Worst. Table of contents. Ever. And it’s from a famous cookbook. Anyone know which one?
Have you decided how to organize your cookbook?
Well, I hope you’re more creative — and forthcoming– than this table of contents above. Recently I worked through five drafts of a cookbook table of contents with a client. We were refining her idea, bit by bit. I’m happy to say that usually, it doesn’t take so long.
For standard cookbooks, the structure is easy.
Seriously. It’s been done the same way for ages. After the introduction, the traditional method is to arrange chapters from “soup to nuts,” as the saying goes. That means:
- appetizers
- soups
- salads
- main dishes
- sides
- dessert.
Because this structure is based on a typical American model of entertaining, it may not apply to your cookbook idea. And it does not necessarily apply to how many Americans cook and eat today! So you might want to take some out and add some new ones, for example. Chapters on:
- breads
- eggs
- vegetables
- pasta
- brunch
- cocktails.
Modern cookbooks might include chapters on:
- one-bowl meals
- vegan main dishes
- spreads and dips
- baked goods
- stir-frys
- wraps
- smoothies.
You’re free to do what you wish, as long as the structure makes sense for both your topic and readers.
For The United States of Pizza, my most recent cookbook with chef Craig Piebe, we originally organized our book by region. The editor who bought it asked us to rethink that. So Craig proposed a structure based on type of doughs. It worked beautifully. We opened each main chapter with a master recipe for dough, and followed it with pizza recipes based on using that type of crust.
Even though you have lots of options, it’s best to rein in the number of both chapters and recipes. For chapters, strive for between 8 to 12, with a balanced number of recipes in each. Please call them “chapters” when you write your book proposal. One thing that drives me nuts when reading them is when writers call them “sections” or nothing at all.
Remember the Time-Life Good Cook series? It had room for whole books on Sauces; Terrines, Pates and Galantines; and Outdoor Cooking.
The standard number of cookbok recipes runs around 100 to 150. I recently spoke with an author whose publisher talked her into an “encyclopedic” cookbook of 500 recipes. That’s so much work. Often the advance doesn’t increase to cover all that recipe development, testing, and writing.
Outside the usual, here are other popular ways to organize cookbooks:
- Thematic events, such as seasonality
- A breakdown of a single type of food (casseroles), ingredients (quinoa), or meals (breakfast)
- Organized based on type of meal, such as wraps, bowls or noodles
- Appliance based, such as chapters based on using donabe, slow cookers, or pressure cookers
- Geographic, with chapters by country or region
- Historical, moving chronologically through a country or region
- Menu based, arranged by meals, such as picnics or holiday dinners (although this option is not a popular one)
- Technique based, with chapters on roasting or fermenting, for example.
And that’s not all. You might also want to organize optional chapters or sections like:
- A chapter on pantry supplies
- A chapter on basics like stocks and sauces
- A shopping resources section for hard-to-find foods
- A glossary of unfamiliar foods
- A chapter on fundamental techniques used in the book
- A bibliography
- A recipe index, which contains only the titles of recipes.
So those are my lists. What about yours? If you’re a cookbook author, have I missed other ways to organize? Or maybe your favorite cookbook isn’t organized this way at all. Let’s tawk.
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(Disclosure: This post contains an affiliate link.)
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I’m taking a kind of non-linear approach with my next book, which is for kids. I do have 4 chapters, organized by type (e.g., drinks, sweet treats, snacks, crafts) but most of the “optional” vignettes (e.g., how to serve cold drinks, fun ways to package brownies, a guide to money) will be interspersed throughout the chapters. Kids (and probably many adults) are less likely to read a cookbook from start to finish and more likely to dive in at a random page and just get started. I’ll keep a few very foundational topics up front (e.g., setting up your lemonade stand), but for the most part I want the little tutorials and kid testimonials to be sprinkled throughout the book.
Sounds really fun, Kathy. It seems like you’ve put a lot of thought into how kids would access this book and what they’re looking for — I’m sure being a mom helps with that.
I have reorganized the chapters in my book so many times! It’s felt natural to move away from traditional-style, but isn’t nearly as easy. Usually it’s pretty clear cut if a recipe is breakfast, snack, dessert, dinner, etc. But when you get into the modern style (I was toying with chapters like the samples you use here) I start getting so much crossover and can’t decide which goes where. That said, I got a sneak peek of The Perfect Blend – the chapters in this cookbook are arranged by health goals – such a unique idea!
Yes that is part of the problem — the crossover! Good point, Alisa. Hmm. Arranging a chapter by health goals — that’s an unusual idea. There might be lots of crossover problems too. I’ll have to go take a look.
