Get Paid for Recipes!

Yes, you can get paid for recipes. How to earn money from recipes? I’ve been doing it for quite a while, and I’ve learned a lot about the process. There are many ins and outs of earning money with your recipes. First of all, you can’t just copy a published recipe and expect to earn money with it. If you’re a great cook, however, who creates her own original and creative dishes and/or cooking techniques, there’s a good chance you can earn online and otherwise with your culinary skills and knowledge. The tips and suggestions I’m offering in this article are based on my own experiences, and your experiences might be different.

As I mentioned in the introduction, your recipes need to be original. They should be created by you or by a close friend or family member who has given you permission to use their recipes. It’s best to write what you know. If you’ve made a dish just once or twice, it probably wouldn't be a good candidate for your online recipe collection.

Think about something you make that gets lots of rave reviews from your family, friends, and guests. Is it one you created yourself? It should be especially tasty, unique, innovative, and/or an unusual twist on an old favorite. Or maybe it’s a fairly common dish, but you’ve found a way to make the preparation quicker and easier.

Heirloom recipes are often very popular. If you have your grandmother’s original recipes, for example, that might be a good place to create a niche. Of course, if Granny is still alive, you’ll want to get her permission first. People like discovering old fashioned foods and how our ancestors ate. In some cases, you might need to adjust Grandma’s ingredients, though. Most modern cooks want recipes that include easy-to-find ingredients. If it starts with “Go out in the yard and kill a chicken,” you’ll obviously need to make a substitution. This would be an easy substitution, but not all the old ingredients are so easy to replicate, so make sure the recipe works with commonly available ingredients. Also, it's important to use modern terminology. Don't frustrate your readers with words and terms they don't understand.

You’ll probably need to establish a specific culinary niche. For example, you might choose to write about southern cooking, desserts, seafood dishes, Cajun recipes, Creole cuisine, Mexican food, or crock pot dinners. Those are a good place to start, but in many cases, you’ll have better results if you narrow down your niche even more. Below are some examples of what I’m talking about:

Old Fashioned Southern Desserts

Savory Crab Dishes

Authentic Cajun Recipes from Louisiana

Mexican Party Appetizers

Low Country Recipes from Charleston

Venison Recipes for the Grill

Southern Barbecue Recipes

New England Recipes with Maple Syrup

See what I mean? While it’s true that such narrow categories will decrease the size of your audience, it’s also true that doing so will help you stand out among the competition. Let’s face it – there are tons of cookbooks on the market, in print and online. To be successful with a book or collection of general recipes, you’ll need to be someone famous, in most cases. Otherwise, you probably won’t spark much interest.

When you’re writing the directions for your readers, remember that this might be the first time they’ve ever tried their hand at such a dish. You need to be as helpful as possible. For example, you might want to say something like “If you chill the meat before grinding it, the sausage will have a better texture,” or something like “If the gravy is too thin, do this.” If a certain brand works a lot better than others, don’t be afraid to drop a name now and then: “I’ve found that Brand X flour creates a lighter, fluffier biscuit.”

Adding these little tidbits will be helpful to your readers, and doing so will also give a personal touch to your recipes. Hopefully, a reader will feel sort of like she’s in the kitchen, cooking with you!

Based on my experience, the best way to make money with recipes online is to establish yourself as a great creative cook. How do you do this? There are several ways you can do this. Perhaps the best way is to create your own cooking blog or website. Believe me, you never know who’s reading your stuff! Post your best original recipes on your site or blog, and be sure to include detailed instructions, cooking tips, and a photograph of the prepared dish. You should have a good photograph, but it doesn’t have to be one that was taken by a professional photographer. Just make sure the picture is clear and attractive. Take several photos of the dish from different angles, and choose the best one to include with your recipe.

Posting recipes on different sites and on my own website has helped me get noticed. For example, my cooking and recipe site, bestamericanfood.net , has numerous categories, hundreds of recipes, culinary history, information about regional cuisines, and lots of photos. People have read and liked some of the recipes, and they’ve contacted me about creating recipes for them. Sometimes this has included creating original recipes for certain food products, like bison meat, seafood, and wild game. Be sure to have a way for your readers to contact you on your blog or website!

Once you have a lot of your original recipes posted online, share the photographs on Pinterest. Again, you never know who might see them and be impressed enough to follow the link back to your page. Other members of Pinterest will also re-pin their favorite recipes. I was amazed when famous chef Alton Brown re-pinned a recipe I made up!

Okay, so you’ve followed all the suggestions I’ve given you. Now what? Now comes the hard part – you have to wait. That’s what I did, anyway - at least for a while. It never hurts to be proactive, though. If you're confident enough, you can send inquiries to website owners. For example, let's say you find a site about saltwater fishing, and you think some of your original fish recipes would be a good addition to the site. Contact the owner and include a few samples. If he's interested, you and he can decide on a price and method of payment. Hey - nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

If your cooking and recipe blog or website gets traffic, you can earn from Google Adsense. Another way to earn passive income from recipes is to include Amazon ads with your posts. Make sure the Amazon products you’re offering are closely related to the recipe in question. For example, if you’re posting a recipe for skillet-seared scallops, you could include an Amazon ad for a black iron skillet.

If you’re lucky, and if your recipes fill a specific niche, you might also be able to sell your recipes outright. I’ve done this numerous times. I earn an average of $30 per recipe, and that’s with a photo of the prepared dish.

Another way to make money with your recipes is to create an e-book and offer them for sale. Again, it’s easier to find a market if your category is specific, trendy, or super creative, or if you’re a cooking expert in a little-known field. I’ve sold a lot of recipes for wild game, for example.

Sometimes a customer might offer you products for your recipes instead of money. Don’t turn up your nose at these offers! I’ve received some great freebies this way. Some of the things I’ve received for just one or two of my original recipes have included coolers, hats, T-shirts, coffee mugs, baked goods, sauces, jackets, and gourmet foods like giant lump crabmeat, which is very expensive in the stores.

Yet another way to make money with recipes is to enter recipe contests. You can find these online, and you can often find recipe contests in magazines, too. The largest prize I’ve ever won was for $1,000. Actually, it was an article, not just a recipe or two. The subject of the article was Gullah-Geechee Cuisine.

You can start making money with recipes today. Don’t keep putting it off! If you love to spend time in the kitchen, experiment with recipes, and are a great cook, there’s no reason not to share your skills and ideas with the world. You can create a blog for free or start your own website. An easy way to get started is to share your recipes on a site like Hubpages. You might have noticed that I have LOTS of recipes here, and they’ve earned me a nice amount of cash. Success probably won’t come overnight, but if you’re good enough and have a little luck, you’ll make money from recipes before you know it!