Recipe Schema for Food Bloggers: What Google Actually Requires

Recipe schema sounds technical, but Google's own documentation on it is short. Only two properties are required for the recipe rich result: the image and the name. Everything else is recommended. Here is what that means for a food blogger, and where people usually slip.

It also connects to our post on AI search for food bloggers: Google says structured data isn't required for its AI features, but it still matters for rich results, and recipes are one of the places where it pays off.

What recipe schema is

Recipe schema is structured data that tells Google what the recipe on your page is: its name, photos, ingredients, steps and so on. Google recommends writing it as JSON-LD. Per Google's recipe documentation, recipes can then appear in Google Search results and in Google Images.

The two required properties

To be eligible for the recipe rich result, Google requires two properties:

• image: a picture of the completed dish.
• name: the name of the dish.

Notice the word "eligible". Including them makes you a candidate, not a guarantee. Google also lists recommended properties that add useful information, and its general guidelines say the more recommended properties you provide, the better quality the result is for users.

Recommended properties worth adding

• recipeIngredient: the list of ingredients.
• recipeInstructions: the steps, marked up as individual steps or sections.
• Ratings: if you show a rating, follow Google's review snippet guidelines.
• Video: if you have a recipe video, follow Google's video properties.

Google's documentation lists the full set, including details such as times and yield, so check it for the properties your recipe card can fill in.

The image rule most bloggers miss

Google recommends providing multiple high-resolution images for each recipe, at least 50,000 pixels (width times height), in three aspect ratios: 16:9, 4:3 and 1:1.

Here is what the required properties look like with all three images listed. This is a minimal example, and a real recipe would add ingredients, instructions and more:

{
  "@context": "https://schema.org/",
  "@type": "Recipe",
  "name": "Slow Cooker Pulled Pork",
  "image": [
    "https://example.com/photos/1x1/pulled-pork.jpg",
    "https://example.com/photos/4x3/pulled-pork.jpg",
    "https://example.com/photos/16x9/pulled-pork.jpg"
  ]
}

The size is easy to meet: 50,000 pixels is tiny, for example 250 by 200. The shapes are the part to plan for. If you shoot vertically, as we do for our sets, you can still crop all three from one original. From a 1,067 by 1,600 pixel photo, the crops come out at 1,067 by 1,067, 1,067 by 800 and 1,067 by 600, all far above the minimum. Just leave some room around the dish when you shoot. We cover framing in our food photography tips, and our image SEO guide covers file names and sizes.

Rules that can keep you out of rich results

Google's general structured data guidelines apply to recipes too:

• Your structured data must be a true representation of the page content. Don't mark up things readers can't see.
• Every image URL in the markup must be crawlable and indexable.
• Use Recipe markup for a page about preparing one dish. For a list of recipes, Google points you to ItemList markup.
• Include the main type of structured data that reflects the page's main focus.
• Don't use structured data to mislead people.

How to check your recipes

Google's Rich Results Test and the URL Inspection tool in Search Console catch most technical errors. If you use a recipe card plugin, test what it actually outputs instead of assuming it is right, and check again after you change a theme or plugin.

What recipe schema won't do

It is not a ranking trick, and it doesn't guarantee a rich result. It also won't make AI tools cite you: as we explain in our AI search post, Google says there is no special markup for its AI features. What it does is make your recipes eligible for the rich result that is already part of how people find recipes.

A quick checklist

• Every recipe has a name and at least one image of the finished dish.
• You provide 16:9, 4:3 and 1:1 versions of the photo.
• Ingredients and instructions are marked up and match what readers see.
• The image files aren't blocked from crawling or marked noindex.
• You tested the page in the Rich Results Test.

Building out a whole topic? See how content clusters work. Last checked against Google's documentation in October 2026.