Have you found yourself with a case of writer’s block when it comes to writing recipe posts? In this article, we share with you free recipe writing prompts that will spark ideas and help jump start your creativity.
When writing about food and recipes starts to feel like a “real” job, it can crush your creativity. We get it, we have both been there. We think writing recipe posts has gotten easier since food bloggers have shifted to writing about recipes rather than personal experiences.
Most readers expect our sites to “just get to the recipe already.” Yet, we all know that just offering a recipe and no further details can lead to comments and questions about the ingredients, the process, substitutions, and even storing leftovers. What’s a food blogger to do?
If you aren’t ready just yet to hire a virtual assistant to help you write your posts, we want to share with you some of the food writing prompts we have used over the years to help us get words onto the screen.
WRITING AN Introduction
Many bloggers get stuck immediately when it is time to write a descriptive opening. We both prefer to write something here that can be used as inspiration for the meta description. We use descriptive words for food when writing our opening blurbs, because this is your chance to grab a reader’s attention.
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Write More Than One Description
Write as many descriptive snippets as you can come up with now. You can use them for social media marketing and whenever you need to give social sharing groups a short description for inclusion in recipe roundups. You’ll want to include some long-tail keywords in these descriptions.
What can you serve with the recipe?
Sometimes our readers are looking for some meal inspiration. You can make their life easier by telling them what to serve with the recipe. It is also the perfect place to add internal links to your own recipes, or if you’re feeling generous, you can add a backlink to another blogger’s recipe.
How do you serve the recipe?
Are there any special tools, utensils, or dishes that you find helpful for serving? If there are, tell your reader about them. This is also a great place to add affiliate links.
Where do you serve this recipe the most?
Is it perfect for a picnic? Tell your reader why it’s perfect. Is it portable, safe at room temperature, can be eaten without utensils or plates?
Is this a holiday recipe? If it is, tell your readers which holidays it is suitable for and your favorite holiday for serving it.
You can use any theme that comes to mind. We use parties often; for example, tell your readers what kind of parties this recipe would be good for.
Here are a few questions you can answer
- Is this a family favorite? Why? Easy? Kid-friendly?
- Convenient because it’s no bake? Doesn’t heat up the kitchen? Quick? Lighter summer meal?
- What’s the best part of the recipe? Creamy? Cheesy? Loaded with flavor? Flavor packed?
- Easy clean up?
- Can kids get involved?
- Does it put more vegetables or fruit on the table?
- Add a list of 3 to 5 of your own posts that can be served with this recipe.
We always make sure we hyperlink to at least 3 of our own recipes in our recipe posts. Beth adds a list of 3 to 5 of her recipes above a final hero image, followed by her call-to-actions, then the recipe card even if she has linked to other posts earlier in the post. If you choose to do this, just make sure that you do not link to the same post more than once. If it is in the body of the post, do not add it to a list.
Elaine places the list of similar recipes below the last hero shot and before the recipe card. If she places a lot of recipe links throughout the copy of the recipe, she will not add a list of other recipes, but that hardly ever happens.
Internal Roundups
Do you have enough of your own recipes to put together a roundup of your own? After you have spent some time deliberately adding internal links to your posts, you will start seeing patterns in the recipes you are linking together.
You can identify themes among your recipes. Do you have enough recipes to make a post covering an entire dinner for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, or other traditional holiday?
How about a pool party, cocktail or New Year’s Eve party, backyard BBQ, kid’s birthday party, tailgating, or the perfect game day finger food menu?
An internal post roundup gives you another opportunity to market your recipe posts on social media. You can make unique pins by using different combinations of photos in collages for Facebook and Pinterest.
We wouldn’t rely on using this type of post too often. And make sure you use a unique description for each recipe you list in the roundup. This is another occasion where you could use some of the additional descriptions we suggested you brainstorm during the original post-writing process.
Want to see an example of an internal roundup? Click here for Elaine’s roundup of cocktails that call for Baileys Irish Cream.
Recipe Card Notes
Don’t forget to add to the recipe card anything in your post that a reader who is making this recipe for the first time may need to know. Remember that some of them will be printing the recipe card, or will have it pulled up on their mobile, so they won’t have easy access to the full post where you share important details.
Elaine usually copies and pastes her “Helpful tips” section in the note portion of the recipe card.
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