Switching from WP Tasty to WP Recipe Maker (WPRM) is generally straightforward, but given how central recipe cards are to your site — and the number of recipes you have — it’s reasonable to want a clear, low-risk plan.

WPRM includes a built-in importer that can convert your recipes automatically. It works well overall, but it’s not perfect, and some formatting issues may require review. Because no one understands your content better than you do, we generally recommend that clients handle the migration themselves. If you need technical help with setup or staging, NerdPress can assist.

There are two ways to migrate your recipes: individually or in-bulk. The right choice depends on how complex your recipes are.

Choosing an Approach

Formatting issues are most likely if your recipes commonly include:

  • Ingredient or instruction subsections (e.g., H4 sections like “Pie Filling” and “Pie Crust”)
  • Vulgar fractions (½, ¼ instead of 1/2, 1/4)
  • Metric conversions (especially automatic or calculated)
  • HTML formatting in Notes (e.g., <br> or <div> tags)

If you use these often, individual migration is safer. If not, bulk migration will save you significant time.

Option 1: Individual Migrations

This approach lets you migrate recipes one at a time and fix issues as you go. It’s slower, but also the most precise. During this process, both WP Tasty and WPRM will be active, so readers may see different recipe cards depending on the post.

Recommended workflow:

  • Start with your top ~100 posts, with the goal of completing that in a day or two
  • Use WPRM for all new posts going forward
  • Migrate oder posts as you update them in your regular editorial process
  • Separately, plan to migrate several older posts weekly (e.g., 25 per week)

Steps:

  1. Install WPRM and select your Cultivate recipe card (“CWP Food”) under WP Recipe Maker → Settings → Recipe Template (your tech support company can handle this for you if you’re uncomfortable)
  2. Go to WP Recipe Maker → Import Recipes, find WP Tasty, and click Explore import options
  3. Select a single recipe (do not select all)
  4. Map taxonomies (e.g., Diet, Method) to WPRM taxonomies
  5. Review and correct any formatting issues
  6. Run the Find Parents Tool under WP Recipe Maker → Tools to ensure the recipe is correctly linked to its post
  7. Run the Find Star Ratings tool under WP Recipe Maker → Tools so your star ratings transfer over

Option 2: Bulk Migration

This approach migrates everything in one pass and allows you to fully switch to WPRM in a single day. Because it’s automated, careful review is essential. We strongly recommend doing this in your BigScoots staging environment.

Steps:

  1. Confirm staging isn’t being used for other work
  2. Push a fresh copy of your live site to staging (your tech support company can handle this for you if you’re uncomfortable)
  3. Install WPRM and select your Cultivate recipe card (“CWP Food”) under WP Recipe Maker → Settings → Recipe Template
  4. Go to WP Recipe Maker → Import Recipes, find WP Tasty, and run the import for all recipes
  5. Map taxonomies during the import process
  6. Run the Find Parents Tool under WP Recipe Maker → Tools
  7. Run the Find Star Ratings tool under WP Recipe Maker → Tools so your star ratings transfer over
  8. Review high-traffic content in staging, comparing the WPRM card in staging to the Tasty card on the live site. At a minimum check your top 20 posts, but I recommended checking your top 50 posts + 20 most recent posts
  9. Once satisfied, push staging to live (your tech support company can handle this for you if you’re uncomfortable) Important Note: this process overwrites the live site, so don’t publish/edit content on your live site while working in staging.

If You’d Rather Not Do-It-Yourself

If, after reading this, you’d prefer to have someone handle the migration for you, we recommend reaching out to your technical partner, including: