What Is a Technical Sheet in a Restaurant? Complete Guide

A technical sheet is one of the most powerful — and most overlooked — documents in professional food service. Used correctly, it eliminates inconsistency, protects margins, and gives every person on your team the same reference point for every dish and drink you serve.

This guide explains exactly what a technical sheet is, what it must contain, how it differs from a standard recipe card, and how to create one that actually gets used on the pass every service.

What Is a Technical Sheet?

A technical sheet (also called a ficha técnica, recipe specification card, or standard recipe document) is a standardized document that describes how a specific dish or drink is prepared — including every ingredient, its exact quantity, the preparation method, yield, portion size, allergen information, and the cost per serving.

Unlike a basic recipe, a technical sheet is a management and control document. It serves three audiences simultaneously:

• Kitchen team — exactly how to prepare and plate the dish, every time
• Management — cost per portion, suggested selling price, and food cost percentage
• Compliance and training — allergen declarations, portion weights, and preparation standards

In HORECA (Hotels, Restaurants, Catering) operations, technical sheets are the backbone of consistency. A restaurant that runs without them is essentially trusting each cook to make up the dish from memory — every service.

Technical Sheet vs. Recipe Card: What's the Difference?

People use these terms interchangeably but they are meaningfully different documents.

A recipe card tells you *what* to cook. A technical sheet tells you *what* to cook, *how much* it costs, *how many* it serves, *what allergens* it contains, and *what to charge* for it.

What a Technical Sheet Must Include

A complete technical sheet for a restaurant dish or drink should contain the following elements:

1. Basic Identification

• Dish or drink name
• Category (food/beverage, starter/main/dessert, etc.)
• Date created and last updated
• Version number (if you revise recipes over time)

2. Yield and Portions

• Total batch yield (e.g. "serves 4" or "produces 2kg of sauce")
• Portion size per serving (in grams, ml, or units)
• Number of portions per batch

3. Ingredient List

• Every ingredient — including garnishes, oils used for cooking, and sauces
• Quantity as purchased (AP weight — what you take from the shelf)
• Yield percentage (the proportion that remains after trimming, cooking, or processing)
• Edible portion (EP weight — what actually ends up in the dish)
• Unit cost and total cost per ingredient

4. Cost Summary

• Total recipe cost (batch)
• Cost per portion
• Target food cost percentage
• Suggested selling price (ex-VAT and inc-VAT)

5. Preparation Method

• Step-by-step instructions, written clearly enough for any qualified team member to follow
• Cooking temperatures and times
• Critical control points (for HACCP compliance)

6. Allergen Declaration

• All 14 major allergens that apply to the recipe, clearly flagged
• Note on cross-contamination risk if relevant

7. Plating and Presentation

• Description of how the dish should look when it leaves the pass
• Photo of the finished dish (highly recommended)
• Portion placement and garnish positioning

Why Yield Percentage Matters More Than You Think

One of the most common costing mistakes is ignoring yield loss — and it can make your food cost percentage significantly higher than you realise.

Yield percentage is the proportion of an ingredient that remains usable after trimming, peeling, cooking, or processing.

Yield % = (Edible Portion Weight ÷ As-Purchased Weight) × 100

Example:

You buy 1kg of salmon fillet at €22.00/kg. After skinning and pin-boning, you have 820g of usable fish.

Yield % = (820 ÷ 1000) × 100 = 82%
True cost per kg of usable salmon = €22.00 ÷ 0.82 = €26.83/kg

If you cost your salmon dishes using the as-purchased price of €22.00/kg instead of the true yield-adjusted cost of €26.83/kg, you're understating your food cost by over 20% on every salmon dish. At scale, this error is significant.

A good technical sheet always uses edible portion quantities and yield-adjusted costs — never as-purchased weight applied directly to portion cost.

Common Yield Percentages by Ingredient Category

These are industry reference yields. Your actual yields will vary by supplier, quality, and prep technique — always measure your own.

How Technical Sheets Control Food Cost

Technical sheets work as a food cost control system in two ways:

1. They lock in the cost at the recipe level. Once you've built a technical sheet with correct quantities and current ingredient prices, you know the exact cost per portion. If someone uses more, they're either wasting product or over-portioning — both of which increase your food cost.

