This free printable recipe binder will help you organize your favorite recipes all in one place so you can always find the one you’re looking for!
This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.
I confess, I used to dread meal planning time. It always took me forever to decide what meals my family would have over the coming weeks because I could never seem to think of things to make. I felt like we were eating the same things all the time. And I just didn’t have a great system (or any system!) for coming up with our meal plan.
As is typical when I have an organization problem that I need to solve, my first instinct was to create a printable. I happened to be reading through my friend Toni’s book,The Complete Book of Home Organization (which is excellent, by the way!), when I came upon her suggestion of creating a recipe binder. And I knew it would be the perfect solution to my meal planning and prep dilemma.
[Psssttt… We offer more than 50 types of free printables on the blog! See them all in our library of free organizing printables!]
Free Printable Recipe Binder
Recipe Binder Supplies
For quick reference, here is a list of everything I used to assemble my recipe binder:
- Recipe Binder Printables (provided below)
- 3 Ring Binder (similar)
- Tabbed Dividers
- Label Maker
- Labeling Tape
- Clear Sheet Protectors
My recipes had been stored all over the place. On Pinterest boards. In files on my computer. In various folders in my kitchen cupboard. They were a mess!
A recipe binder would help me corral all of my favorites in one place. So that when meal planning time came, I could just grab the binder and instantly have tons of meal ideas at my fingertips. AND when it was time to actually make the meal, I had the ingredients list and instructions ready to go!
But if I was going to create a pretty recipe binder, I couldn’t just keep it all to myself. So I decided to share it with you too, dear readers!
The printable binder includes the cover shown above, as well as cover pages for 14 of the most common recipe categories. There is alsoa blank cover page to customize to your own liking.
Let’s be honest, the dessert section was my top priority when it came to assembling my recipe binder! 😉
Here is a list of all of the cover pages that are included in the recipe binder:
- Appetizers
- Bread
- Breakfast
- Casseroles
- Dessert
- Grilling
- Holidays
- Juices & Smoothies
- Meat
- Pasta
- Salad
- Slow Cooker
- Soup
- Vegetarian
- Blank Cover Page
How to Assemble the Recipe Binder
To assemble the recipe binder, I simply printed my cover pages on white card stock and slid them into a clear sleeve with a tab like these ones.
I used my label maker + clear labeling tape to create a label for the tab. You could, of course, also just write straight on the tab.
If you want to protect your recipes a little bit, you could use these untabbed clear sleeves. Then if you happen to drip any ingredients on them, they’re easy to wipe off. Once my recipes were in their sleeves, I popped them into a binder, and I was ready to go!
I love that I have all of my recipes organized in one place now. It makes meal planning and prep so much easier! I’m always amazed at how a simple binder system can really streamline a process and save a lot of time. Woot!
You can click the button below to have the recipe binder (and some bonus recipe card printables!) sent straight to your inbox!
An Extra Fast Meal Planning Strategy
Another way my free printable recipe binder helps meal planning go even faster is when I plan meals by category. To do this, I established a consistent weekly routine for our meals.
For example:
- Monday- Pasta
- Tuesday- Meat
- Wednesday- Slow Cooker
- Thursday- Vegetarian
- Friday- Breakfast for Dinner
- Saturday- Grilling
- Sunday- Leftovers
This way, I already knew which category of recipe I was going to flip to in the Recipe Binder to choose my meal for each night. When I streamlined my meal planning process by category, instead of spending what felt like hours planning, I could finish in about three minutes! Now I call that a serious win!
Our recipe binder (and recipe pages / recipe cards) have been so key in helping to make the meal planning process more organized. I’m always amazed at how streamlining a simple process like meal planning can make such a difference in our productivity.
What is your favorite way to keep your recipes organized? I’d love to hear about it in the comments below!
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Happy Organizing!
This post contains affiliate links. For more information, see my disclosures here.
