board and remain untested.

After you’ve made the recipe you can either delete the pin if you didn’t care for it, or move it onto the appropriate board/section later.

Naming Sections of Your Digital Recipes

If you’ve used sections within your boards and want them listed alphabetically or just arranged differently, all you need to do is simply drag/drop them.

Pinterest’s sorting application does not work within boards.

However, the emojis application does work.

Pinning Your Digital Recipes

Now that you’ve got your boards set up and properly named to fit your preferences, it’s time to start pinning recipes.

Finding Pins

Naturally, you can find thousands upon thousands of recipe pins on Pinterest.

Many will take you to recipe sites as well as foodie blogs.

However, you can also pin images directly from these websites by simply clicking the Pinterest button when you hover over the images.

Chrome Pinterest App

If an image does not have that button when you hover over it, then chances are this feature has not been added to this site.

One way you can still pin any image that doesn’t have this feature is by adding the Pinterest Save Button located in the Chrome Web Store.

Once you install this app it should appear on your Chrome toolbar.

Next time you visit a site, click on the Pinterest app icon and it will pull up all the images on the post.

Then simply pick the image you want to save onto your board.

The app will then bring up a list of all your boards.

Find the board you want to pin your image to save.

You can use this app whether a site has or doesn’t have a Pinterest saving feature.

Testing Your Digital Recipes for Clickability

Once you pin an image to your board, you may want to check and see that it leads back to the particular recipe you want.

Sometimes, the links attached to a pin do not directly bring you to the page you want.

So, click it and make sure it does.

Changing Pin Descriptions

For recipes you absolutely love and know that you will create often, I suggest changing the pin description to reflect the ingredients (if the pin description does not list them).

This way, you can easily and quickly check to see if you have the required ingredients to make the dish again without having to click over to the site and search for the ingredients section.

This is also helpful when making a shopping list.

Optional

Changing Board Covers for Your Digital Recipes

Using Images on Pins

If you want to make your recipe boards look good, you can change the board covers to show images found on pins within the board or make your own board covers.

So, if you have a board that holds recipes for soup, you can search within the board for a pin image you like.

Just click on the edit pencil button for the board.

Click on the ‘change cover’ prompt and look for an image you like.

Once you find one, click on ‘save changes’.

After you save it, check the board’s image.

If it seems off-centered just go back to the ‘change cover’ prompt and adjust the image by dragging it up or down within the provided frame.

If the image doesn’t change or isn’t showing, just exit out of Pinterest and log in again.

Creating your Own Covers

If you prefer having a uniform look to your boards, you can create your own covers.

Here’s how you can do this with Canva.

If you don’t have a Canva account, go ahead and sign up for their free account package by clicking here.

Once you create your account, you are going to use their ‘create a design’ application and click on the ‘use custom dimensions.’

Enter the dimension: 564 pixels for both width and height.

This will take you to your design page.

Play around with the features available on the left side of your canvas.

You can change the background color, use assorted patterns, and even place text on your image.

However, not all of these features are free.

Avoid any elements or graphics with a crown.

Once you finish creating your cover, download it onto your computer.

Next, head to Pinterest to upload it.

To do this click on the red plus icon at the top right and choose the ‘create a pin’ prompt.

Drag/drop the cover image into the gray frame or click to upload the image.

After it has been loaded, choose the board you want it on and save it.

Once saved, go to that board and follow the same directions listed above for changing the cover. And that’s it.

Let’s Get Organizing

Can’t wait to get started creating your digital recipe book?

Let’s get your recipes sorted so you can easily find what you need the next time you cook.

Remember:

• Decide on how you want to organize your recipes: by boards and/or by sections.
• Name your boards so you can easily find your recipes.
• Use the Pinterest save app on your Chrome toolbar to save images outside of Pinterest.
• Check links for your pins.
• Change the pin’s description, if you prefer.
• Create board covers to give it a unique look.

Have lots of printed recipes? Click here to organize paper recipes.