
Cooking
Making A Family Recipe Binder with UniKeep’s Recipe Mini-Binder
Just in time for the holidays!
Browsing through my loose recipe collection instantly takes me back to my Mom’s kitchen in the 1970s, as my sisters and I learned how to make the dough and bake holiday sugar cookies. She must have been very patient to watch as the three of us did our best to roll out the dough and cut shapes with metal cookie cutters.
As we’ve all gotten older, those memories are even more special, and started family cooking traditions we still practice today.
Food has the special power of bringing people together, especially during the holidays. It soothes and helps us celebrate. It’s something we look forward to. And our most treasured recipes are special because they tell stories every time we use them.
Maybe you still have your mother’s or grandmother’s cookbooks, with handwritten notes and spots from spills on the pages. I still have my Grandma’s hand-written cards recipe cards for pineapple upside-down cake, chicken salad, and lemon bars and they’re the stars of my collection.
Every holiday season I use my Grandmother’s cookie recipes, I remember. I remember her telling my two sisters and me how important it was to use room-temperature eggs for sugar cookies. And how stirring the dough too much makes the sugar cookies tough.
Too many recipes?
One problem with collecting recipes? We collect too many and have no place to put them. We rip them from magazines, buy more cookbooks and watch cooking shows and write them down on scraps of paper.
Then when we finally feel like cooking them, we can’t find them. But we find them six months later (when we don’t feel like using them) and shove them right back in the drawer or inside another book. And so on.
How can we get them sorted and in some type of system so we’ll actually cook some of those recipes?
What’s the best way to organize a loose recipe collection?
How to organize a personalized recipe binder
Here is a step-by-step process for getting your family recipes organized and ready in a UniKeep recipe binder kit.
Curate your recipe collection.
We all like the results, but sometimes it’s a real pain to get organized. Especially in the kitchen. Parting with old and outdated cookbooks and recipes is tough. Take some time and go through all your recipes and decide which ones you really use (now and in the future); and which ones you simply can’t part with for sentimental reasons. Those should be the ones in your recipe binder. Additionally, kitchen professionals at Maggie’s state that practicing and perfecting the recipes that turn out the best is how you become a great cook, so you want to make sure you don’t lose the recipes for your best dishes.
Purchase your UniKeep Recipe Binder.
Unikeep’s recipe binder is pretty special because it’s a three-ring binder that snaps shut. The 100% polypropylene case stacks neatly and is fully enclosed, so your recipes are kept contained, protected, and portable.
All you do is add your recipes to the pocketed pages and write a note on the provided smaller cards.
This case-style recipe mini-binder has everything you need to get started:
- 25 mini-sized recipe card page protectors
- 50 custom-designed recipe cards
- 4 tabbed divider pages
As you add recipes to your UniKeep recipe mini-binder, you can add additional mini-sheet recipe card protectors so you can journal about favorite cooking memories and occasions. to include in the smaller pocket.
UniKeep Tip: Storing your recipes in our clear, archival page protectors protects them from spills and splatters.
Personalize your UniKeep Recipe Mini-Binder.
Assemble your supplies: Scrapbook paper or pretty crafting paper; nice pens and fine-tipped colored markers; stickers and embellishments.
- Recipes – from recipe cards, food containers/labels, magazines, and other cookbooks
- Photos – you and your family in the kitchen, during holidays, birthdays, etc.
- Extra recipe cards or plain paper
Get Creative! Make your recipe binder a keepsake.
What’s your favorite kitchen and cooking memory? Is it you with your mother, learning how to bake cupcakes for homeroom? Maybe it was the first recipe you made earning your Girl Scout cooking badge. Jotting down these memories makes your recipe binder a true keepsake.
UniKeep Tip: Try some journaling with your recipes. Jot down who was there, what you cooked, and other memories of the day.
By adding some personal notes and a few pretty stickers and paper to your pages, your personalized recipe binder can also serve as a keepsake scrapbook to hand down to your children and grandchildren.
- Include photos of your kids in the kitchen as small children and as they get older. It’s also wonderful to photograph relatives who may visit and share cooking duties and add those to your binder.
- Use the binder’s divider pages to categorize your recipes.
- Collect all your old handwritten recipes and include a note about who provided them and when: “June Edwards/Church/1989 – her famous peanut butter cookies” and insert that into a UniKeep plastic sleeve.
- Include a list of favorite pantry items – or those most needed for cooking and/or baking – in the front of your binder.
UniKeep Tip: Our pocketed page protectors just for mini-binders come in so many shapes and sizes. Use your imagination and use them for snippets from magazines, photos, memory pages, lists of favorite meals, etc.
Try a bit of scrapbooking here, too – jot down the kids’ favorite cookie cutters, sprinkles, and cookies – take photos, and include those on some pretty scrapbooking paper beside your recipes.

Journal about some special memories – events you cooked for, who was with you, etc. – in notes, you insert them beside your recipes.
Try writing your notes on a few brightly colored smaller scrapbook pages and slip them inside a UniKeep protector sheet.
- Don’t forget the “less-than-perfect” kitchen efforts! These may bring funny memories to mind in later years.
UniKeep Tip: Organize your personalized recipe binder according to your food type.
This can make it easier to find your recipes.
- Category examples include appetizers, beverages, desserts, pasta, poultry, salads, etc.
- Arrange the sections in the order you might eat a meal. For example breakfast, lunch, appetizers, salads, main courses, dessert, etc.
Add a few unique sections to your recipe binder.
These sections are for unique recipes that include dishes from multiple food groups.
- Include some categories inspired by foods from different countries, such as Chinese, French, Indian, Italian, Mexican, etc.
- Put all of the recipes you are interested in trying out in their own section.
Great for holiday gifts
Part of the tradition of keeping recipes is that you share your favorites with friends and family.
A UniKeep Recipe Mini-Binder filled with some of your favorite recipes is a great holiday gift. Even if you just include just a few recipes, giving a UniKeep Recipe Binder is a great gift for young adults new to cooking and friends and family who cook all the time.
Bon appetit!
About UniKeep
If you have a creative project or hobby, look to UniKeep for an extra creative edge or organization solution. We have a case binder for whatever you collect, play with, or enjoy. Our binders and products are available in a full line of styles and sizes, for everything from photos, crafts, video games, and recipes to wallets for CDs and DVDs.
www.unikeep.com Call 937.645.4600