De-Clutter Your Home: Challenge #3 Complete (De-Clutter Your Recipes)

Another week has passed… did you de-clutter your recipes? After I de-cluttered my books last week, I was actually really looking forward to getting my recipes de-cluttered as well.

It took me all week long to organize all of them. I had so many recipes… in cookbooks, online and in my recipe binder. I did a little bit at a time and finally finished yesterday. I really wish I had just picked one day and spent a few hours completing the task.

I chose to organize my recipes in a recipe binder (I also kept a few of my favourite cookbooks). I love my super simple cover:

The very first thing that I did was go through my recipe binder and take all of my recipes out of the page protectors. I also deleted all of the saved recipes on my computer that I didn’t plan to make again.

I had to thoroughly clean my binder and the page protectors, as there were lots of splashes and smears. It was not a pretty sight. I really need to wipe them down every so often.

I got rid of all of the recipes that we didn’t like and put them in the recycle bin.

The remaining recipes were then printed from the computer after I typed them up and they all looked the same (you obviously don’t have to do this.. I’m just a little OCD about my organizing and I like everything to look the same!). This is really what took the longest amount of time throughout this process, so I wouldn’t suggest doing it (unless you really want to and have the time of course).

I purchased divider tabs from Walmart and separated my recipes into the following categories:

- Pizza & Pastas
- Breads
- Poultry
- Other Mains
- Desserts
- Side Dishes
- Breakfast
- Soup & Salad

After deciding on my categories, I organized all of my printed recipes into those categories and then stuck them in the binder in their proper places.

There are little pockets on the inside of the binder and I use the front one for recipes that we want to try, and the back one for recipes that we tried and loved (and that I have to type up and put into the binder).

Once my binder was organized, I went through my very small collection of cookbooks.

I hardly ever use cookbooks, so I only kept the ones that had recipes I still really wanted to try in them. Once I try all the recipes that I want, I will get rid of the cookbooks (since the recipe would be typed up and put into my recipe binder).

I ended up getting rid of 6 books.

I kept 7 and they sit in the center of our hutch in the dining room.

My recipe binder sits on top of the fridge in our kitchen and it’s so much easier to find recipes now.

I find that making dinner takes less time because my recipes are right there in front of me – I don’t have to scramble to find the one that I want right before it’s time to cook.

Did you de-clutter your recipes this week? If so, please share your results!

Stop by tomorrow to get ready for the De-Clutter Your Home challenge #4!

More from this series:
- De-Clutter Your Toys (Challenge Complete)
- De-Clutter Your Books (Challenge Complete)
- De-Clutter Your Recipes (Challenge Complete)
- De-Clutter A Cabinet (Challenge Complete)
- De-Clutter Your Coupons (Challenge Complete)
- De-Clutter Your Email