How to Create a Recipe Database? (3 ways to get started)

3 Ways to Create a Recipe Database

For any professional chef or passionate spare-time cooker, having an easy-to-use recipe database is essential for each type of cooking. It often acts as the “GPS” for ingredients to reach their end destination as a finished dish. 

In this article, we’ve compiled a list of 3 efficient ways to manage and store your recipe database digitally. This way, you can avoid your index cards or notebooks being filled with eggs or maple syrup.

1. Google Sheets

Google Sheets and restaurant excel templates are a great way to organize various databases and are used by chefs (and practically every professional organization) in some shape and form. One of the most daunting parts of working with Sheets is knowing how to start.

Luckily, this can be solved by having a solid template you can build off and scale with. With Nifty, you can also manage your google account directly from your Nifty projects, making it a seamless place to store, operate and build your recipe databases. More on this below.

2. Nifty Docs

If you’re a passionate chef but not working full time as a professional yet, then Nifty Docs will make for an easy-to-build recipe database builder. White-papering your recipes is an excellent way to be productive and assist with your recipe database organization. 

Nifty docs allow you to make tables, embed images, and save your menus to keep track of meals that you have already cooked, improve your menu, and create a menu again or experience with ease.

Price: Nifty starts at only $5/month per user with unlimited tasks, custom fields, and time tracking.

Does Nifty offer a free trial? Yes, all plans come with a free 14-day trial period. Sign up for free! 🎉

3. Airtable

People in business usually use Airtable to store client databases. Also, Airtable is a tool for professional chefs looking to get organized everywhere. It is undoubtedly the most mature and feature-rich method of operating a recipe database. However, it can be challenging to get started using Airtable for a task that seems so simple.

Luckily the marketing team at Nifty put together some great starter kits that you can access in the Airtable community that have recipe database templates with active recipes ready so that you can get started. This recipe database link is an excellent place to start. One of the main reasons we prefer using Airtable over excel or Google sheets is because of all the customizations and custom field options that Airtable makes so easy to use.

The ability to embed and work your Airtable spreadsheets directly through any Nifty project using our Project View link embed makes it a breeze to operate your recipes, make a menu online, and workflows wherever possible.

Final thoughts on creating a recipe database

There are many different methods for creating and storing a recipe database. One can use Google Sheets, Nifty Docs, or a multi-level organizational Airtable solution. However, one thing is sure — using Nifty as a central hub will create a unified process. This way, you build native Google sheets in Nifty while also being able to embed more complex Airtable databases into your projects for seamless sharing.

Our advice try Nifty for free today — and thank us later! 🚀