The only recipe box you need

Quaint recipe boxes like the one pictured above used to be commonplace, but these days your recipe box is just as likely to be virtual. Many recipe websites include a “recipe box” feature, but you may not be able to rely on it. For example, if you’re a user of Serious Eats, you may have noticed that as of December 10, their recipe box is no longer. They are not planning to replace it.

Serious Eats used a third-party vendor, Ziplist, to manage its recipe box and shopping list. Many recipe websites use a similar third-party service that is not developed or managed by the site itself. Therefore they all run the same risk of the vendor pulling the plug, leaving users in the lurch. The recent Serious Eats event prompted us to remind everyone of the convenience of using Eat Your Books to organize all of their recipes, regardless of where those recipes are located. Basic Membership is free and includes unlimited online recipes.

Over 80 websites and blogs, like Serious Eats, are fully indexed on EYB. All you have to do to see all recipes from that site in your search is to add the site to your Bookshelf. You can easily do this by browsing the list of indexed blogs and clicking the +Bookshelf button. If you have favorite recipes from a site, you can Bookmark them and add them to categories of Bookmarks that you control, making the customization superior to website recipe boxes. You can use indexed recipes to develop shopping lists, too.

And of course you aren’t limiting yourself to one site – you can add multiple blogs to your Bookshelf, plus you can index recipes that you find on other sites. (Add those recipes via the Bookmarklet.) You can index your personal recipes, too, a feature not offered on other websites. Upgrade to a Premium Membership to add unlimited cookbooks to your Bookshelf (the Basic Membership is limited to five cookbooks).

If you still have recipes in a virtual recipe box on another site, it’s a good idea to take a few minutes to add them to your EYB Bookshelf before that recipe box goes the way of the dodo bird.