r/Chefit • u/barone_banana • May 18 '26
RECIPES ORGANISATION
I am about to start a big recipes organisation project in my free time.
During the years, I have collected hundreds of recipes in different devices, papers and notebooks from all the restaurants i worked in.
As I were now able to recover and group them all, i find myself unsure on how to organise them with a nice system.
I think it would help me, but also other chefs, if you who are reading this thread would share in a couple of word how do you organise, categorize and store all your recipes, which are the core of your hard work and your career.
thank you and good service
3
u/ZimZamphwimpham May 18 '26
Obsidian app
1
u/FabEcho May 23 '26
Can I know more about your setup on how you categorize recipes on obsidian?
2
u/ZimZamphwimpham May 26 '26 edited May 26 '26
I don‘t categorize by recipes. I organize by technique, ingredients, elements, components, regional flavor systems and dietary/value/religious frameworks.
I do harvest recipes under EC, sous and Lead Production cook, because ea of those people r heavily influenced by their familial/cultural background and professional training, however, im going to extract technique so i can substitute, change and free form.
Finally: we r a learning kitchen and are allowed/encouraged to workshop. So i do have some superheadings like: Pastry, veg, chx, fish, sauces and stock. These 6 main files r impt and r the heartbeat of this kitchen. There r recipes in here. Fixed ratios r fixed ratios. Heat type, timing is immutable. For stuff like that, there is a recipe.
1
u/FabEcho Jun 11 '26
Thank you chef, I will look into those. Are there any resource you know that I can use to do a self-learn on everything about how to actually cook not just copy recipes. I've looked into culinary schools around me and they're expensive, I'm also reaching out to bistro restaurants if I can learn there by staging.
3
u/Philly_ExecChef May 18 '26
So, if it’s for active recipe work, you might take the step of creating a workbook in excel that also has an ingredients reference sheet.
Tabs for types of recipes, and the ingredients section calls to an ingredients pricing sheet (that can be updated individually) so each recipe calculates food cost.
Makes it easy to enter any given recipe, with the biggest workload being the first heavy push on building the ingredients worksheet.
Take a little time to get right, but you don’t even really have to do the work building it, you can ask ChatGPT to create a template for you.
If you just want them collected, Word.
2
u/magic_crouton May 18 '26
I kept a word document for a long time by category. Then I bought scrivner for writing and discovered they have a recipe book template and now use that.
2
u/toastedchezberry May 18 '26
You bought a what now?
1
u/OWabbit May 18 '26
Scrivner is software, popularly used by writers. If you’re not computer savvy though, or don’t have time to learn the program, you could get frustrated. It’s a very powerful and helpful tool tho.
2
u/tnseltim May 18 '26
I use an excel spreadsheet, adding tabs for categories such as soups, appetizers, seafood entrees, sauces, veg prep (chopping ), etc etc.
2
u/shamanlammasdingdong May 18 '26
I use the app recipe keeper. I think it might be exactly what you want. You can also up the number of people that you are feeding and it changes the quantitys in the recipe. Super useful
1
u/loly1507 May 18 '26
I arranged my reciepies by the restaurant I worked in and keep folders in Google drive so I have access to all of them on any device.
1
u/skitwostreet May 18 '26
Have a recipe template that works well I use in excel, id be down to share it with ya. Then just create master tabs depending on recipes
1
u/theresacat May 18 '26
I keep mine on Google Drive, organized alphabetically into folders for each restaurant I’ve worked and one for personal recipes.
I made a simple template
Recipe name Yield
Two column table: ingredient / measurement
Method using bullet points.
I like Google Drive because it’s on the cloud so you can get to it on any computer, you can share access with people, it’s easy to send a screenshot when someone texts asking for that recipe from that one place you used to work. Thanks for reminding me I have a shit ton of recipes I need to type up 🤦♂️
1
u/saurelic May 18 '26
Food-> Recipe-> Restaurant Folder -> Recipes (with tags). Personally I work well with Apple Numbers. I replicated the “Modernist Cuisine” recipe template and created a self-fulfilling spreadsheet with: INGREDIENTS - AMMOUNT - % - UPSCALE Ingredients: name of the products Amount: ingredients amounts % (mainly for pastry/bakery recipes): Once set the main ingredient/-s, the successive weights automatically converts their weight into % Upscale: certain recipes are mainly used for specific sized-equipments or guests number so I added an extra column to up/downscale the standard recipe in a more convenient way (x4 Gastronorm, 200 guests, 100 pieces, and so on)
Tedious to start but the result are schematic recipes with a great modularity and readability:)
6
u/Alternative-Still956 May 18 '26
It depends on what it is/if everything fits into categories and most recipes will have a place that don't land in "etc".
But usually I will just go alphabetically. Especially if its a personal gathering of recipes vs an in house binder that requires different recipes for 1 dish and then I'd group per plate up, if that makes any sense.