Angel & Chef

Does You Have Your own Standardised Recipes as a Speciality Food Outlet?

Standardized recipe is a recipe that has been tried, tested, evaluated and adapted for use by a food service. It produces a consistent quality and yield every time when the exact procedures, equipment, and ingredients are used.

The benefits of recipe standardization

There are numerous benefits of recipe standardization, which is why they’re so important – and sometimes even required – for food service management programs. Here are several to consider, though there are even more.

 Quality control: 

Standardized recipes provide the same high-quality food every time they’re used because they’ve been thoroughly tested and evaluated.

Portion and yield control: The amount of food that will be produced is the same every time with a standardized recipe, meaning it will reduce leftover food and make shortages much less likely. You’ll get exactly what you need.

 Cost control: It’s easier to manage buying and storing food when you’re using the same ingredients in the same quantities every time a particular recipe is made.

 Guest or Customer satisfaction: When you’ve done the research to find the types of foods your customers want, recipe standardization ensures that they get the same quality, presentation and amount that they’re accustomed to each time the meal is served.

 Consistent nutrient content: With so much testing and planning involved in a standardized recipe, you’ll know the exact nutritional content of the food every time it’s prepared, making clinical nutrition management a snap.

 Increased employee confidence: When your cooks are making high-quality meals every time they’re made, they’ll feel more job satisfaction knowing they don’t have to make estimates or risk cooking a sub-par product.

How to standardize a recipe
Once you’re ready to make a new recipe, there are certain steps that need to be taken to ensure that it’s truly standardized. Here’s what you need to do.

Find a new recipe to make

Survey guest feedback and staff to figure out what they like, or make a new recipe up and have it tested by your customers.

Figure out the portion size you’ll need

 You’ll only need to do this if the portion size isn’t already evident in the initial recipe, in which case you’ll need to calculate measurements.

 Make changes

 If you need to make any changes to adjust the taste, texture, cook time or portion, now’s the time to do it before you make the recipe on a larger scale.

 Retest the recipe.

 Once you make adjustments, try making the recipe again to ensure that it’s satisfactory.

 Develop a clear set of instructions. 

This should include things like the name of the recipe, the category of the recipe, the exact form of ingredients used, the amount of ingredients used, step-by-step preparation procedures, cooking details, portion sizes, total yield and equipment used. All of this information will ensure that even new cooks will be able to reproduce the recipe without issue.