I copy and paste every recipe that I come across online into an email and then email it to myself. I use gmail and I have a filter set up to automatically put anything called "recipe - ____" into a folder called Recipes. That way, I can search my gmail by a recipe name or even an ingredient. There may be better solutions, but this one doesn't involve anything more complicated than copying, pasting, and emailing.

Same here with using gmail for organizing. I also use a few other filters for the type of recipe like breakfast or desserts, so it's quite easy to find a complete list of certain types.

I have a "Cooking and Recipes" favorites folders and within in that sub-folders like "chicken", "bread", "cookies" etc...As for recipes in magazines or newspapers I have an accordion file with the same categories as my sub-folders.

I used to use delicious to bookmark all my recipes and tagged all of the ingredients, seasonality, etc. so it was easily searchable. However, I have abandoned delicious and have been totally swept up by pinterest. Even though it's not as organized, looking at the pretty pictures to decide what to make next is so much more fun!

I use PlanToEat.com. I can "snip" online recipes using their bookmarklet, as well as type in my own recipes. Then I can read the recipe on my iphone while I'm cooking (would love to have an ipad for this, so it's a bit larger) and not waste paper. But of course, you can always print the recipes as well. I find it very convenient.

Diigo works great. I tag all my recipes with their ingredients and not only can I find my recipes from sites all around... I can easily filter them by the ingredients I have around.

I use an app called Springpad (its available for your PC, Mac or smartphone). It automatically detects recipes on a website and saves them for me. Also I can tag them however I like, rate the recipes, and mark whether I have tried them or not. Its a really nifty little tool. Its good for other things too, but I find that's how I use it most.

For gathering recipes - I usually do a print out of it, or make note in my grocery list where I found the recipe (so I can remember why I bought this random group of ingredients).

Then for recipe storage... I have a big blank book. And everytime we try a new recipe, we decide if it's "book-worthy". If it is, it goes in the book. That way - when I'm looking for one specific recipe that we know we love, I have ONE place to look.
The book is NOT organized though, just add them in (by hand) when we make them. So Mom's cookie recipe is right near a chili recipe etc - but I can always find things there.

Not sure what to do when I run out of room in the book.

I have two beautiful binders that coordinate with my kitchen decor that contain all my magazine clippings and Internet printouts. I keep them sitting on a kitchen counter. I use tab dividers to keep things organized into several categories so that finding recipes is easier. To cut down on how much paper I use printing recipes I find online, I email them to myself, sort into a folder titled Recipes, and only print when I go to use them.

Pinterest has become my new way for organizing recipes I find online.I previously had a file in my gmail for recipes, divided by category and season. There also is three binders in my kitchen, divided by category. I used to print every recipe I wanted to try, but I started to become overrun with them so Pinterest has helped immensely!

AH, good question. Lately I've foudn this is what works best for me:

*trusted recipes I use often: recipe box (includes family recipes)

*recipes I might often make or have to try or could browse when hosting dinner/brunch/etc: a recipe folder (I used a template from TheKitchn from a while ago - divided in Soups, Work/Quick Lunches, Work/Quick Breakfasts, Doughs and Pastries). I usually print those out from food blogs

*Pinterest! Started it recently, but it's working great so far, with a board for Dips/Snacks, one for Brunches etc. I cook a lot but always blank when I want to bring a dish over or have lots of people over. Having small, quick dishes organised by photo rather than title makes it easier for me to see if that'll fit the mood of the event. Plus, I can access it if I go visit friends/family and decide to whip up something quick.

My tip: know yourself. Do you want separate sections for events or work? Are you visual? My system wouldn't work for everyone, but after years of compiling recipes I'd immediately forget about, this is definitely what's best for me!

Originally I kept a giant tabbed binder with pages, sometimes from the original source and sometimes scribbled.

Eventually I upgraded to bookmarks in my browser, but started to get too many.

Now I cannot recommend www.evernote.com enough. It saves enitre pages, pictures, pdfs, etc. and seamlessly integrates with other notes you have. Also it is stored in the cloud so it is always with you!

I forgot to add I also go through my Vegetarian Times with coloured post it notes to highlight things to try, vegetable highlight, handy recipes, etc. (Organisation freak? Me? :) )

Otherwise I found I'd read them and put them in a neat pile, forgetting how much goodness is in there.

Another vote for Evernote. I have the Evernote bookmarklet in my browser - I've used it many times on this site.

