Stand Out: Recipe “Formulas” and Multiple Recipes on One Page

Creating recipe “formulas” and condensing multiple recipes into one post is one way I kickstarted my blog when I started out. It’s something I started to do early on because I was bursting with ideas of things I wanted to post but it would be impossible to cook/shoot/blog everything. And some of them are still amongst my most popular recipes!

What I started to do was create multiple recipes in one post by writing them up almost as a “guide”, “formula” or writing up recipes in a condensed way and fitting in many recipes on one page. It’s a great way to cram more information into less words and increase information value for your readers.

This works really well for when you have recipes with a common theme. It won’t work if you have to write up completely different directions for every single recipe, it gets far too long and complicated.

And you don’t need a photo of every recipe! I just include a few and them create collages for the post.

Here are some examples of how I did it.

1. Recipe “Formula”: Build Your Own Granola – this has proven to be really popular on Pinterest. Even though the whole recipe is on the infographic, the click through rate has been on the high side of my average.

It’s been quite a popular post but also one I’m really embarrassed about because I created this before I got a DSLR (it is one of the first posts I ever did!) so I used stock images to create the infographic. And I made the killer mistake of using an image that doesn’t properly reflect the actual recipe.

But it’s a great example of how you can use a “formula” for a recipe as an actual post.

2. MULTIPLE RECIPES in ONE POST: 8 Simple Classic Italian Pastas – I have a stack of quick “go to” pastas and I wanted to blog them all! But they have so many common steps that I thought it would make sense to post a bunch of them in one go instead of separately. In this “8 Simple Classic Italian Pastas” post, I wrote up the common steps at the top then the unique steps separately for each recipe.

I also condensed it onto on page and made it a PDF so it could be printed out which I think people find helpful (actually, I have this stuck on my fridge!).

Here’s a screenshot of how the recipes are written in the post. I use the TablePress plug in so I can format the recipes in a multiple column format.

And here’s a link to the PDF I created so the recipes can be printed out on one page.

PDF: 8 Simple Classic Italian Pastas

3. FORMULA – Chinese Stir Fried Noodles – Build Your Own – Here’s another example of a recipe formula. It is based around an all purpose stir fry sauce which is also on my blog (“cross pollination”!! Always cross promote your posts when you can!). This wasn’t huge on Pinterest (though the counter is completely out, that I know!) but gets quite good traffic from Google and the click through rate to the stir fry sauce is really high.

In addition to the above, I’ve also done the following:

• 12 Essential Marinades
• 20 Essential Salad Dressings
• 10 Stir Fries using an All Purpose Stir Fry Sauce

Take Aways

• Condensed recipes and “formulas” are unique and were the way I got some early “runs” on the board when I started out with my blog;
• They are a great way to add value to your readers. More information in less words + recipe flexibility;
• With the right graphic, they can be very eye catching on social media;
• They work best when you have a number of similar recipes or recipes with a common theme / ingredient / technique;
• I don’t recommend this for recipes you are creating from scratch – it’s a LOT of work! It works great for recipes already in your repertoire;
• It is difficult to write multiple recipes up neatly into a Recipe template (like Easy Recipes), so help your readers by condensing it into a printable PDF (which you just upload like an image into your Media Library); and
• The TablePress plug in is handy for writing multiple recipes in a table format.

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Have you posted anything like this before? What’s your experience been?

– Nagi x