What size is a standard recipe card?

4 by 6 inches (about 10 by 15 cm) is the common recipe card size in Canada and the United States, and recipe boxes are made for it. 3 by 5 inches is the older index card size and fits the smaller tins.

Can I print recipe cards on a home printer?

Yes. Print two 4×6 cards or three 3×5 cards on one letter sheet of card stock and cut along the dashed lines, or feed 4×6 photo paper or index cards through the printer’s manual tray and print one card per sheet.

Is the template free?

Yes. Print as many as you like. There is no sign-up and nothing is collected when you open the print page.

Can I type on the card before printing?

Not on this page. Print the card and write on it. A written card is the kind people keep. If you want a typed copy, a recipe box is the place for that, and the written card scans into one.

How do I get a handwritten card back into an app?

Photograph it flat in daylight and use a reader that turns the photo into a recipe. In Forktales, the scan panel reads a card’s handwriting and fills in the recipe form for you to check.

Guides · Updated 31 October 2026 · 5 min read

Printable recipe card template, 4×6 and 3×5, lined or blank

A free recipe card template to print on letter paper or card stock, in 4×6 and 3×5, lined or blank. How to fill one in so it can be followed, and how to scan it back into your recipe box when you want it searchable.

A recipe card does one thing a phone does not. It can be handed over. Written in your hand, with the one change you always make, it is the copy people keep. This template prints at true size on a home printer.

Print a card

Print a recipe card

Recipe

From

Serves

Prep

Cook

Oven

Ingredients

Method

forktales.app

Open the print page

Opens in a new tab with the cards laid out two to a letter sheet, with cut marks. Print from there.

Choose the size and the lines
4×6 holds a full recipe. 3×5 holds one you mostly know. Lined cards keep the writing straight; blank ones suit a sketch of a braid or a diagram of a pan.
Choose the paper
Letter paper lays two 4×6 cards or three 3×5 cards on one sheet with dashed cut lines. Card stock sets the page to the card’s own size for a printer with a manual tray, or for 4×6 photo paper.
Open the print page and print
The print page opens in a new tab with nothing on it but the cards and a Print button. Set the printer to actual size, not fit to page, so a 4×6 comes out 4×6.
Cut on the dashed line
A ruler and a craft knife give a cleaner edge than scissors.

Which size

4 × 6
10 × 15 cmfits recipe boxes
Room for a dozen ingredients and six or seven steps. The size recipe boxes and tins are made for. If you are starting a box, start here.
3 × 5
7.5 × 12.5 cmindex card
Room for the recipe you have made twenty times and need the numbers for. The older size, and the one in a grandmother’s tin.

Filling it in

Skip

Writing the method as a paragraph
Leaving out the oven temperature because everyone knows it
Abbreviations only you use

Amounts in the left column, one ingredient per line, in the order they are used
Numbered steps, each starting with a verb
Oven temperature and time at the top, where you look first
Servings, so the card can be doubled
What you changed, in the margin, dated

Write the card for someone who has never made the dish. That person is you in ten years, and it is also whoever inherits the tin.

Cards to give

A card with a dish is the gift that costs a stamp. A set of ten cards, the recipes someone always asks you for, is a wedding present. Three things make a given card worth keeping:

Your name and the year
On the From line. In twenty years the card will be the record.
The reason
One line at the bottom. “The one from Christmas 2019.” The dish is half the gift.
The real amounts
Not the cookbook’s. The ones you use, including the extra garlic.

Scan it back

A written card is not the end of the recipe. Photograph it flat in daylight and it is one scan away from being searchable, cookable from a phone and shareable with the friends who could not come for dinner. The digitizing guide shows a real card and what a reader made of it.

Where Forktales fits

The Forktales scanner reads a photo of a card, handwritten or printed, and fills in the recipe form for you to check: amounts split from items, steps numbered, times and servings. The photo is not kept. A scan spends one credit, a scan that finds no recipe spends nothing and typing a recipe in is free. The recipe then sits in your recipe box, and the card goes back in the tin.