Use Evernote! They have an app for smartphones, as well as a free download for your computer (well, I can only speak to the Mac version...)

Whenever I want to keep an online recipe, I copy & paste it into a new note in Evernote on my laptop. If it's from a magazine or cookbook, I take a picture(s) of it with my phone and add the picture as a new note to Evernote.

Each note can be tagged, I usually tag recipes with their main ingredients or type of food (chicken, beef, vegetarian, Indian, etc). Also, there is a place to add a hyperlink, so you can re-visit the original webpage if you want (when pulling recipes from the web).

Then, within Evernote I have folders corresponding to different categories (Main Dish, Side Dish, Baking etc) and within those categories I have sub-categories (Grill, Casserole, Soup etc).

I also use Evernote to make my grocery list...I just make a new note and there is a checkbox function. All of the info is synced online so I can make my list on my laptop and then use the list at the store with my phone, checking off items as I pick them up.

There is also an audio note function, which I haven't really used yet...I just started using Evernote a few months ago and love love love how organized I've gotten!

I started using google documents for my recipes. I set up a folder for each collection (fish, chicken, beef, appetizers, etc.) and each recipe document, I've tagged it to the collections that they belong to. Makes it easier to search.

Since I have an Android smartphone, I also have GDocs as an app, so I can access the files any time. The cool thing is that I can take a picture of a recipe and GDocs will actually convert the text in the pictures to actual text in a document, so I don't have to retype the whole thing.

Barring that, copy and pasting the file into GDocs works well too.

I use Evernote as well, but once I've made a recipe I decided if it's worth keeping and hand write it in a book.

My book is like adelinea's book and it's not organized at all, but it works for me :)

Another vote for Evernote. I use the bookmarklet as well as emailing with the tag & notebook functions. Recent Example:
Chipotle Slow-Cooker Tacos @Recipes #chicken #crockpot (It goes straight to the Recipes Notebook with chicken & crockpot tags - brilliant!)
I use it for school, work, recipes, everything!

I use a combination of Pinterest and Springpadit.com. I'm a visual person so it helps to see images of food vs text. Springpadit has listed out how to save and tag recipes and use their Recipe Notebook here http://bit.ly/nmEp4Z

When I had a smartphone I used the camera and a PDF converter to get things into my dropbox account. For online recipes I use ReadItLater to save the link in a central place and save it off to Dropbox later.
My wife uses AllRecipes.com and a few cookbooks.
It seems to me that everyone uses a variety of methods depending on how it's being presented. Is there a "catch-all" for this kind of thing?

I am coming into the digital age slowly kicking and screaming :) I still print out recipes that I find on the web, or even... GASP! write them out by hand! I have a folder in my kitchen to keep recipes I want to try, and binder for the recipes I have tried and love. Recipes I have tried and don't love, just get tossed! I also have an entired cabinet full of actual cookbooks, what can I say...I love holding a book and flipping through the pages! I don't have a smart phone, and my computer is in the basement, so keeping recipes in my email is just not practical for me.

evernote, evernote, evernote! It is incredible. And now there are tons of free apps out there that also let you snap photos with your phone and turn them into high quality "scans"--either jpgs or PDFs. Evernote is always with you, and you can tag recipes. Also, they have an incredible "clipper" add on for your browser, so you can simply highlight the text on a webpage and then clip it. Perfect for digital and paper recipes and fully searchable.

I use Evernote, too. I find that it's best to use Tags to categorize them, and once I make a recipe I love making notes about my thoughts on the results and what I would change the next time I cook it. PLUS, Evernote has a handy toolbar button that lets you grab a recipe from a food blog, and it preserves the URL of the original recipe - which I really like, because if I mention it later in a blog post, or tweet, I want to give credit to the right person.

I found a gorgeous binder at Target, got some of those clear sleeves and index tabs with pockets. Took all my printed & torn out of magazine recipes and put them in the sleeves. For those smaller guys (say from Everyday Food) I use doublesided tape to a piece of standard paper and put in the sleeve. The pockets help me organize quickly if I don't have time to get anything on a sheet of paper or in a sleeve.

Additionally, several years ago for Mother's Day I took my mom's beat up cookbook and typed up all her recipes she had in there written by hand. Cleaned up the cookbook, added tabs and even typed up those conversion charts & everything. It turned out great, and the benefit? I now have all those recipes on my computer :)

I require a physical binder with recipes in plastic sleeves, which I can post over the stove while I cook. And I like my cookbooks organized, with things like tables of contents & indexes.

I tested a LOT of options and now I use an application called Living Cookbook. It makes it REALLY easy to import recipes from online sources and has the all-important feature of exporting a cookbook to MS Word so that I can print it out with page numbers, a table of contents, and even an index of ingredients. Then I can slip the pages in their plastic sleeves & use them in the kitchen. I print out a revised version every year or so, but in the meantime I can just add things to the proper section of the binder.

(This system also makes it really easy to create cookbooks for other people!)

I use the binder method, created during Snowpocalypse a few years back. Each tab is a category of cooking, and every recipe is protected with a plastic sleeve. Whenever I make a recipe that I could make again, from whatever website, I print it out and put it in the binder.

I also use a TON of Cooks Illustrated recipes, and flipping through back issues of the magazine is a pain. I'm thinking of making copies of the recipes that I use all the time so that I can put them in the binder too.

I copy and paste recipes into my Epicurious file. If it's a print recipe, I scan and email it to myself, copy, paste. Then my Epicurious file is available to me via my iPad at the store. It even composes a grocery list for me when I select recipes.

Evernote! I put all my husband's recipes in Evernote for his birthday present one year. We use it every day. We pull up recipes and cook from the ipad. We have them all on our phone with Evernote so you can go to the store last minute and have the recipes right there. I typed in old family recipes, but use the bookmarklet & email for all new recipes. Love it!

I don't save them as an entire recipe any longer, it became a time waster, because the difference between recipes usually isn't about technique so much as about flavors.

Now I cull my favorite recipes down to one basic recipe for each dish and at the bottom are flavor variations. When I spy a new recipe, because I know my favorite so well, I just copy the differences into my text file (I only have one). So for lasagna, when I find something new, I'll add a note to my text file that says Lasagna, Lemon Asparagus Ricotta, 2 tsp lemon rind, 1 tsp lemon juice, 1 lb steamed tender asparagus, 1-1/2 c ricotta, 325F, 40m. That way I can Sort my text file and all the lasagna ideas will be grouped together, all the muffin ideas together, etc. I eventually try the flavor variation, using my classic lasagna method as the basic, and if I like the results that flavor variation is added to the bottom of my basic recipe.

It really was the simplest way I could find to condense my endless cookbooks and countless recipes on my hard drive into something easily useable and useful. I just pull that 'basic' recipe out of my kitchen drawer and clip it to a curtain ring that's attached to an upper kitchen cabinet knob. The recipe's right at eye level, in case I need it, but I usually don't. Now I feel I'm cooking and baking more like my mother did, by historical & sensory experiences, and I enjoy it so much more than I did before.

I use Pinterest, too. I keep a board for each type of recipe (salads, breads, etc.) and make comments in the notes field once I've tried the recipe. If it turns into something I use on a regular basis, I write it out on a recipe card and keep it in my old-timey recipe box.

Pinterest! I have different categories like Dinner Party, breakfast, cookies/bars, Apples, Bananas, etc. It's great.

Yup, Evernote for me too for digital web stuff. That program has transformed my life. Even accessible on my phone in the grocery store!

My hard copy random recipes have lived for years in an old wooden wine suitcase! It's capacious and big enough to hold file folders. I sort them out by various categories over the years and I have an envelope to stick them in when I actually make them. I realized it is my duty to actually cook these things or else throw 'em out! I go thru it at least once a year and crumple up recipes for things I cut out as long ago as high school and have not made (many, many years later).

Additional plus for evernote. Browser extensions (for Chrome, at least) let you sync your browser to Evernote and clip pages into notes by right clicking on a page or link. Awesome.

I've come to accept the reality of just keeping recipes wherever is most convinient for me based on their format. Cookbooks? Yes. Magazines? Yes. Binder full of recipes from magazines that I don't keep? Yes. Notebook with handwritten recipes? Yes. Gmail? Yes. Evernote? Yes. Browser bookmarks? Yes. All of them. If I can always find the recipe I'm looking for, why does it matter than they all be in one format?

Online recipes are popped into Pinterest, while I have magazine recipes organized in physical file folders by type of recipe. Some of my clippings are small and I feel like they'd get lost in plastic sleeves so I've just stuck with file folder categories for now.

I created an excel spreadsheet with links to recipes. I can sort it by season, type of dish (breakfast, salad, main course, etc.), and main fresh produce ingredient. Usually if I make something from a recipe in a physical cookbook and I want to save it for future use, I will search for it online and add it to the list. I've also been using Pinterest for a fun visual list and to easily share with friends.

I have two storage methods now: local to my computer recipe software and binders of favorite recipes.

Software for online recipes I found and might try or those I entered into the software. Easily searchable and fun to use, trade-off is entering recipes.

Binders for the clippings snipped and ripped through the years. I started off with just a single binder for Thanksgiving recipes. I used sheet protector pockets and photo sleeves for binders(4x6 and 5x7) for the pages and cards. Added tabbed dividers I labeled with categories. I progressed to Christmas recipe favorites and then recipe ideas. one binder at a time isn't bad- I've done Ice Cream, Breakfast, Soups & Salads, Everyday favorites, and Everyday Ideas. Spouse likes this method for finding favorite recipes. I can use software to printout favorites with photos and nutritional info. Pretty printed recipes. We are picky about recipes entering the Favorites binders- easy to make, very tasty, not too many dirty dishes. I try to color code the binders for purpose. Downside is the size of binders and shelf space they take up. However, catastrophic hard drive failure or internet issue is far worse.

I still have cookbooks, but thankfully most of those are indexed.

I bookmark online recipes I like (I also use Epicurious) and dog-ear pages in cookbooks for future reference, but mostly I kick it old school. Really old school. I have a big, hard-sided, spiral-bound notebook with lined paper (from B&N for like $8) that I hand write recipes into. I don't keep them in any particular order, so I often have to flip through it, but it is eminently portable and doesn't need to be plugged in when I travel. The spiral binding means I can lay it flat, it doesn't get hurt by smudges or drips, and I can write notes in the margins. And writing out the recipes before I make them for the first time also helps me avoid making mistakes like forgetting an item or skipping a step.

It also prevents me from totally destroying my cookbooks. I'm a stickler for being nice to all books. I only just convinced myself that it was okay to dog-ear cookbooks and write notes in pencil in them because someday they would add historical value.

Yeah, I'm that person.

I use springpad now. I like it but it's not perfect.

If there's a recipe from a book (and I don't want to type it all in) I just type in the title, indexing info, and the book name and page number.

You can also scan stuff in and attach it to items; but I've never tried this.

I often "spring" a recipe from a website. It keeps a link to the original recipe and I can modify my version online to my heart's content. It comes with an integrated shopping-list manager and has a nifty layout.

I have tried:
* Meal outlaw (simple, puts everything in a calendar, but you have to type in all your recipes, or link to those of other members).
* Delicious (bookmarks to sites that go out of service or move stuff -- so they break and you don't know it).
* The word file (I could never keep it up-to-date).
* The pile of clippings and cut-outs (I threw most of them out when I realized I was going to the web far more than to my stack of clippings).

I'm a total geek... so I use an application called gourmet: http://grecipe-manager.sourceforge.net/ it makes it very easy to add recipes, and is capable of parsing websites to import recipes from the web.

Probably 99% of my recipes are found online now - I bookmark things that sounds fantastic, and when I actually get around to trying them, type them out in Notepad in a way that matches all my other notepad'd recipes, so my files have that consistency.
I backed them all up in a folder in Dropbox, and that way I can just share the whole lot with any friends that are interested.

evernote. seriously. evernote.

Another vote for Evernote! I love having the app on my phone so I can look up a recipe at the grocery store or snap a photo of a recipe from a magazine and find it later. It's the best method I've found.

I had been using delicious.com for the longest time. Then pinterest came along, don't get me wrong I like pinterest but not every fabulous recipe has a fabulous picture to go with it. Delicious changed and I'm not thrilled with the changes. I'm going to check out a few things I've seen here.

I use www.eatyourbooks.com/ which is an on-line cookbook, blog, and magazine index. Not all blogs or magazines have been indexed but Cook's Illustrated has been. They have indexed a huge number of cookbooks and are indexing more daily. It cost $25 a year but it wonderful to be able to search most of my cookbooks by recipe and/or ingredient. It has gotten to the point that I don't buy a cookbook unless it has been or is about to be indexed.

Oh yeah, I use the handy Evernote too, along with the www.eatyourbooks.com/ site

Evernote

I do have a lot of my recipes in my email so I can search for them there, but about a year ago I made a recipe binder and it's been the best thing ever. I bought a large three ring binder, clear page protectors, and sticky tabs to use for section dividers. On each divider page I have the name of that section, e.g. "Soups." In that section I've printed out all my soup recipes or taken the magazine pages and stuck them in the clear plastic sleeves, and then on the back of the divider page I list other favorite soups that are in cookbooks I own (I list the name of the recipe, book title, and page). That way all recipes I use, whether from online, magazines, or cookbooks, are in my master recipe binder!

