It has taken me a long time to have an organized recipe binder.  I went through a period of cookbooks.  Two of my favorites are Desperation Dinners and Cheap. Fast. Good.  {I love those — I highly recommend them) but I felt like there was SO much to look for.  I was also starting to get a lot of recipes from our friend the internet and wanted a way to organize those.

I came up with a recipe binder.  Rocket science, right?  Here are a few things that I found that helped in my binder organization.

How can you have an Organized Recipe Binder?

The best binder.

My favorite organizing guru (don’t worry I have a post to come about my favorite Youtube organizing channels) Alejandra Costello has long recommended the Staples Better Binders.  We had a “basic” binder — but the edges were coming apart.  My recipe binder is well used, and well loved!  The better binder is reinforced with rubber’ish type material on the corners.  I can tell it will last for a while of love.  It has good pockets on the front and backs and the rings are well made and open easily, I really like them!  I got the two inch binder.  I felt like the 3 inch would be too hard to use, and if I had that many recipes, it was time to pare down.

Dividers

For a long time I just had those sad little paper dividers and there just weren’t enough of them.  If you look closely in this shot, you’ll see that I have larger plastic tabs, and then the smaller old school dividers underneath.  That way I was able to separate out different types of main dishes, etc.  I would just say to do these according to how your family eats.  Here’s how mine works:

Appetizers/sides

Dressings

Main Dishes

Casseroles

Chicken

Salads

Fish

Soup

Crock Pot

Desserts

Cookies

Breakfast

Breakfast Bread

Basic Bred

Other Bread

Recipes will go behind the large plastic tab (general ones) and then others go behind the paper tabs.  It just helps me keep it extra organized and easier to find things.  I do have a LOT of recipes.  I enjoy cooking.

Those plastic dividers have pockets, which makes it easy to stash recipes until I’m un-lazy enough to punch holes in them.  I only put recipes that we REALLY like in the binder, and I really need to be better about punching holes in it – -but it is what it is.

I also have a pocket at the back that holds a few instruction booklets for small appliances I use often and need the instructions (like my pressure cooker).

I have a folder of recipes that I’ve torn out of magazines, and ones that I’m wanting to try soon go in the front pocket of the binder.

Again, ONLY ones that we really liked go in it. We have enough GOOD recipes, that we don’t need crappy recipes taking up space in my precious binder.

My precious….

Oh, and I don’t use sheet protectors, simply because I have too many recipes.  I I would need a 3 inch binder if I used sheet protectors.  I use either my cupboard recipe clips, to hold them up out of the way so they stay a bit cleaner (but you know the REALLY good ones are pretty dirty).  I also made lists of recipes I liked most in my favorite cookbooks so I can still add those to our repertoire.

The whole thing supports my menu planning  since the tabs in the “main dish” area are my categories for my meal plans.  also, when I plan to use a recipe I put it at the front of the divider.  When I’m searching for recipes, I start at the back — since those are ones we haven’t had in a while (less decisions makes for better decisions).

Anyway, that’s how I do my recipe binder.  Do you have a recipe binder that you love?  What could I switch around to make this more useable?

Be sure to get my free menu planner (and check out all my other home organization posts below that)

6 Things I Like About Cleaning {I know, I’m Crazy}

Helping Kids Organize: The drawer of your dreams (or nightmares)

What to pack for Disneyland: Learning to pack light.

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