Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (2024)

I've heard many differing opinions when it comes to creating an 'original recipe'. Some say an adjustment of three (or more) ingredients to a recipe you've adapted from a blog/cookbook/magazine/etc...results in your own original recipe. Others say that you have to travel back in a time using a time machine to before a recipe was published, then put your version out first. Most people can't time travel...so...that option is out the window.

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (1)

How Do You Create An Original Recipe?

My opinion would lie somewhere in the middle, while I may not necessarily agree that adapting a recipe by swapping out a few ingredients makes it totally 'brand new', I also understand that it's hard to make a dish 100% original. If creating original recipes in your kitchen is something you're interested in, but afraid to do, the most important thing, as with anything in this great culinary world, is to START SIMPLE. I wouldn't recommend popping by your local grocery store and picking up, oh, say some pork hock, an orange, eggplant, cayenne pepper and some ranch dressing, then getting home and thinking to yourself: 'Now, what should I do with this?' That probably won't end very well...

In my opinion, there are five fundamental things that really help a chef-at-home get a great start creating original recipes.

Five Fundamental Pieces To Creating A Recipe:

1. Individuals willing to become your kitchen lab rats - Having close friends or family (even a house cat if the recipe creation really goes south!) that you can sample your dishes on. For better or for worse, I am always inviting friends over for supper to taste test different inventions. I wouldn't recommend an entire meal of experiments, but sneaking in one course as a recipe 'test run' is a great way to get some feedback. Also, it helps if your friends/family are honest!

2. Learn from your mistakes - If you've always wanted to have a signature recipe of a particular dish, but it doesn't work out the first time, or second, or third, don't give up! Don't feel obligated to eat the whole thing either, but definitely don't give up! Food is meant to be experimented with and, much like other aspects of life, with successes come failures! Believe me, I have had some disastrousdishes along the way...like this really weird root beer chicken dish I made once. Don't ask.

3. Look for inspiration everywhere - For this point, I was just going to say 'read a lot of cookbooks, blogs, and all that jazz', but culinary inspiration comes from all places. A favourite cafe with amazing apple tarts, the smell of BBQ in the (dwindling) warm summer air, a spaghetti squash just begging to be roasted at the local grocery store. This may sound kind of cheesy, but all of these things that guide are senses can guide you in the kitchen too.

4. Don't use ingredients that you don't enjoy - I'm just going to out on a limb here and assume that everyone here likes olive oil and garlic, ok? If those are dislikes for anyone, you need to get over that as soon as possible, just saying! Anyway, part of sharing original recipes through your website is knowing that something works. If you're opting to use ingredients that you don't enjoy, just to impress someone or by request, or whatever the case may be, you're much less likely to want to cook it again. Everything needs a few test runs (I say three), to really become 'perfect' and who wants to cook something they don't like multiple times?

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5. Know the basics - This kind of goes without saying, but knowing standard base recipes (like a basic biscuit) and general basic culinary techniques (like properly roasting garlic) are essential to recipe development. It's always great to have a solid foundation of kitchen skills. Now, I'm not talking about going out to seek some culinary training. What's nice (about the internet) nowadays (man, I sound old) is the fact that you can Google pretty much anything. Even YouTube has millions of step-by-step video tutorials. Most of your cooking-related questions can be answered by a few clicks on your keyboard!

A Basic Vinaigrette Starting Point:

Sticking with my 'know the basics' mentality, why not start experimenting with vinaigrettes? Let it be known that the standard ratio for a simple vinaigrette dressing is 2 parts oil to 1 part vinegar. Consider it a blank canvas that's already pretty oily...Now, start thinking of different ingredients that you like that can be added to the mix...Orange zest? Fresh basil? Dill? Strawberries? Jalapenos? The combinations are pretty much endless, and I haven't even mentioned the different types of oil and vinegar you could use. Add-in a touch of salt and pepper, and a chopped garlic clove or two (going back to my 'you have to like olive oil and garlic or else' theory) and you have your very own one-of-a-kind vinaigrette.

See, who knew delicious could be so simple?

More Reading:

  • Cooking Exotic Food - Making Recipes Your Own
  • Using a Simple Innovation Process in Recipe Development
  • Recipe Development as a Profession
  • Recipe Development 101: Calling a Pot of Soup Your Own

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipe was written by Dan Clapson, a food writer based out of Calgary, Alberta. In addition to writing for Avenue Magazine and Food Network Canada, he blogs about his culinary adventures at www.dansgoodside.com. When he's not eating, he can be found teaching university students how to cook through his non-for-profit cooking program, Start From Scratch. He likes to eat pickles out of the jar. Twitter: @dansgoodside

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (7)

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14 Comments

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (8) Amy B
Reply

Nice article, Dan!
I’m so pleased to see how this site is coming along. Exciting stuff!

