How to Save and Preserve Your Family Recipes

Most families have their go-to meals and recipes. Some have been passed down for generations; others are newer favourites that everyone asks for when they come home.

Does your family have a food tradition? Does Grandma have a famous apple pie recipe? Did your great-grandfather make homemade pasta in Italy? Whatever those special dishes may be, consider saving the old recipes and the new ones for the generations to come.

Here are a few ways to preserve the recipes, including the ones that have never made it onto paper.

Gather Up Your Family Recipes

First, find out where your family recipes are at this very minute. Are they scattered around the kitchen? Organized on index cards? Or are they meals someone has cooked so often that the instructions have never been written down?

Wherever the recipes are currently stored, think about how your children and other relatives would find and use them. A system that makes sense to the person doing all the cooking may need a little explanation for everyone else.

Gather the recipes before choosing how to organize them.

Organize Your Family Recipes

If you want future generations to cook these meals, keep the recipes somewhere they can find them. One convenient collection is easier to use than scraps hidden in several drawers.

Grease-stained or faded paper may be difficult to read. Keep those originals if they matter to you, and make clear copies for everyday cooking. New recipe cards can go into a box, or printed pages into a family cookbook. A binder is useful because you can keep adding recipes and changing pages as the collection grows.

Go Digital!

Another way to organize the recipes is to make digital copies. Photograph or scan handwritten pages so the family can keep the handwriting as well as the instructions.

Create a shared folder or an online cookbook that relatives can use and add to. Keep a backup too. The collection can grow as different people contribute their own recipes. Wherever family members end up living, they can have a copy of the dishes they remember, rather than depending on one person to find the original card.

Pro Tip

Sharing recipes with everyone in your family is about appreciating traditions and learning more about your family's history. When cooking your favourite meals or organizing the recipes, don't forget to share your cooking stories with your children and relatives. Learning where a dish came from, or hearing the funny story of how someone burned a batch of brownies, can be an entertaining way to talk about family history. Keep those memories with the recipes so they can be passed along too.