Why It Pays To Handwrite The Recipes You Love

We've all been there: You randomly Google ingredients to find a recipe that's perfect for a quick and easy weekday dinner, and end up making a meal that you love, and know you'll want to cook again and again. How do you save the recipe? You could stash the link in a spreadsheet, add it to your overflowing bookmarked folder, or simply rely on the fate of the algorithm to bring it up the next time you search a similar string of ingredients. You could even use a recipe organization app if you're feeling fancy. However, there's a pretty strong case to be made that the best option is refreshingly old-school: write it down.

Yes, writing a recipe by hand takes more time and effort than copying and pasting a link, but it more than pays off in practical and sentimental value. Writing helps us remember things better, so the mere act of writing the recipe down is a useful memory aid. What's more, links don't last forever. Beloved internet recipes often get taken down, never to be seen (or cooked) again. A whopping 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 were no longer available as of 2024, according to data from the Pew Research Center, and that could very well include the recipe for those incredible no-bake cookies you whipped up a few Christmases ago.

Handwriting the instructions for your favorite dishes has other benefits beyond protecting you from tragically losing a beloved recipe. First of all, you can easily add notes and make changes when handwriting a recipe. If you always substitute olive oil for butter when baking that chocolate cake, you should write the recipe that way. Plus, while your recipe book certainly doesn't have to be fancy, you can have fun putting a creative flair on your handwritten entries (despite a clear lack of artistic talent, I personally enjoy embellishing my recipes with fancy fonts and sketches). It's also quite refreshing not to constantly have to look at a screen while cooking, and it's probably better for your technology (at least until Apple decides to release its life-altering crumb-free keyboard).

Perhaps more important than all the practical advantages, writing down recipes comes with immeasurable sentimental value. Your personal recipe book, filled with handwritten notes, is a priceless possession. Being able to share that with family and friends, and eventually pass it down to your descendants, is one of the best gifts you can give to yourself and your loved ones. Taking the time to write the recipes you cherish is truly a gift that keeps on giving. If you're looking for other ways to protect the dishes you love, there are even more tips for preserving family recipes, like cooking with the elders who introduced them to you.