How to Create Recipe Schema for Food Sites in 2026

Chapter 1. Before you start

Recipe schema is the highest-stakes structured-data type in the food vertical. The Recipe rich result occupies far more SERP real estate than a standard organic listing - thumbnail, rating, calorie count, prep time - and the CTR uplift is substantial enough that food sites without recipe schema are effectively invisible against competitors that ship it correctly. The 2023 HowTo deprecation didn't touch Recipe; Google explicitly kept Recipe alive because the user-intent match is so clean.

• Confirm the page is a single recipe, not a roundup like "10 chicken dinner ideas." For roundups, use ItemList wrapping individual Recipe references.
• Generate at least one high-quality hero photo, ideally three aspect ratios (1x1, 4x3, 16x9). Without an image the rich result drops to a much smaller variant.
• Capture prep + cook + total time accurately. The rich result displays totalTime prominently; understating it (so the recipe looks fast) backfires when users abandon halfway through.
• Decide on nutrition. Including nutrition is optional but adds the calorie badge to the rich result, which lifts CTR for diet-conscious queries.

Chapter 2. What does Recipe schema actually do for SEO + AI search?

Four things, in descending order of importance.

1. Recipe rich result eligibility. The thumbnail, rating, prep time, calorie count, and reviewer count surface in the SERP. CTR uplift averages 40-65% over a plain text result.
2. Recipe carousel inclusion. For category queries like "vegetarian chili recipe", Google groups recipe results into a horizontally scrollable carousel above organic results. Carousel slots require Recipe schema with image + rating.
3. Voice assistant cooking flow. Google Assistant reads recipeInstructions step-by-step on smart displays and Nest hubs. Schema-shaped steps are what makes "Hey Google, walk me through this recipe" work.
4. AI engine citation. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini pull specific ingredient quantities and step counts from Recipe schema for cooking-intent queries.

Chapter 3. Required and recommended properties

Per Google's Recipe structured-data documentation, required: name, image, recipeIngredient, recipeInstructions. Recommended floor:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Recipe",
  "@id": "https://www.example.com/recipes/weeknight-pad-thai#recipe",
  "name": "Weeknight Pad Thai",
  "description": "30-minute Pad Thai with shrimp, rice noodles, and a balanced tamarind-fish sauce dressing.",
  "image": [
    "https://www.example.com/recipes/weeknight-pad-thai/hero-1x1.jpg",
    "https://www.example.com/recipes/weeknight-pad-thai/hero-4x3.jpg",
    "https://www.example.com/recipes/weeknight-pad-thai/hero-16x9.jpg"
  ],
  "author": { "@id": "https://www.example.com/about#jane-doe" },
  "datePublished": "2026-05-20",
  "prepTime": "PT15M",
  "cookTime": "PT15M",
  "totalTime": "PT30M",
  "recipeYield": "4 servings",
  "recipeCategory": "Dinner",
  "recipeCuisine": "Thai",
  "keywords": "pad thai, weeknight dinner, shrimp",
  "recipeIngredient": [
    "8 oz dried flat rice noodles",
    "1 lb large shrimp, peeled and deveined",
    "3 tbsp tamarind paste",
    "3 tbsp fish sauce",
    "2 tbsp palm sugar",
    "3 tbsp peanut oil",
    "3 cloves garlic, minced",
    "2 large eggs, beaten",
    "1 cup bean sprouts",
    "1/4 cup roasted peanuts, chopped",
    "2 limes, cut into wedges"
  ],
  "recipeInstructions": [
    { "@type": "HowToStep", "name": "Soak noodles", "text": "Soak rice noodles in warm water for 20 minutes until pliable.", "url": "https://www.example.com/recipes/weeknight-pad-thai#step-1" },
    { "@type": "HowToStep", "name": "Make sauce", "text": "Whisk tamarind, fish sauce, and palm sugar until sugar dissolves.", "url": "https://www.example.com/recipes/weeknight-pad-thai#step-2" }
  ],
  "nutrition": {
    "@type": "NutritionInformation",
    "calories": "520 kcal",
    "carbohydrateContent": "62 g",
    "proteinContent": "28 g",
    "fatContent": "16 g",
    "servingSize": "1 plate"
  },
  "aggregateRating": {
    "@type": "AggregateRating",
    "ratingValue": "4.8",
    "ratingCount": 142,
    "reviewCount": 67
  },
  "video": { "@id": "https://www.example.com/recipes/weeknight-pad-thai#video" }
}

Every field contributes to a specific rich-result feature. nutrition drives the calorie badge. aggregateRating drives the stars. totalTime drives the time chip. video drives the play icon. Skipping any of them removes the corresponding visual element.

