recipe database in excel

Question

Hi, I'm working with a database in excel for some recipes which has a row for each recipe and a header for each ingredient with the quantity required for each recipe listed in the intersecting cell. See below. I have over 150 recipes and 50+ different ingredients, but most recipes only have 6 ingredients. I would like to add a look-up that when the recipe is entered, returns the ingredients and quantities required. Is this possible? My issue is that there are so many cells that are empty because of the number of ingredients. I don't want someone to have to scroll through so many columns to get all of the ingredient quantities. Maybe I need to organize the data in a better format?? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

	Ingredient 1	Ingredient 2	Ingredient 3	Ingredient 4
Recipe 1	1	0	2	1
Recipe 2	0	2	1	0
Recipe 3	2	1	0	2
Recipe 4	1	1	2	1

Answer 1

Hi

This is a link to a sample file.

http://wikisend.com/download/612712/Recipes.xls

Check Tab List and sheet2

Have a look at it.

Answer 2

You're welcome

Thanks for the feedback.

If that answers your question, would you mark the post "Anwered'

Answer 3

Thanks, John! That's a nice and simple approach, which I can make work. I appreciate the quick response!