I'm another evernote people...although I'm still in the process of digitizing all my binders full of recipes. There are times when I still want the original, but I LOVE the search abilities of evernote.

When I get my CSA box on Mondays, I just go into evernote and search for what I've gotten. This is my favorite part :)

EVERNOTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! changed my cooking life!

I like OneNote, could also see excel as a possible future option since I pretty much love all things excel (what can I say, I'm a Microsoft nerd). OneNote is great since I can organize and compiles recipes and associated thoughts on those recipes very simply.

For those who have a Mac, I really like YummySoup. I have almost 5000 recipes indexed on it, all sorted by category. But I'm a librarian, so that just may be an extension of the sickness. :)

I keep a binder with plastic sheet protectors and print and stick recipes in them, use dividers to organize by type (dinner, breakfast, or however you want to)

i have a crazy-organized method using gmail and its labels feature. wrote a post about it here: http://homesomethinghome.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/cookbookery-a-la-gmail/

basically: creating labels for food types (e.g., meats, vegetarian, soups, sweets), then emailing myself a recipe i found online and liked and labeling it so it becomes easily searchable. best part is it's right on my phone for kitchen use when i'm ready to make something. and quick to browse at the farmers market :)

I vote digitize... scan in magazine clippings- easy! I keep mine organized in google docs. I have all of my recipes sorted by category and the search can pick up a word (or ingredient) in either the title or the text). Best of all, it's free!

I do almost the exact same as @Christirei. No computers in the kitchen and I am a messy cook so that wouldn't be wise anyway. Interesting to see what others are doing!

I use Springpad as well. I tried Evernote, but Springpad actually has features specific for recipes rather than just categorizing them as generic notes.

By category in ziplock plastic bags. Put the recipe you're using on top and close the bag. Keeps it clean and where it belongs. After using computers all day at work, I want my cooking experience to be restful.

If there are Windows people in this list, the method I use works beautifully for me.

I copy and paste all of my recipes into a Word doc (one for each). I save the recipes in my Recipes folder. BUT, in Windows, you can tag a document. So my "Fettuccine Alfredo" recipe would be tagged pasta and main. So this way when I sort by tag and am in the mood for pasta, I just go to that section and see all of my pasta recipes. I find this works better than individual folders because I'd have to put a file in both pasta and main folders.

Disclaimer: this is my biggest pet peeve in the entire world...so much so that I started a business based on it!

You guys should check out MyReci.com - it's like pinterest or evernote, but tailor made for recipes and cooking. We allow you to bookmark recipes from across the web, enter your own, edit what you've found, and then share it with family friends. We've only been around for less than a month and have lots of fun things in the works.

http://lifeontheclothesline.wordpress.com/2011/05/27/recipe-storage/

I talked about this in a blog post of mine recently... sadly, the spiral bound cookbook didn't make it out of the house during the evacuation and is now lost (like so much else)... but, I did save the 3 ring binder at least.

In retrospect, especially for important, irreplaceable family recipes, either have them on a blog or utilize a cloud based data storage service to back up your recipe collection (and collections of pictures, data files...) because really, the important stuff should not ever be stored in harms way in the first place.

Definitely Evernote! I use it to clip recipes from the web, blogs, direct export from google reader. Also you can email directly to your Evernote account and pull up the recipes anywhere (smartphone, iPad, desktop, web). And for all of those clippings from newspapers and magazines, I scan them in. From there, they are searchable (built-in OCR) and you can add tags if you want to allow browsing.
Seriously - get Evernote.

I use "notepad" on my computer, I have a hard drive that holds my recipes. I highlight, copy, and paste into a notepad file, I also add the web address for where I have gotten it from. When I save a recipe I choose the file folder i.e. beef, chicken, vegetable. Which ever it pertains to the most. I save it, then re save into a main folder with the option of Desert, breakfast, stew, soup plus others. This way I can pull it up later on my kitchen tablet or any of the computers in the house either by type of food or main ingredient. I find it very handy. I live with a geek who has also given me access from the internet when I log in.

I use pinterest and/or evernote for online organisation, once I print stuff out I use this method: http://annabelvita.com/2011/06/27/recipes-on-the-move/