Margin Notes › Guides › Recipe blog
How to start a recipe blog you own
If your recipes live in Instagram captions, nobody can find them next month. A food blog of your own gives each recipe a permanent address that search engines can show for years, and an email list that belongs to you.
Why a blog and not just social media
- Recipes get found. People search for “rye bread recipe” or “vegan lasagne”. A recipe page can answer that search long after you posted it; a caption cannot.
- You keep your audience. Followers belong to the platform. Email subscribers belong to you.
- You can earn from it. A free blog with a paid tier, such as weekly menus, meal plans or a subscribers-only recipe each month, is a natural fit.
What to write about
Pick a focus that makes you the obvious person for it: sourdough, family recipes, weeknight meals in 30 minutes, foraged and wild food, baking without gluten, or cooking for one. A narrow focus is easier to find and easier to remember than “my recipes”.
How to structure a recipe post
- A title that says what it is, using the words people search for, such as “Sourdough rye bread with caraway”.
- One good photo of the finished dish at the top.
- A short introduction with the story or the problem the recipe solves.
- Ingredients as a list, with quantities.
- Steps as a numbered list.
- Notes: substitutions, storage and what can go wrong.
Keep the same structure in every post. Readers learn where to look, and your archive stays tidy.
What Ghost does well for food blogs
- Large, fast photos that make food look good.
- A built-in newsletter, so every new recipe can reach your subscribers.
- Paid memberships for a recipe club or meal plans.
- Tags to organise by meal, diet or season.
What Ghost does not do
Ghost has no dedicated recipe cards with print buttons, nutrition calculation or servings scaling, which WordPress recipe plugins provide. You can build a clear recipe layout with Ghost's own cards, and a theme can be adjusted to add the data Google uses to show recipes in search. If a recipe database with scaling is central to what you want, WordPress is a better fit, and we will tell you so.
Moving your recipes over
Already have recipes on Instagram, a WordPress site or another blog? We can set up your Ghost site and move your best recipes across, so you start with a real archive instead of an empty page. Write to us with a link to your current recipes.
Questions
How do I start a recipe blog?
Choose a narrow focus, publish on a site you own, write three recipes before you launch, and add an email signup from the start.
Is a food blog better than Instagram?
They do different jobs. Instagram helps people discover you; a blog keeps your recipes findable in search and gives you an email list you own.
Can I earn money from a food blog?
Yes, through paid memberships, meal plans or sponsorship, but most blogs take months to build an audience first.
Does Ghost have recipe cards?
Not as a plugin. You can structure recipes with Ghost's built-in cards, and a theme can be adjusted to include recipe data for search engines.
Questions first? Write to hello@marginnotes.me. A person answers.
Last updated 2026-10-30.