December 12, 2022

How to Make a Holiday Recipe Binder

I’m a big fan of recipe binders and have been sharing them online here since the beginning of the blog – I actually posted my first recipe binder back in 2009. You’re going to love a Holiday Recipe Binder if you have recipes that you’d like to easily refer back to or keep track of. Through the years I’ve updated pages and some details but I love that they are old and quite a few of the recipes go back to when my husband and I were first married over twenty years ago. I also love including copies of family recipes too.

Years ago, I outgrew the one ‘Recipe Binder’ and split that one binder into three: Recipes, Desserts, Holidays. If you’re not interested in doing a recipe binder, might I suggest a Holiday Recipe Binder OR if you are already a recipe binder fan, maybe you’d like to add a Holiday Recipe Binder to your collection? I love menu planning and looking back through recipes and cookbooks and find the binders to be scrapbook-y and a visual history of sorts. It’s super simple and might just save your sanity next year when you’re looking for that awesome fudge recipe you made last year and can’t remember where you found it!

I used the Holidays & Celebrations Divider for the inside cover from the printable kit in my shop – Dinner Rotation & Menu Planning Guide Kit – it includes a full Recipe Binder Kit with tabs. I like keeping recipes I haven’t tried yet in the pocket – once it’s a keeper it gets a permanent spot in a plastic sleeve.

You can see in my Recipe Binder Kit below that I used the tabs included in the kit – I find it necessary in this binder because it’s so much larger and more extensive.

I love the simplicity of a Holiday Recipe Binder – make a decision on how you want to organize it and start to file away these special recipes. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Make dividers for each holiday and put them in calendar order, for example: Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Birthdays.
• Divide it into 2-3 sections: Holiday Main Dishes, Holiday Side Dishes, Holiday Desserts.
• Maybe you just want to do a Birthdays Binder or a Christmas Binder or a Thanksgiving Binder – you don’t have to combine all the holidays into one binder, you could do separate binders for each occasion!
• Just put it all in a binder as you get started and make a decision later on your sections.

When I first started this Holiday Recipe Binder I photocopied the recipes in a holiday color – you can see some red pages from those days. Now I just cut out a recipe from a magazine or print it on white paper from my printer.

Larger recipes are folded in half and occasionally if I have multiple different recipes of the same item I’ll pair them in the same sleeve so I can access them and cross reference the recipe.

Here are a couple supplies I’ve used to make my Recipe Binders:

• Dinner Rotation & Menu Planning Guide Kit
• a binder (or 2 or 3) – similar to what I used
• bookplates – not necessary but cute
• plastic sleeves to put the recipes in – this protects them, but you could omit them and three-hole punch the recipes if you’d prefer
• that stack of recipes that you have in your kitchen cupboard or drawer – put them to use!
• divider pages if you’d like

Do you have a Holiday Recipe Binder?