Make a Christmas recipe folder from the reels you saved

It starts in early November. Pigs in blankets wreaths, a crispy roast potato hack, a chocolate log that looks impossible but apparently isn't. You save them all, and by the time December arrives they're mixed in with a year of other saves and you end up making the same Christmas dinner you made last year.

This year, give your Christmas recipes their own folder. With a few minutes now, every recipe you've saved is in one place, split into courses, with the ingredients written out and a plan for when to make what. Here's how to build it, share it and actually cook from it on the day.

When should you start planning Christmas recipes?

Earlier than you think, but not as early as the shops would like. A few dates to keep in mind for 2026:

• Stir-up Sunday is 22 November. It's the Sunday before Advent, and the traditional day to make Christmas pudding and cake so they have weeks to mature.
• Early December is a good time to make and freeze things that keep well, such as pastry, stuffing and gravy, if your recipe says they freeze.
• The week before Christmas is for ordering or collecting the meat or main, buying fresh veg, and a trial run of anything new.
• Christmas Day is a Friday this year, so many people have the weekend before to get ahead.

If you save recipes in November and plan in early December, the day itself becomes following steps rather than making decisions.

How do you set up a Christmas recipe folder?

In anoli you can put folders inside folders, which suits Christmas perfectly. Make one Christmas folder, then a few smaller ones inside it.

1. 1Create a folder called Christmas 2026 and give it a festive cover photo, a red colour or a tree emoji so it stands out on your home screen.
2. 2Inside it, add folders for the courses you cook. A typical set is Mains, Sides and veg, Gravy and sauces, Desserts, Baking and gifts, Drinks, and Boxing Day leftovers.
3. 3Add a Make ahead folder. This is the one that saves your sanity, because it holds everything that can be done before the 24th.
4. 4If you host a party as well, add Party food as its own folder so it doesn't get mixed up with dinner.

Each folder shows its three latest saves peeking out, so at a glance you can see which courses are covered and which still need ideas.

Plan for every guest

If someone at the table is vegetarian, vegan or has an allergy, give them a folder too, or at least a note on the recipes that suit them. It's much easier to find a good nut free dessert or a proper vegetarian main in November than at 10pm on the 23rd. Add a note on any recipe that needs a swap, such as "use veg stock for Sam", so the change is right there when you cook. If you're feeding children, a Kids folder with simple things they'll actually eat saves a lot of negotiation on the day.

Tip: Keep it small. Two mains, four sides, one dessert and one thing to bake is plenty. A folder of forty roast potato recipes is inspiration, not a plan.

How do you gather the Christmas recipes you already saved?

Chances are you have festive recipes saved from last year too, scattered across Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest.

From now on, share instead of saving

When you see a recipe, tap Share and choose anoli rather than the bookmark. The app reads the caption, sees that it's a recipe and files it into Recipes. Move it into Christmas with one tap. The first time, you'll need to switch it on in the share sheet: scroll the app row to the end, tap More, then Edit, switch it on and drag it to the front.

Bring in old saves

Go to Settings and Import saved posts. It reads the data download from Instagram, TikTok favourites and Pinterest. Collections and boards become folders, and everything else is sorted. If you had an Instagram collection called Christmas last year, it comes across as its own folder.

Search for the rest

Once your saves are in one place, search does the hunting. Type "turkey", "parsnip", "mince pie" or "brussels" and you see the matching line from the caption, so you can see which save is which without opening each one. Search also looks at creators, so if you remember who made that pudding, type their name.

If you're new to keeping recipes this way, the guide on saving Instagram recipes so you can find them covers the basics, and the round up of recipe organiser apps compares the options.

How do you turn a reel into a recipe you can cook from?

A reel is great for seeing what a dish looks like and terrible for following quantities with your hands full. A few steps fix that.

Summarise the caption

With anoli Pro, tap Summarise on a recipe and the caption becomes ingredients and steps. If the quantities are spoken rather than written, attach the video and the app listens to what's said too, so the full method ends up in one place. Always glance back at the video to check quantities for anything important like pastry or baking.

Add your own notes

Write the things you'll forget on the day: "double for 8 people", "fan oven, so 20 degrees lower", "Mum hates nutmeg". Notes are searchable, and they stay with the recipe for next Christmas.

Cook in cooking mode

Open the recipe and turn on cooking mode. You see the ingredients first, then one step per page in big type, with big Back and Next buttons. The screen stays on, so you aren't tapping your phone awake with buttery fingers. There's more on this in the post about cooking from your phone.

How do you plan Christmas Day cooking?

Once the recipes are chosen, work backwards from the time you want to eat.

1. 1Write down when you want to sit down to eat, say 2pm.
2. 2Note the longest cooking time, usually the main. That tells you when the oven needs to be on.
3. 3Fit the sides around it, using what's in your Make ahead folder to free up oven space.
4. 4Add the timings as a note on your Christmas folder's most important recipe, so the plan sits next to the method.
5. 5Set reminders on the recipes for the jobs that happen before the day: make the pudding on Stir-up Sunday, order the turkey, take things out of the freezer.

When each job is done, mark the recipe as done. On Christmas Eve, you can see at a glance what's left.

Tip: If you're cooking a frozen turkey or joint, check the defrosting guidance on the packaging or from the supplier well before the day. Large birds can take days in the fridge.

If you're planning meals for the whole festive week, not only the day, our guide to meal planning from saved recipes has a simple weekly method you can use for the days around Christmas.

Can you share a Christmas recipe folder with family?

Yes, and it's the best part. Christmas cooking is rarely one person's job. Folders with friends is part of anoli Pro: send one link and the other person is in. Everything either of you saves lands in the folder, and every save has reactions and a conversation, so your sister can add her stuffing recipe and you can reply "I'll do the gravy then" right there.

Anyone with the link can view the folder on the web, which helps with relatives who don't want another app. They can open the recipe list in a browser and see what they're bringing.

If you're also sorting out presents, keeping a gift ideas list in the same app works well alongside your recipe folder, so food and gifts are planned in one place.

Where should you keep Christmas recipes?

Every option has its place. Here's an honest comparison.

• A recipe book or card box: lovely for family classics you make every year. Not where reels live.
• A Pinterest board: great for gathering ideas from blogs and food sites. Reels from Instagram and TikTok don't fit as easily.
• An Instagram collection: free and quick if all your recipes are on Instagram. There's no search inside Saved, and no way to see the recipe without opening the reel.
• Recipe apps: tools like Paprika are good at importing recipes from food websites and planning meals. They're built mainly around written recipes.
• anoli: keeps recipes from Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and websites together, sorts them, turns captions into ingredients and steps with Pro, and has a cooking mode and shared folders.

Keep the folder for next year

When the dishes are done, don't delete anything. Move the recipes you loved to the top, add a note on what you'd change, and next November your Christmas folder is already half planned. In December, the app also shows a look back at what you saved this year, which is a nice reminder of how many of those reels you actually cooked.

anoli is free to start with no account and no card, and anoli Pro is £10 a year if you want summaries and shared folders. Download anoli for iPhone, take a look at the anoli home page or read reviews first.