---
title: "How to Write a Recipe Card Google Loves"
description: "The fields, photos and habits that help your recipes earn Google rich results, explained by a former chef. No code required."
url: https://scrumptiouswp.com/guides/recipe-card-google-loves/
site: "ScrumptiousWP"
---

# How to Write a Recipe Card Google Loves

Google shows recipes differently from other pages. A good recipe result can have a photo, star ratings, cook time and calories right in the search results. Google builds that from structured data: a hidden, machine-readable copy of your recipe card. Get it right and your recipe looks like a dish worth clicking. Get it wrong and you look like every other link.

The good news: you don’t write any of it by hand. A proper recipe card plugin writes it for you from the fields you fill in. Your job is to fill in the right fields, the right way.

## The two things Google requires

Google’s recipe guidelines require just two things: a **name** and an **image**. Everything else is “recommended”. Recommended matters, though. The more of the card you fill in, the more Google can show, and the better your chances of a rich result.

## Everything else worth filling in

- **A short description.** One or two sentences that make someone hungry. “Thin slices of beef in a sweet, garlicky pear marinade, seared hot and fast” beats “This is my favorite bulgogi recipe.”
- **Prep, cook and total time.** People filter by time. A 25-minute dinner is a feature, so say so.
- **Yield or servings.** “Serves 4” or “24 cookies”. It also powers servings scaling for your readers.
- **Ingredients, one per line.** Amount, unit, ingredient, then any notes: “2 tbsp soy sauce”, not “some soy sauce”.
- **Instructions as separate steps.** One step per line, so Google can read them as steps instead of one long paragraph.
- **Course and cuisine.** “Dinner”, “Korean”. These help Google (and your readers) understand what the dish is.
- **Keywords.** A few honest words people would search for, like “weeknight” or “sheet pan”.
- **Nutrition, if you have it.** Calories are the one Google shows most.
- **Ratings.** Stars only appear when real readers leave them, so switch ratings on and let them roll in.

**Chef’s note:** in a restaurant, nobody cooks from “a handful” or “cook until done”. Write your card the way a kitchen writes a prep list: exact amounts, clear times, one action per step. Google likes it for the same reason cooks do.

## Photos: the part people skip

The photo is what gets the click. Google recommends high-resolution images and, where you can, the same photo in a few shapes: wide (16:9), classic (4:3) and square (1:1). Use a real photo of the finished dish, well lit, with the food filling the frame. A tiny thumbnail or a photo of your kitchen counter won’t cut it.

## Only one recipe card per recipe

If a recipe appears in two places, only one of them should tell Google “this is the recipe”. Two plugins, or a card copied into two posts, can give Google two competing versions of the same dish. Pick one home for each recipe.

## Check your work

Paste your recipe’s address into Google’s free **Rich Results Test**. It shows exactly what Google sees and flags anything missing. Once your site is in Google Search Console, the **Recipes** report shows problems across your whole blog, not just one post.

## How Scrumptious handles it

Scrumptious writes Google’s recipe data automatically from your card, including steps, times, yield, course, cuisine and ratings. You don’t need to fill in a form field by field: paste the recipe the way you wrote it and Scrumptious sorts it into the card. Then give it a quick check, add a great photo, and publish.

Want the details? The help article on [Google recipe data](https://scrumptiouswp.com/help/google-recipe-data/) lists every field Scrumptious sends.