Recipe Organization

So I have a lot of magazine subscriptions. I’m not sure when it got to this point, but I know get Real Simple (my all-time favorite), Rachael Ray, Food Network, Bon Appetit, and Food & Wine. And those are just the food and home related magazines, I also get Entertainment Weekly and Time which are weekly magazines – boy those ones can really build up if I don’t keep up with them. Thankfully the entertainment magazines don’t usually have recipes in them or my collection of ripped-out magazine pages would be even more out of control than it already is. But, thanks to my mom, I came up with a solution!

I used to keep my favorite cooking magazines stacked on my counter like cookbooks, with pages flagged for recipes I wanted to try – boy did that take up at lot of space! I don’t know what I was ever thinking with that method. Then my mom started organizing her recipes in a binder filled with those plastic sleeves – genius! So I took that idea and ran with it. I bought a binder at my local office supply store as well as a few packets of the aforementioned plastic sleeves – and set to work organizing my recipes. Personally, I have my binder split up by plastic tabs into Breakfast; Soups, Stews and Chili, Entrees, Appetizers/Drinks and Sweets. Check it out below:

Also, I rip out A LOT of recipes so I set up a secondary system of folders, to use for recipes that I haven’t tried yet. That way, a recipe only makes it into the binder when it’s a tried and true favorite. Here are my folders below, I have two folders, so that’s four pockets that are labeled for Sides, Burgers/Sandwiches, Entrees and Pastas/Soups. At least now my recipe collection is closer to controlled chaos!

I hope this organization idea helps! Any other suggestions on organizing recipes?