Pinterest Pin Size for Food Bloggers: 5 Pins From One Recipe Shoot

The Pinterest pin size to use is 1000 x 1500 pixels, a vertical image with a 2:3 aspect ratio. That's the short answer, and it's what Pinterest itself recommends.

The part that matters more for a food blogger is what you do with that size. One recipe shoot can give you five or more different pins for the same post, and Pinterest rewards new images far more than the same pin posted again and again. Below you'll find the sizes, the reasoning, and the five-pin plan we'd use for every recipe. It builds on the shot list from our food photography tips for recipe bloggers.

The Pinterest pin size to use

Pinterest's own specs recommend a 2:3 aspect ratio, or 1000 x 1500 pixels, saved as a JPEG or PNG, with a maximum file size of 20 MB on desktop. They also warn that pins taller than 2:3 might get cut off in people's feeds. You can read the details on Pinterest's product specs page.

• Size: 1000 x 1500 pixels (2:3).
• Format: JPEG or PNG.
• File size: the limit is 20 MB, but keep your files well under that so they load fast.
• Square pins (1:1): they work, but they're shorter, so they take up less room in the feed.
• Taller pins: avoid going past 2:3, because the extra height may be cut off.

Shoot vertical from the start

If you shoot a recipe horizontally, you end up cropping a tall pin out of a wide image and throwing away most of the frame. It's much easier to shoot vertically from the beginning, so the photo already matches the Pinterest pin size.

That's how we shoot the sets in our shop: in vertical frames at a 2:3 ratio, which means a pin needs little or no cropping. Still capture a few horizontal frames for your featured image, since wide images work better there (we cover that in our image SEO guide).

Why five pins and not one

Pinterest favors images it hasn't seen before. A new image that points to a URL you've already pinned still counts as a fresh pin, so a single recipe can keep generating new pins long after you publish it.

Tailwind's 2025 benchmark of more than a million pins found that pins using a new image for the same URL kept about 64% of their original distribution, even after the URL had been pinned 11 to 25 times. Pins that repeated the same image and URL kept only about 11%. You can see the numbers in their study. The takeaway is simple: you need several different images per recipe, not one image used five times.

The five pins from one recipe shoot

If you follow the shot list, you already have everything you need. Each pin uses a different shot, with its own title and its own angle:

1. The overhead hero. Your best full-dish shot from above. Keep the text short: the dish name and one benefit, such as "Creamy Steak Pasta in 25 Minutes."
2. The 45 degree hero. The same dish, with more depth. Give it a different title angle, like the occasion ("Date Night Pasta") or a key ingredient.
3. The close-up. A texture shot with one or two words that sell the bite, like "Extra Crispy" or "Melty." Leave most of the image to the food.
4. The process pin. A step image, or a few process shots stacked together, with a title like "How to Make [Dish]." Pinterest users save how-to pins because they want to follow along.
5. The ingredient pin. Your overhead ingredient shot with "What You Need for [Dish]." It's useful for anyone planning a shopping list.

Text overlays and keywords

Put a short title on each pin in large, high-contrast type, and keep it off the best part of the dish. Use the same fonts and colors across all of your pins so people start to recognize them in the feed.

Then fill in the text fields, because that's where Pinterest reads what the pin is about. Write a different title for each pin, with the main keyword near the front. Add a description of two or three sentences that explains what the recipe is, and add alt text that describes what's actually in the image. Save each pin to the board that fits it best.

How to schedule them

Don't post all five on the same day. Space them out over a few days or weeks, so the same URL isn't hit with several pins at once. Most scheduling tools can do this for you (Tailwind calls it pin spacing).

Also put one or two of your best vertical images inside the recipe post itself, so readers can save it straight from the page.

The five-pin plan in one table

Keep this table next to your shot list, and every recipe will leave the shoot with a full set of pins at the right Pinterest pin size.

Don't want to shoot and design all of this?

Making five pins per recipe adds up quickly. If you'd rather spend that time writing and publishing, every set in our shop comes with ingredient, process, and hero shots, shot in vertical 2:3 frames, plus a working recipe document. Each set is sold to one blogger only, so your pins won't look like anyone else's.

Building out a whole topic instead of a single recipe? See how content clusters work.