The Art of Recipe Writing: Strategies for Success

If your aim is to have a successful food blog, you won’t get far if your recipes aren’t well-written. Your readers need to be able to trust that they can rely on your recipes, from clearly understanding them to getting good results.

Firstly, your recipes should be clear and concise, making them easy for users to follow. They should also intrigue your reader enough that their curiosity is piqued enough to want to try the recipe for themselves.  On the more technical side of things, your recipes should also be optimized for search engines. Better SEO will help them rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs).

You’ll know that writing a great recipe takes time and effort. It can be tough for food bloggers to stand out from other blogs. Even if you’re an amazing cook, getting that across in your written recipes isn’t always easy. And when you don’t have much knowledge of SEO or all things digital, it can be even more challenging.

This article will help you get started and guide you through crafting excellent recipes for your blog. We’ll examine the essential elements of creating a successful recipe step by step.

Recipe structure: Crafting an easy-to-follow guide

Your readers need clear recipes to recreate your dishes successfully. You want them to be so successful that they return to your blog and recommend it to others. A study found that 47% of home cooks in the UK said they are only “fairly” good in the kitchen, so there’s a good case for keeping things simple.

However, a great recipe has to go beyond a simple list of ingredients and a set of straightforward instructions. It should also excite the reader’s senses and entice them to try making the dish. When writing a recipe, you should consider a few different elements.

Write in a logical order

Firstly, make sure you write your recipe in a logical order. Often recipes begin with a personal story behind the dish. Next, you’ll want to give an overview of the dish, followed by a list of the ingredients the reader will need. You might also include important equipment, especially if they need something that isn’t an everyday item. Then you can give step-by-step instructions on how to complete the recipe.

Keep it consistent

Using the same format for all of your recipes will ensure your readers know what to expect. It will also help grow your brand style and make it easy for them to follow your recipes every time. Whether your tone of voice is casual or more formal, maintain it across all your recipes to reinforce your identity. Finally, before publishing, review each recipe carefully for consistency in formatting, language, and accuracy.

As we’ll see later in this article, using a tool to create bespoke recipe cards is a great way to ensure consistent formatting and branding across all your recipes. WP Recipe Maker is a WordPress plugin designed for just this purpose! 

For instance, check out the recipe below by Fabulessly Frugal. This blog uses a dependable and consistent recipe format showing the Equipment, Ingredients, Instructions, Recipe Notes, and Nutrition: 

Be concise

To ensure your recipes are easy to follow, it’s important to be clear and concise, particularly with the method. Avoid vague phrases that don’t give specific times or measurements, and carefully consider which directions you give for the techniques they should use. Instead of “bake until done”, give a time and/or signs to look for to ensure the dish cooks perfectly. Be careful with specific verbs, from stir and fold to fry and saute, and choose the right one for the right situation.

Offer ingredient alternatives

Alternative suggestions for uncommon ingredients can make recipes more accessible to more people. It’s also a good idea to offer ingredient alternatives for specific dietary requirements, such as dairy-free, gluten-free, or nut-free requirements.

Clever title formulation: Engaging your audience

The title of a recipe is the first thing your readers will see, so it needs to grab their attention and draw them in. There’s a lot you can say with just a title. Use your recipe title to paint a picture of your dish that describes its taste, texture, or source of inspiration. Thinking about how to evoke curiosity or nostalgia. This could help to create a compelling title that engages your audience.

Being creative is important, but it’s also smart to think about SEO. By researching relevant keywords by using SEO tools such as Ahrefs or Mangools, you can include them in your title to align them with your target reader’s search intent. Use the right keywords, and you can boost the visibility and success of your food blog.

Ultimately, you need to balance creativity, SEO, and writing a clear title. While you can add some creative flair, try to avoid titles that are too complex, flowery, or ambiguous. Doing so could make the dish sound overly complex and without direction.

Ingredients and measurements: Ensuring accuracy and clarity

Accuracy should always be a top priority when developing and writing a recipe. You want readers to be able to follow your recipe, and accurate measurements and ingredients are vital for this.

Depending on your target audience, you should start by choosing and sticking to one system of measurements. This means choosing between cups, grams, and ounces based on the country your recipes are aimed at. Alternately, if you’re going for a global audience, you can instantly convert measurements using a tool like WP Recipe Maker, as seen in this recipe below by Fabulessly Frugal:

Start by listing the ingredients in the order they will be used. If the recipe contains multiple elements, you can break the ingredients down further into categories. For example, if writing a recipe for a pie, you can have one section titled “For the pastry” and another “For the filling.” When an ingredient is used more than once in one section of the recipe, break this down too. For example, 1 cup of blueberries (plus a handful for garnishing). If all the ingredients are used at the same time, such as when mixing dry ingredients in baking, list them in descending order of weight.

