Write a standard recipe card your kitchen will use

A standard recipe card is the written version of a dish: what goes into it, in what quantities, how it is made, how it is plated and what it should look like when it reaches the pass. Every kitchen has dishes; fewer have cards; fewer still have cards the team actually uses. More often, the recipe lives in the head chef's head, a few notes on a laminated sheet that is three versions out of date, and a photo on someone's phone.

That matters for three reasons. Without a card, the same dish tastes and looks different depending on who cooks it, which guests notice. Portions drift, which costs money on every plate. And allergen information, which a kitchen must be able to give guests accurately, depends on knowing exactly what is in each dish, including the sauce somebody tweaked last week.

This guide covers the fields a standard recipe card needs, the ones that are always ignored and should not be, how to write it so the line will use it, and how to keep it honest when a chef improvises. Every figure in it is an example.

A recipe card does several jobs at once, and a good one is designed for all of them.

A card written only for one of these, such as a costing sheet with no method, or a method with no quantities, fails at the others.

A standard recipe card needs these, in roughly this order.

For each ingredient: the name, the specification (brand, grade, size or cut where it matters), the quantity and the unit. Quantities in weights and volumes, not "a handful" or "to taste", except for seasoning, which can be noted as such. List sub-recipes, such as a sauce or a stock, by name, with a reference to their own cards.

Numbered steps, short and in the order they are done. Include temperatures, times and the checks that tell the cook it is ready: the colour, the texture, the internal temperature. Separate the prep steps, done in advance, from the service steps, done to order.

How the dish is assembled and presented: the plate or bowl, the order components go on, where the garnish sits. A photograph of the finished dish is worth more than any description here, and it is the one thing the line will look at during service.

The allergens the dish contains, including those in sub-recipes and garnishes, and whether it suits particular diets. In the UK and the EU, fourteen allergens must be declared; the Food Standards Agency's allergen guidance for food businesses sets out what businesses must do. Elsewhere, check the rules where you trade.

How long prepared components keep, at what temperature, and how they should be labelled. This is where the recipe card meets the food safety system.

Some fields are left blank on almost every card, and they are often the most useful.

A recipe card that is used during service is read in seconds, with wet hands, under pressure. Write it for that.

Keep a fuller version, with the costing and the development notes, in the office or the recipe system. The card on the line is the working copy.

The card is where portion control starts. Each component's portion should be stated as a weight, a volume or a count, and the card should say how it is measured: weighed on the scale, a numbered ladle, a set number of pieces.

Give the line the tools to match the card. If the card says 50 millilitres of sauce, the station needs a 50 millilitre ladle. If it says 160 grams of fish, the fish should ideally be portioned at prep, so the line picks up portions that are already right. A card that specifies portions the line has no way to measure will not be followed.

Most dishes depend on components made in advance: stocks, sauces, dressings, doughs, pickles. Each deserves its own card, with its own yield, method and storage notes, and each dish card should refer to it by name.

This matters for consistency, for costing and especially for allergens. A sauce made with a stock that contains celery brings celery into every dish that uses it. If the stock card changes, every dish that uses it needs its allergen information checked. Keeping sub-recipes on their own cards, linked to the dishes, makes that possible.

An invented card for a braised short rib main, as it might appear on the line:

The line needs only the portion line, the service steps, the allergens and the photo during service. Everything else is there for prep, costing and training.

Chefs improve dishes, and good kitchens let them. The problem is not the change but the change that never reaches the card. A sauce adjusted on a busy night, a garnish swapped because the usual one ran out, a portion nudged up because a regular complained: each is reasonable, and each makes the card wrong if it is not written down.

A few rules keep the card honest without stopping anyone cooking:

Allergen information is the strongest reason to keep cards accurate. A guest who asks whether a dish contains a particular allergen is relying on the kitchen's answer, and the answer is only as good as the recipe it comes from.

Keep the allergen list on every card, including sub-recipes. Review it whenever an ingredient, a supplier or a brand changes, because a different brand of the same product can contain different allergens. Our guide to building an allergen matrix that stays correct shows how to keep the menu-wide view in step with the cards.

The card's batch yields are what the prep list is built from. If the braise card says a batch makes 20 portions, and tomorrow's forecast needs 30, the prep list says one and a half batches. Without yields on the cards, prep lists are guesses. Our guides to the prep list that ends the morning guesswork and to prepping from forecast cover how the two fit together.

A card written at a desk is a draft. Before it reaches the station, test it in the kitchen, ideally by someone other than the chef who wrote it.

Ask a cook who knows the kitchen but not the dish to make it from the card alone, without help. Watch where they hesitate, what they ask, and what they do differently from what the writer meant. Each hesitation is a gap in the card: a missing quantity, an unclear step, a plating detail that only exists in the writer's head. Fix the card, and test again if the changes were large.

