How to Write a Recipe (So Someone Else Can Cook It)

Writing down a recipe you already know sounds simple. It isn't - because you've stopped noticing what you do. You don't measure the oil. You don't time the onions. You know by looking when it's ready. All of that is in your hands, and none of it is on the page.

Part one: the process

1. Cook it, and write while you cook

Don't write from memory. Cook the dish and record what you're actually doing as you go. Weigh things you'd normally eyeball. Time things you'd normally judge. Note the pan size, the heat setting, the moment you decided it was done and what told you.

Voice notes are ideal - you can talk while your hands are busy. This single step is the difference between a recipe and a rough sketch.

2. Write it up the same day

While you can still remember what you meant by "a bit more". Rough is fine; the tidying comes later.

3. Add the headnote

A few lines at the top: what the dish is, where it came from, when you make it, what to serve with it. In a family cookbook this is the bit people read for pleasure, and it's where you can be honest - this is my mum's, and I've never got it quite as good as hers.

4. Get someone else to cook it

The test that matters, and the one everyone skips. Hand it to someone who doesn't know the dish and don't answer questions. Every place they hesitate is a gap in the writing. Every question they ask is a line you need to add.

Fix those, and you have a recipe that will still work in fifty years, in someone else's kitchen, without you standing next to them.

Part two: the ingredients list

Order them by use. Not alphabetically, not grouped by cupboard. The list should read like a script for the method - first thing used, first thing listed. If the reader has to scan up and down looking for the cumin, you've made it harder than it needs to be.

Weigh, don't guess. A cup of flour varies by up to 20% depending on who scooped it. Grams don't. For baking especially, weight is the only honest unit.

Put the prep in the ingredient line. 1 onion, finely diced. 200g butter, cubed and chilled. It lets the reader do their prep before they start cooking, which is the entire point of having a list.

Be specific where it matters. "Tomatoes" isn't enough if you mean tinned plum. "Cheese" isn't enough if it has to be Parmesan. Say what you mean - and if a substitute works, say that too.

Group by component. If there's a sauce, a base and a topping, use subheadings. It turns one daunting list of forty lines into three short ones.

Part three: the method

One action per numbered step. Each step should be a thing you do, not a paragraph of things you do. Compare:

Fry the onions until soft, then add the garlic and spices and cook for a minute before adding the tomatoes and simmering for 20 minutes.

That's three steps pretending to be one. The person cooking is reading with one eye while holding a pan - give them somewhere to look back up to.

Lead with the verb. Heat the oil. Add the onions. Not you're going to want to heat the oil at this point.

Give a cue with every time. "Cook for 5 minutes" is a guess. "Cook for 5 minutes, until the onions are soft and translucent but not browned" is an instruction. Every time you write a time, ask how you actually know it's ready - sound, smell, colour, texture - and write that down too. The cues are the part that makes a recipe teachable.

Name the pan and the heat. A wide, heavy frying pan over a medium heat. Half the failed recipes in the world are someone using a small pan on too high a heat.

Say what it should look like at the end. One sentence describing the finished dish saves the reader from serving it half-cooked.

Part four: the bits people forget

This is where family recipes fall down, and it's the fastest thing on this page to fix. Include all of it.

Writing up someone else's recipe

Harder, because you can't ask the page a question. If the person is still around, cook it with them and write as they go - that afternoon is worth more than any amount of tidying up afterwards.

If they aren't, work from what you have and be honest about the gaps. Type the original exactly as written first, vague bits and all - "a good knob of butter", "bake till done" - because that voice is worth keeping. Then add your best reconstruction underneath as a separate layer. There's a full method for this in how to digitise old handwritten recipe cards.

Common questions

What is the standard format for a recipe?

Title, headnote, yield, timings, ingredients grouped by component and listed in order of use, then a numbered method with one action per step, then notes on storage and variations. Use the same order on every page - a reader should be able to find the oven temperature without reading anything.

Should recipes be written in grams or cups?

Grams. Cups measure volume, and volume varies with how tightly something is packed - flour by up to a fifth. If you're publishing for a US audience as well, give both, with grams first.

Can you copyright a recipe?

A bare list of ingredients generally isn't protected, but the written method, headnote and any surrounding text are. So you can cook and re-share a dish, but you should write the instructions in your own words rather than copying someone else's, and credit the source you adapted it from.

How long should a recipe be?

As long as it needs and not a word longer. If a recipe won't fit on one page, that's usually a sign the method has paragraphs where it should have steps. Cut words before you shrink the type.

How do I write a recipe that's never been measured?

Cook it and measure as you go - but measure into a bowl rather than straight into the pan, so you can weigh what the cook actually used after the fact. Then cook it again from your own written version and see whether it comes out the same.