How to create recipe cards for kitchen staff

A great recipe card answers four questions a cook has at the pass: what is it, what is in it, how do I make it, and what should it look like.

What to include

• Item name and category
• Portion or batch yield
• Ingredients with quantities in the unit you actually scale in
• Method, in the order it happens
• A photo of the finished plate

Write quantities in the unit the cook weighs in

A card that says 0.5 kg flour makes a cook convert in their head at the pass. A card that says 500 g matches the scale in front of them. It is a small thing that gets slightly wrong slightly often, which is the exact shape of a portioning problem.

A card that works

• Sourdough loaf, Bakery, yields 2 loaves
• Bread flour: 1,000 g
• Water: 720 g
• Starter: 200 g
• Salt: 20 g
• Method: mix and rest 45 minutes, fold four times at 30 minute intervals, bulk 4 hours, shape, cold proof overnight, bake 20 minutes covered and 20 uncovered
• A photo of the finished loaf

Everything a cook needs, nothing they do not. Note the yield line: without it, a card is ambiguous about whether 1,000 g of flour makes one loaf or four.

What to leave out

Costs. Costs are for the owner's view, not the line. Use a Costing Sheet for that.

This is not secrecy for its own sake. A cook scaling a batch needs grams and minutes, and a line card carrying margins is a document that cannot be pinned up in a kitchen, photographed, or handed to a new starter without a conversation first.

Recipe Cards in Dishboard

Recipe Cards are included free. Open any menu item or prep recipe and choose Recipe Card to view a print-ready page with costs hidden. You can also print all recipe cards in one go from the Print Recipes page.