I’ve seen cookbooks organized by color (“Ripe” by Cheryl Sternman Rule and Paulette Phlipot), where the point was to highlight the gorgeousness of produce. And by season within health principles (“The Elements of Life” bu Su-Mei Yu), which taught readers about Thai thinking on health in general and eating for health. One of Ree Drummond’s Pioneer Woman books was holiday-menu based, as have been a few others I’ve worked on.
Not really a cookbook organizing principle, but: When I write a cookbook index, in addition to recipe titles–sliced and diced in as many ways as I think a reader will remember (or misremember!) them–I like to include hints and tips that are scattered throughout the book. If you took the time to write them, the reader should have an easy time finding them!
James Beard? Looks like the font he liked. American Cookery? I didn’t dig through my books…just off the top of my head.
You are very clever. Yes, James Beard. Delights and Prejuidices. I heard that a British version did away with the TOC entirely.
Funny! I love Delights and Prejudices. Just checked my copy–no table of contents. Mine’s a soft cover though, perhaps they dropped it for that, too? And I love the Time Life books.
I like reading books that are organized by food, in alphabetical order. Like a book on vegetables or fruit, etc.
I’ve heard from a few people that other editions dropped the TOC altogehter. Oh yes, good reminder about alphabetical books — those are fun too.
It was hard at first to figure out how to break out the recipes into chapters for a seemingly single-subject book (gluten-free bread). We chose to go by style of bread and then added the non-bread chapters (condiments, things made with bread). We hope it seems sensible to the readers! 🙂
That seems logical to me, to organize by style of bread. The stuff to go on bread or made with bread is not as exciting as the notion of inhaling an excellent slice of gluten-free bread, hot from the oven!
I am writing a cookbook with a local chef and we are organizing it based on his menu.
I am curious, though, within a table of contents, if you have any tips on how to organize recipes within each section. Does it matter? For example, one of the sections in the book is “Little/Small” and it includes small plated appetizers but also soups and salads (not enough soups and salads to have their own section, and they appear on the menu in this section). Would you put all soups together and all salads together, or would you sprinkle them throughout?
I don’t think he has any preference whatsoever, and I am not sure which organization makes the most sense.
It makes sense to group the soups and salads together within the chapter. Best of luck.
This article was really helpful. I have compiled so many recipes and I was getting lost in the minutiae. I created a handwritten one for my daughter, hopefully at some point she will find it useful 🙂 but I really want to publish one. You’ve definitely given me a good heads up on how I can start organizing and how many recipes to include.
Thanks!
You are most welcome, Rhonda. Thanks for commenting and best of luck.
A truly superb and inspirational read of your writings, thank you so much for sharing. I’m currently in the throws of writing a cook book proposal so this is incredibly helpful. It’s a dreadfully daunting process. I’ve created a niche and am very proud of my product so far, yet I seemingly have not a great deal to compare it to so where to start or go to next is a thin line.
It is a art based cookbook on Catalonia, and its history, where I connect the dishes to the stories of yesterday through Roald Dahl style artwork. I am slowly making progress or though one of the things I am struggling with is creating a following on the social media side. I’ve been using hashtags ect but don’t feel I’m driving it correctly. Any advice at all? Thanks again.
Ps, please take a look at @cuina_catalan
Well thank you! That’s very generous.
I looked at your Instagram page. It looks gorgeous and the photos are beautiful. Keep going. It takes a long time to build a following. There is lots of information online on how to grow it.
Hi..am new to writing. And my process of writing my cookbook is quite similar to yours in many ways. Like connecting recipes to a certain place, time, season or person. There’s a story before most of the recipes. But am finding it difficult to really compile the contents and index sections. Could I only name the recipe and page numbers without putting it under any category? Like say instead of desserts/soups/salads, I simply put the name of the dish with page numbers.
I am creating a collection of family recipes as a surprise gift for my siblings this Christmas. I would like to organize it as a “living” recipe book. Meaning, after the first printing (coil bound), i would like to have the option to add recipes from my sisters and sister-in-laws. I am sure they will have recipes that i missed including. So, i was thinking of organizing the chapters by recipe owner. That way, all i would have to do is update the Table of Contents and add any new recipes to the end of the chapter for that owner . I would have a chapter fir my recipes, my sister, Heather, would have a chapter, my sister, Wendy would have a chapter, etc. It would mean that i will not be able to group the recipes in each chapter as i would be adding any new recipes to the end of the appropriate chapter. I am trying to prevent reprinting any recipes due to page number changes. I still have not figured out how to number the pages within a chapter. I may have to go with a combination chapter/page number so each chapter’s page numbers would start at 1.
Has anyone tried anything like this? i do not want to reinvent the wheel if someone has already figured all this out!
This sounds difficult to accomplish, Jackie. It might be easier to do a 3-ring binder with unnumbered pages where you could add whatever you like later. Or to do a second edition.