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (9) Cindy D
Reply

Good rules to live by!

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (10) Valerie Lugonja
Reply

Love this kind of post. Gorgeous photos of simple food and far too many people don’t know how to make a vinaigrette! Bravo, Dan!
Love your Goodside!
😉
V

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (11) Elaine Wilson
Reply

Lovely! Great tips and information –

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (12) Paula
Reply

For me, anything that starts with pork hock isn’t go to end well unless it’s in a pot of home-made baked beans! LOL Seriously though, some very tips. I expect to see a rash of Homemade Vinaigrette posts on the blogosphere come Monday 😉

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (14) Justin
Reply

Original receipes? I would agree that you would have to get into a time machine to find one. Almost every single restaurant out there today is using recipes borrowed from somewhere else. Take a recipe and tinker with it a little, make it yours. As long as its not word for word the same recipe that is already published, you have yourself your own “original”.

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (15) General Life Update…If You’re Interested… « Dan's Good Side
Reply

[…] I was humbled when the trio asked me to contribute to their site by means of a series of recipe development posts. I’ll be posting monthly, give or take,touching on everything from basic salad dressings to roasting koala…Ok, maybe not that random. Anyway, you can check out my first piece, 5 fundamentals for recipe development here… […]

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (16) Patricia
Reply

Back when I was first learning to cook, I regularly threw out pots of food because they tasted so bad! I no longer throw food out, but I still don’t really know how to choose items that will taste good together, except from past experience. I’m more cautious about going out on a limb. I also have The Flavor Bible, which lists items that taste good together and consult it frequently. But how does one know, without relying on the experts, which foods go well together? How does one know when to use the rules of balancing flavors — acid/sweet, and how much of each to use, for example? Are there other rules I don’t know about?

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (17) Louise
Reply

Personally, what I do is I take small samples of each ingredient, for this example, let’s go with dried lavender and vanilla, and eat them at the same time. I try to ignore all the parts that can be easily fixed, like Vanilla (extract)’s bitterness, or dried lavenders strong flavor, and focus on whether or not it tastes good together. Of course, there are many problems with this strategy, but it is just one of the many methods.

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (18) Edimara
Reply

Hi Dan, greetings from a brazilian living in Germany. Great article because I see my own learn process (as a hobby cooker) on it. Agree with the point all new receipts were anyhow inspired by someone, somewhere. A mix of intermulticulturality and culinary: interculinarity🙂. Excited to read more of your articles.

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (19) Supriya Kutty
Reply

Very nice knowledge and tip for to creating your own original recipes very well detailed information and explanation very useful tip to prepare our own recipes inspiring and motivating post enjoyed reading Thanks for sharing.

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (20) André F.
Reply

Interesting, but not quite what i was looking for… i want to improve recipes, way too often recipes have ingredients rounded to some nice numbers. I experiment all the time with gluten-free baking. i have some successes ( cakes such as my christmas log…), but a nice baguette, pita, wrap still are nit “pinned down”. i am looking for some systematic approach to improve recipes. Example: one gf bread i am doing these days is 1c white rice flour, 1c brown rice flour, 3/4c tapioca starch… for 2c water… Really! usually optimisation does not result in nice round numbers… then i want to “play ” with the flours… which one is better? ( rice (which kind); oat, cassava, buckwheat, millet… but NOT sorghum as the smallest amount is detected at the back of my throat, similar with quinoa flour…)… well… you get the idea of my challenge 😉

Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (21) Matrix
Reply

@Andre F. Always ask yourself 2 questions: What did I do right? and What would I change next time?
Starting from a recipe, for inspiration, I make lists of potential substitutions. Types of flour? Types of sugar? Herbs/spice mix? For baking especially, change one thing at a time. Keep notes on changes to ingredients, amounts, cooking method, time, temp, as well as appearance and taste.
An example: I’ve been trying to perfect pumpkin pie for years. The recipe on the can was just ok, so I started by bumping up the spice amounts, gradually adding in some ginger and a pinch of cayenne. Next, I tried different crusts. The plain flour crust… boring. Substitute graham cracker crust. Store-bought vs. homemade. Then I found a recipe by a chef I greatly respect. Great pie but wrong spice mix! OK, so work on custard next. His called for 2 whole eggs and an extra yolk. That yolk was what was needed to get velvet texture and custard that didn’t break up looking like cottage cheese. And it didn’t crack on top while baking! His recipe is still sweeter than I want (using sweetened condensed milk). So i need to play with ratio of sweetened condensed milk to evaporated milk or evap milk and sugar ratios. I’m keeping good notes and it’s nearly perfect.

