Tips for Writing Winning Recipes

As much as we all still love those messy, hand-written recipe cards we use at home, these will not win a contest.


When entering recipe contests, the writing of the recipe can be the key to your successfully winning. Even if the recipe is still great tasting, and award winning in its components, if it doesn't make it past the initial phase, it wouldn't matter. So, this initial phase is generally just the submitting of one of your own favorite recipes that hasn't been published before, and is something of your own (most often, handed down by family members, etc., is fine). In writing the recipe properly you can be assured that it will get into the pool for the appropriate parties to preview.

Here are four very basic rules of thumb to writing winning recipes, that will work for most any recipe contest you'd wish to enter.

First, when writing your recipe, be sure to use the exact ingredients, with their correct names, that the sponsors may be asking for. For example, if the contest asks for a sweet potato as the main ingredient, be sure not to mistake these for yams, as these two can, and will at times, be mistaken for one another.

Secondly, use the exact measurements of each ingredient. You would want to use "1/4 cup oatmeal", as opposed to "a handful of oatmeal".

Third, when sending a recipe in hard-copy form (as opposed to an online entry form), make the recipe neat in its layout. This can help with the ease of passing through the contest in its various phases, and makes it easy for judges to skim through and get an initial idea of what the creation is.

Finally, make sure to, yes, once again, read through the official rules, and while doing so, pick out the subtle innuendos of what they may be looking for in it. These things may give you an edge, as most contests are searching for something done in a particular fashion that suits their advertising and other needs, which are often "clued" to us in the rules even more so than in the name of the sweepstakes.


Good Luck!