Specificity is vital when writing out your ingredients. For example, should the reader use unsalted or salted butter? Do they need a medium or large egg? Be specific with measurements too. Suggest an eighth or fourth of a teaspoon rather than “a pinch” of salt.

It’s a good idea to include simple preparation in the ingredients list too. For example, “3 eggs, beaten” or “1 onion, finely chopped”. This helps cooks prepare all of their essential ingredients before they start cooking.

Think about what questions your readers might have and how you can answer them before they’re asked. They might want to know whether they can substitute certain ingredients or what tools or equipment they need. If it’s a recipe that you make with a stand mixer, can they choose to mix by hand or with hand-held electric beaters? The best way to anticipate what some of these questions might be is by having someone else test your recipe.

Finally, don’t forget to include how many portions or people the dish will serve. Your readers need to know the approximate yield they’ll get, especially if they’re cooking for guests.

From basic recipe to inspiring creation: Adding your unique flair

Accuracy is important, but it’s also pretty dry without adding your own personal flair to your recipes. If you want your recipes to stand out, use personal anecdotes, family traditions, and other relevant stories to add personality and make your recipe interesting. Talk about regional or cultural ingredients or the backgrounds of your dish if it’s noteworthy.

Be careful to balance both creativity and clarity in your recipes. When you’re telling anecdotes and writing related stories, you can let your creativity fly. However, when writing your ingredients and method, use clear language and be concise.

Remember to include fantastic images with your recipe, too. This will help sell the dish by increasing interest and showing your readers what it should look like when it’s done. It’s important to ensure your images are properly optimized for your website, meaning they should be compressed so they don’t bloat your site, and have the correct metadata to boost your site SEO.

My Korean Kitchen is an exemplary food blogger who thinks about the impact of their food photography and pays attention to the subtle details, like the background, props, and plating. 

Adapting recipes to cater for dietary needs: A move towards inclusivity

Many people have certain dietary restrictions, whether through choice or for medical reasons. Being aware of these and offering alternative ingredients and preparation methods helps to ensure your recipes appeal to a wider audience.

If you’re going to suggest alternatives, be sure to test your recipe using these ingredients. You need to know whether they can make a straight swap or if you need to suggest different cooking times or measurements.

Some of the main dietary requirements you might need to consider include:

• Vegetarian
• Vegan
• Gluten-free and coeliac
• Dairy-free
• Nut-free

Discovering the power of SEO in recipe writing with WP Recipe Maker

Search engine optimization (SEO) is important for any food blogger to understand. Implementing good SEO practices will help you increase the visibility of your content. SEO is all about how often a web page appears in search engine results and where it ranks in the results. When your recipe appears in the first few results, you’re more likely to get more traffic.

When you have a WordPress blog, the right plugins can make SEO much more simple. WP Recipe Maker is an essential plugin for food bloggers who want to improve their SEO. It has multiple features to make any blogger’s life easier and save them a lot of time. With WP Recipe Maker, recipe details are automatically included in the metadata. This means that recipes can appear as rich snippets and rich cards in Google’s search results.

Another important element for SEO is the number and quality of backlinks to your site. Other people sharing your content on social media is important too, helping you get more traffic. WP Recipe Maker’s share buttons can instantly be added to all your recipes for easy Pinterest pinning, sharing on Facebook and X (Twitter), or sharing via email.

“Integrating social sharing buttons into your online recipes is akin to handing your readers a megaphone to spread the word about your culinary creations. It empowers those who enjoy your recipes to easily share them with their own networks, essentially becoming advocates for your brand. This simple yet effective strategy can significantly broaden your audience reach, as each share has the potential to introduce your recipes to new eyes and taste buds.”

Birthe Vandermeeren

Cofounder of Bootstrapped Ventures

• WordPress
• Instagram
• Mail

Let’s start creating: Your next steps towards recipe writing success

Always start your recipes with the intention to be clear and concise when you write them. Clarity is essential if you want to provide helpful recipes that produce consistent results. But remember that it’s still important to be creative and appeal to your readers with compelling titles and engaging introductions.

Conducting thorough research and testing your recipe is crucial to developing a reliable recipe. Test your recipe yourself and get family or friends to test it, too, so you can check that it’s as good as it can be.

If you want to streamline your food blog, WP Recipe Maker will help you streamline everything with its numerous features. You can easily create recipe cards, customizing them with your own branding to keep everything consistent across all of your recipes. This will help you create an excellent user experience every time. You can also use WP Recipe Maker to insert nutritional information, helping you provide even more information for your readers and setting your blog apart from the competition.

Download WP Recipe Maker today and take your food blog to the next level.