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Recipe Development 101: 5 Fundamental Keys to Creating Your Own Original Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What are the basics of recipe development? ›

4 steps to recipe development
  1. Idea generation.
  2. Ingredient selection and sourcing.
  3. Testing and adjusting.
  4. Documentation and organization.

How to make an original recipe? ›

Tips for recipe writing
  1. Write ingredients in the order in which they'll be used! ...
  2. Write the directions in an order that makes sense. ...
  3. If your recipe has multiple "recipes" within it, separate the ingredients and step for each. ...
  4. Offer additional methods or substitutions. ...
  5. Share when to know a recipe is ready.
May 4, 2022

What are the main elements to creating a recipe? ›

A standard recipe must contain the following data:
  1. Title.
  2. Description.
  3. Preparation and cooking time.
  4. Number of servings and serving size.
  5. List of ingredients with accurate measurements.
  6. Step-by-step directions.
  7. Accurate nutrition information.
  8. Notes and FAQ.
Feb 11, 2021

What are the 5 elements in a standard recipe? ›

  1. Yield. The yield tells the number and size of servings the recipe will make.
  2. List of Ingredients & Amounts.
  3. Step By Step Directions for Mixing & Handling.
  4. Equipment (Container Size & Type)
  5. Temperature & Time.

What are the five components that help create a recipe for success? ›

The five components that help create a recipe for success in any endeavor, including business, are clear goals and objectives, effective planning, continuous learning and adaptation, hard work and dedication, and resilience and perseverance.

How do chefs create their own recipes? ›

Every chef has their own creative process and preferred method for documenting their ideas — ideas which eventually morph into recipes. This can range from notebooks, scrap paper and post-it notes, to note apps like Evernote and Apple Note, Google Docs and countless other ways.

What is the first step to every recipe? ›

At its most basic, mise en place means to set out all of your ingredients before you start to cook. Measure out what you will need, chop the vegetables that will need to be chopped, and have everything ready on the counter or in small bowls on a tray.

What is the first thing you should do when making a recipe? ›

Read the recipe before you start.

“Read the recipe a few times before you make it,” she says, “and make sure it is something you are comfortable doing.” Then, lay out every ingredient you'll need before you begin to cook.

What makes a good recipe? ›

Look for recipes that have the following:
  1. Ingredient measurements in multiple formats (weight, volume, size).
  2. Context clues for timing of each relevant piece of cooking instruction.
  3. Explanations on why certain steps are important to the recipe process.
May 26, 2020

What comes first in a recipe? ›

Start with the ingredient list. List ingredients with exact measurements and in the order in which they will be used. Leaving out ingredients is the most common mistake in recipe writing. Listing them in the order used is a way to avoid that.

What is the most important part of a recipe? ›

Ingredient List - The ingredient list is one of the most critical parts of a recipe. The ingredients should be listed in chronological order, with the ingredient used first at the very top of the list (Palmer, 2020).

What are the key features of a recipe? ›

As recipes are a set of instructions, they should include each step in chronological order. These steps may be separated using numbers or bullet points. A recipe should also include a list of ingredients and equipment. Some recipes may include a difficulty rating and tips and advice for the reader.

What aspects are developed in recipe development? ›

A team of nutrition professionals, culinary chefs, professional recipe developers, marketers, product developers, and others evaluate all aspects of a recipe. They assess recipes based on taste, nutritional profile, visual appeal, texture, number of ingredients, cost, etc.

What are the 3 main parts of a recipe briefly explain? ›

The three main parts of a recipe are the ingredients, the instructions, and the yield or serving size.

What are the basic principles of food preparation? ›

  • Choose foods processed for safety. ...
  • Cook food thoroughly. ...
  • Eat cooked foods immediately. ...
  • Store cooked foods carefully. ...
  • Reheat cooked foods thoroughly. ...
  • Avoid contact between raw foods and cooked foods. ...
  • Wash hands repeatedly. ...
  • Keep all kitchen surfaces meticulously clean.

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