Have you ever wondered how professional chefs organize their recipes? Whether you're already a chef or are looking at a career in the culinary arts, keeping track of all your recipes and keeping them in order is important because it helps maintain a smooth workflow and helps you know what you're doing next.
In this article, we'll go over some of the best techniques for how to organize your recipes, as well as why organizing recipes is so important in a professional kitchen.
Importance of recipe organization in cooking
There are plenty of reasons why it's important to organize your recipes, especially in professional culinary services. Unlike at home, where you might have two dishes to make at most, professional kitchens are very busy and everything needs to be done to very tight time constraints and high standards. Plus, professional kitchens will have hundreds of recipe options to organize, so it’s not just as simple as finding your favorite recipe from a book.
Time-saving
One of the biggest reasons for organizing recipes is that it can save time. Depending on the organization system you use, you should be able to quickly find recipes by dish type, style, how long it takes to cook, required ingredients, and more. This can make it much easier if you are trying to plan a set menu or if you need to find a single recipe that someone has requested.
Consistency in cooking
Consistency is important in professional cooking. People should always know what they are getting when they order a specific dish, and consistency is key for word-of-mouth recommendations. Being on top of recipe organization helps avoid issues with people getting muddled between different recipes, especially if there are several similar recipes to pick from.
Cost considerations
For kitchen management, the cost of each individual dish is important to make sure that incomings and outgoings are balanced appropriately. A good recipe organization system will let you track the costs of every dish, and it can be updated frequently to reflect current market prices so that managers can decide when to change the price of a dish.
Accurately assigning inventory
Having recipes organized can help with inventory issues as well. Arranging recipes and searching for them based on the ingredients they use can help cut down on food waste. It can also be useful to organize recipes so you know exactly what you need to order for a kitchen, letting you make a shopping list quickly and easily.
Techniques used by professional chefs to organize recipes
Of course, there is no one simple way that professional chefs organize their recipes. In fact, during their culinary careers, most people will find a dozen different organizational systems that have been put in place, including a recipe card system, a digital cookbook, or any other type of recipe collection. However, there are some main methods of recipe management that are worth knowing about.
World-class studies in culinary expertise
Embark on the exciting journey to become a professional chef with a degree from Ecole Ducasse that combines practical coursework, theoretical studies, and professional internships.
Bachelor of culinary arts
Recipe binders
One of the most common ways of keeping recipes organized is with recipe binders. Rather than keeping recipe books to flick through for recipe referencing, chefs will have the recipes they need collated in binders. This means that they can quickly and easily find necessary items without other recipes getting in the way. Of course, while binders give you quick access to recipes if there aren't too many to flick through, it can be slow compared to some modern methods.
Digital recipe management
Recipe software is fast overtaking recipe binders in a lot of kitchens. Usually, this will be a database of recipes that will display all the relevant information, including timings, ingredients, costs, and so on.
There are several advantages to using a digital recipe filing system compared to a physical recipe organizer. Computers are capable of handling efficient recipe search parameters, letting you find recipes based on the theme, herbs, ingredients, cook time, and more. You can also easily update and change recipes when you are improving dishes if the recipes are stored digitally. With a physical copy, you would have to amend or re-write the recipe sheet.
Categorization of recipes
Regardless of how they store their recipes, one of the most straightforward ways of storing and organizing recipes is recipe categorization. If you're unsure how to categorize recipes, it can be similar to what you see in many recipe books, where recipes will be split into starters, mains, sides, desserts, and more.
Of course, in professional kitchens where chefs are handling more types of dishes, more cuisines, and more variations, the categories can be fine-tuned to make them easier to search through.
What is a good way to organize recipes while learning the culinary arts?
If you want to learn about the culinary arts, you will no doubt start to develop a recipe organization system that suits you. However, there are a few things you might want to consider when you are looking at how to categorize recipes.
For example, you need to make sure that your organization system can grow and develop as you do, and you also need to make sure that it is as simple as possible for you to get to grips with and find the information you need. Of course, whether you intend to work as a pastry chef, train as a head chef, or become a chocolatier, you will continue to grow and develop, so it can be worth maintaining flexibility of organization throughout your career.
Immerse yourself in the hands-on study of pastry skills
This world-class course combines fundamentals, management skills, and internships to give you a wide set of skills and experience to launch your career
Pastry degree
Flexible folder systems
Keeping your folders flexible can be very helpful. You might find that you want to re-categorize your dishes at a later date, or that you can eliminate recipes that you learn by heart. Having a flexible folder system, whether this is digital or physical, makes this much easier. If you're using physical copies, it's good to be able to remove a recipe from the stack or folder in order to follow it closely while you cook, until you are more familiar with it.
Recipe testing and modification tracking
As you develop skills, you will no doubt want to modify and build on the recipes you learn. A technique you learn from a French pastry school might be something you want to improve on, and it's important that your recipe organization system allows you to make changes.
This is arguably one of the biggest reasons to pick a digital organization system as you will be able to make lots of modifications without the document getting messy, and you can also easily retain multiple versions of the same recipe.
How to organize recipes: summary
If you're working in a professional kitchen, your recipes are your livelihood. Keeping them organized is vital, and there are many different ways to do this, from thinking about recipe category to having digital cookbooks.
Whether you want to have physical copies or digital recipes, you need to make sure that you can check through them quickly and always find the information you need. Think that being a chef might be a good career for you? Try a culinary degree from Ecole Ducasse to help you get started on a dynamic career.