Chapter 4. Modeling recipeInstructions as HowToStep

Each instruction step is a HowToStep object, not a sentence in a paragraph. The cleanest pattern:

"recipeInstructions": [
  {
    "@type": "HowToStep",
    "name": "Soak the noodles",
    "text": "Soak 8 oz flat rice noodles in warm water for 20 minutes until pliable but firm. Drain and set aside.",
    "image": "https://www.example.com/recipes/weeknight-pad-thai/step-1.jpg",
    "url": "https://www.example.com/recipes/weeknight-pad-thai#step-1"
  }
]

For recipes with distinct phases (prep / cook / plate), wrap groups of steps in HowToSection:

"recipeInstructions": [
  {
    "@type": "HowToSection",
    "name": "Mise en place",
    "itemListElement": [
      { "@type": "HowToStep", "name": "Soak noodles", "text": "..." },
      { "@type": "HowToStep", "name": "Whisk sauce", "text": "..." }
    ]
  },
  {
    "@type": "HowToSection",
    "name": "Cook",
    "itemListElement": [ ... ]
  }
]

The HowToSection pattern lets Google Assistant announce phase transitions during voice-guided cooking. Without it, all steps are flat and the assistant can't pause between "prep" and "cook" naturally.

Chapter 5. Nutrition modeling and video pairing

Nutrition

Use NutritionInformation with units in the value strings. The recommended fields are calories, carbohydrateContent, proteinContent, fatContent, and servingSize. Include fiberContent, sugarContent, and sodiumContent when the audience cares (low-carb, diabetic-friendly, sodium-restricted).

"nutrition": {
  "@type": "NutritionInformation",
  "calories": "520 kcal",
  "carbohydrateContent": "62 g",
  "proteinContent": "28 g",
  "fatContent": "16 g",
  "fiberContent": "4 g",
  "sodiumContent": "850 mg",
  "servingSize": "1 plate (350 g)"
}

Video pairing

For recipes with a how-to video, ship a full VideoObject in the @graph and reference it from Recipe via the video property. This enables the video-recipe rich result variant - thumbnail with a play icon and duration badge.

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@graph": [
    { "@type": "Recipe", "video": { "@id": "...#video" }, ... },
    { "@type": "VideoObject", "@id": "...#video", "name": "...", "thumbnailUrl": [...], "uploadDate": "...", "duration": "PT3M22S", "contentUrl": "..." }
  ]
}

Chapter 6. Where do you place Recipe schema on the site?

Always reference the parent Organization via publisher and the author via Person with @id. This satisfies Google's recipe author E-E-A-T expectation for the food YMYL adjacent niche (diet, allergy, nutrition).

Chapter 7. The breakages we see most often

Ranked by frequency across 41 food and recipe site audits over the past 24 months:

• recipeInstructions as a single text blob instead of an array of HowToStep objects. 26 of 41.
• No nutrition, missing the calorie badge in the rich result. 19 of 41.
• Recipe video on page but no VideoObject pairing, so the video-recipe rich result never fires. 14 of 41.
• Durations in plain text ("15 min") instead of ISO 8601 ("PT15M"). 11 of 41.
• recipeIngredient as quantities-only or names-only (e.g. "1 cup" or "flour" alone). Each ingredient string should include amount + unit + name. 9 of 41.
• No aggregateRating on recipes with user reviews on page. Reviews exist but never surface in the SERP. 7 of 41.
• Recipe schema on roundup posts instead of ItemList. Confuses the rich-result eligibility. 5 of 41.

We track these on running sites through our Sentry structured-data rule set.