As we've written about quite a bit, one of the most powerful features of nutrition and recipe costing software is the ability to use subrecipes.

We recently wrote about how it works with respect to subrecipe costing, but we recently updated how deeply connected they are to each other.

Now multi-stage recipes and subrecipes automatically get updated when a subcomponent gets updated anywhere down the line, whether it's 1 subrecipe removed or 3.

Subrecipes at a Glance

Subrecipes can be used as ingredients in other recipes and are incredibly useful if you have a common base that is used in different flavors and products. Think ice cream bases, batters, marinades, and spice mixes. Any time you have several recipes with minor differences you should probably use a subrecipe.

Then, when something changes in the subrecipe you only have to update it in one recipe instead of the 5 (or more) that have that set of ingredients. It's a lot faster, less prone to error, and more organized.

Multi-Stage Subrecipes

Multi-stage subrecipes take it to the next level. It's when you have multiple subrecipes nested within a recipe. A good example is a spice rub (subrecipe) that goes into a marinade (subrecipe with the spice rub subrecipe within it), which then goes into a final pulled pork recipe. That would be a 3-stage recipe with 2 levels of subrecipes in it.

The New Approach

Now, if you update an ingredient or cost of something in the first subrecipe, it will automatically flow through into the ingredient list and costing of the final recipe, which can be 2 or 3 recipes removed from a subrecipe.

That's one less thing you have to think about with your products, and everything will just seamlessly work. With subrecipes you can keep your recipes more organized, save time and get back to business.

Final Thoughts

This should be another powerful tool in your arsenal when dealing with more complicated recipes and a time-saver for creating nutrition labels.

Have questions about how to properly cost your product or how to make use of subrecipes? Ask us by email, livechat, twitter, or leave a comment below. And as always, let us know if you have any other ideas for improving ReciPal.