The ultimate recipe refresh: top 25 downloaded recipes

8,000 is the number of downloads our top 25 recipes have received since the start of January 2025! With our recipes being so well used over a number of years, we decided it was time to review, refresh and renew our most downloaded recipes. From portion sizes to top tips, here’s the six focus areas we considered when refreshing your favourite dishes:

Step 1: Portion sizes from toddlers to teens

Our recipes are designed for young people of all ages from 3-16 year, so we have to ensure our portion sizes are suitable for young people. We have based our portions on guidance from School Food Plan portion sizes and The development of food portion sizes suitable for 4–18-year old children used in a theoretical meal plan meeting energy and nutrient requirements. Our portion sizes are based on 11-18 year olds, but don’t worry — we’ve added notes suggesting smaller portions for younger children and bigger ones for adults.

Look out for the recipes with a blue image background!

Step 2: Nutritional analysis

Our recipes have been nutritionally analysed using Nutricalc software. A front of pack label was created for each of the recipes using the traffic light system. It is easy to spot the levels of fat, sugar and salt at a glance and help make more informed choices in your classrooms.

Step 3: Ingredient updates

We gave our ingredients a healthy makeover guided by the Eatwell Guide and healthy eating recommendations. These changes include:

• All cereal-based recipes now recommend a wholemeal version to boost fibre intake;
• Our recipes use unsaturated fats, and vegetable oil was used in our nutritional analysis, an option of spray oils was also included in our recipes to reflect what’s available in schools;
• All recipes using dairy products use a reduced-fat alternative, to reduce the fat content of the recipes;
• Meat based recipes now suggest different cuts/types of meat, plus a meat alternative to encourage the diversification of protein sources.

Step 4: Picture perfect plates

What’s a recipe without a mouth-watering photo? The education team rolled up our sleeves, got cooking the updated recipes, and snapped fresh photos to show ideal serving suggestions.

Step 5: Top tips that actually help!

We gave our top tips section a full refresh and organised the advice into helpful categories:

• focus on fibre;
• save the pennies;
• serving suggestions;
• vary your protein;
• vegetarian alternative;
• 5 A DAY;
• turn up the flavour.

Whether you’re looking to enhance your nutrition, save money or learn how to best serve your dish we have got a top tip for you!

Step 6: Be ingredient aware!

We feel it is important to provide educators with accurate information regarding allergens as part of the recipe review. The “Be ingredient aware!” logo was created for each of our downloadable recipes to act as a reminder for people using our recipes to check for allergens or dietary restrictions such as religion or culture.

As each of our recipes is downloadable and changes can be made, a definitive list of allergens may not always be correct. If a change is made to the recipe this will not be reflected in the allergens list. However, we do:
• highlight common allergens in each recipe;
• offer ideas on how best to adapt them;
• signpost to more information regarding the 14 allergens from the FSA website.

The Food – a fact of life team will be continuing to review and refresh our recipes with portion sizes, nutritional analysis and ‘be ingredient aware’ advice coming soon for a further 100 recipes. 

Ready to explore the recipes that we have already refreshed (look out for the blue image background)? Download your favourites today and get cooking! 

Looking for more recipe inspiration? Make sure to scroll to the bottom of our recipe pages to find recipes with similar skills or ingredients to try with your students.