Then weigh the finished plate against the card's portion sizes and compare it with the photograph. If the tester's plate differs, either the card is unclear or the specification is unrealistic. Both are better discovered before service than during it.

The same discipline works behind the bar. A cocktail spec card lists the glass, the ice, each ingredient in millilitres, the method, the garnish and a photograph. It does the same jobs as a kitchen card: consistency between bartenders, accurate pour cost and correct allergen information, which matters for drinks too, with egg white, nuts in some liqueurs and milk in cream drinks among the common ones.

Keep bar cards at the station where drinks are made, and give house-made syrups, infusions and batched cocktails their own cards, with yields, just as a kitchen does for sauces. Our guide to pour cost shows how a written spec feeds the costing.

A card does not replace training; it makes training repeatable. Train a new cook on a dish by cooking it together from the card, then having them cook it while you watch, then checking their plates against the photograph during service.

Use the cards for the whole team, not only new starters. A quick review of the cards for a new menu, before it launches, catches mistakes on the card and in the team's understanding at the same time. Kitchen consistency comes less from the card itself than from a team that has been trained on it and checks against it.

Cards work on laminated paper, in a folder at each station, in a shared document or in recipe software. The format matters less than three things: the card at the station is the current version, it can be read in seconds during service, and changes are easy to make and impossible to miss.

Paper cards are quick and robust but easily outdated. Digital cards are easy to update and share, especially across several venues, but need a screen where the line can see them. Many kitchens use both: a digital master, from which the station cards are printed when they change. Our guide to recipe management without a binder nobody opens covers keeping the master current.

In a group serving the same dish in several kitchens, recipe cards are the only way the dish can be the same in each. Keep one master card per dish, held centrally, and make sure every kitchen works from the current version. When a dish changes, change the master first, then every kitchen's copy, on the same day.

Allow local variations only deliberately, and record them on the card. A venue that quietly makes the dish differently has a different dish, with a different cost and possibly different allergens.

Writing cards for an entire menu at once is a large job, and it often stalls. Start with the dishes that matter most: the best sellers, the most expensive to make and those with the most allergens. In many kitchens, a small number of dishes accounts for most of what is sold, and getting those cards right does most of the good. Then work through the rest, a few a week.

Recipe cards, methods and batch yields stay in your own kitchen documents today: servearound does not hold recipes or costings. What it does hold is the guest-facing side of each dish.

Each dish in menus carries its name, description, photograph, price and allergen and dietary information, shown on the guest menu, so the information guests see can be kept in step with the card. During service, the kitchen display shows each order by station and course, with any guest allergies on the ticket, through the point of sale. If you would like to see how it works, get in touch.

The dish name, yield, portion size, ingredients with specifications and quantities, numbered method, plating instructions with a photograph, allergens, holding and storage notes, and the version date.

Detailed enough that a trained cook can produce the dish to the same standard without asking. Weights and volumes for every component, short steps, and a photograph of the finished plate.

One person, usually the head chef or a sous chef, who approves changes and updates the version. Without an owner, cards drift out of date.

Make updating the card part of making the change: any permanent change goes on the card within a day, with a new version date, and any change affecting allergens is recorded before the dish is served.

Yes. Stocks, sauces, dressings and doughs each need a card with their own yield and allergens, referred to by the dishes that use them.

The master version, in the office or the recipe system, should. The station card used during service does not need them.

They list every ingredient, including those in sub-recipes and garnishes, so the kitchen can answer guests' questions accurately and keep the allergen information on the menu correct.

Either works if the station copy is current and readable in seconds. Many kitchens keep a digital master and print station cards when they change.

Whenever the dish changes, and with every menu change. Between changes, a quick review every few months catches cards that have drifted away from what the line actually cooks.

The station card does not need it. The master version, used for costing, should hold the price so that the margin can be checked whenever the cost or the recipe changes.

With the best-selling dishes, the most expensive ones and those with the most allergens. Write a few a week until the menu is covered.

A standard recipe card is the written dish: name, yield, portion size, ingredients with specifications and weights, numbered method, plating with a photograph, allergens, holding notes and a version date. It serves consistency, portion control, costing, allergens, training and prep planning at once, so leave none of those fields empty, especially the specification, yields, portion weights and garnish.

Write it for the line: one dish per card, short steps, the photo and portions first. Give each sub-recipe its own card. Keep it honest by putting permanent changes on the card within a day, never letting an allergen change go unrecorded, and giving one person ownership. Start with the dishes that matter most and train the team from the cards, because kitchen consistency comes from people who use them.