2. They reveal the gap between theoretical and actual cost. Your theoretical food cost is calculated from your technical sheets and POS sales data — what you *should* have spent based on what you sold. Your actual food cost is from your stock counts. The difference is your variance. A high variance points to specific problems: over-portioning, waste, theft, or incorrect receiving.

Without technical sheets, you have no theoretical cost to compare against. You're flying blind.

Technical Sheets for Cocktails and Drinks

Technical sheets aren't just for food — they're equally important for your bar programme, and often neglected there.

A cocktail technical sheet should include:

• Every spirit, mixer, juice, syrup, and garnish with exact ml quantities
• Glassware specification
• Ice type and quantity
• Method (shaken, stirred, built, blended)
• Cost per cocktail at yield-adjusted spirit prices
• Suggested selling price at your target beverage cost (typically 18%–24%)

Bar waste is particularly hard to control without documentation. An extra 5ml of spirit per pour is invisible in the moment but adds up to significant over-cost across hundreds of covers.

How to Create a Technical Sheet (Step by Step)

Step 1 — Build your ingredient database

Before you can cost any recipe, you need an accurate ingredient database: what you pay per batch, in what unit, and the derived cost per gram, ml, or unit. This is the foundation everything else is built on.

Step 2 — [Standardize the recipe](/en/guides/how-to-standardize-recipes-restaurant)

Test the dish until it's exactly as you want it to be served. Lock the quantities — not approximations, but exact weights for every ingredient including cooking fat, seasoning, and garnish.

Step 3 — Calculate yield percentages

For every ingredient that involves trimming or cooking loss, measure your actual yield and record it. Use this to calculate edible portion cost.

Step 4 — Cost each ingredient line

Multiply edible portion quantity by cost per unit. Sum all lines for total recipe cost and cost per portion.

Step 5 — Set your target and calculate selling price

Divide cost per portion by your target food cost percentage to get the minimum viable selling price. Review against your market positioning and adjust.

Step 6 — Add allergen, preparation, and plating information

Complete the non-cost sections: step-by-step method, allergen flags, plating description, and photo if possible.

Step 7 — Distribute and train

A technical sheet that lives in a folder no one opens is useless. Print it, laminate it, and put it where the dish is prepared. Train every team member. Review and update whenever a recipe or ingredient price changes.

How Technical Sheets Creator Automates This Process

Building technical sheets manually in Excel is possible but time-consuming, error-prone, and hard to update. When a supplier changes a price, you have to manually recalculate every recipe that uses that ingredient.

Technical Sheets Creator is a web-based tool built specifically for HORECA operators that automates the entire process:

• Ingredient database — Enter each ingredient once with batch size and price. The tool calculates cost per unit automatically.
• Live cost calculation — Add ingredients to a recipe and the cost per portion updates in real time as you build.
• Target food cost % — Set your target in Global Configuration. The tool calculates suggested selling prices (ex-VAT and inc-VAT) automatically.
• Instant price updates — When a supplier price changes, update the ingredient once. Every recipe that uses it recalculates immediately — across your entire menu.
• Professional PDF export — Export clean, professional technical sheet PDFs for kitchen use, training, and audits.
• Multi-language support — Available in English, Spanish, and Portuguese.

→ Create your first technical sheet for free

Technical Sheet FAQ

What is a technical sheet in a restaurant?

A technical sheet is a standardized document that details how a dish or drink is prepared, including exact ingredient quantities, yield percentages, cost per portion, suggested selling price, allergen information, and plating instructions. It functions as both a kitchen reference document and a management control tool.

What is the difference between a technical sheet and a recipe card?

A recipe card provides cooking instructions. A technical sheet goes further — it includes exact quantities (not approximations), cost per ingredient, cost per portion, suggested selling price at a target food cost percentage, allergen declarations, and yield calculations. It is a management document as much as a kitchen reference.

What is a ficha técnica?

Ficha técnica is the Spanish and Portuguese term for technical sheet. It is the standard document used in professional kitchens across Spain, Portugal, and Latin America to standardize recipes, control costs, and document allergen information.

Does every dish on the menu need a technical sheet?

Yes, ideally. Every dish and drink you sell should have a technical sheet. In practice, start with your highest-volume and highest-cost items — these have the greatest impact on your food cost. Build out the rest of the menu progressively.

How often should technical sheets be updated?

Any time a recipe changes or a supplier price changes significantly (more than 5–10%), you should update the affected technical sheets immediately. Set a minimum quarterly review of your full menu to catch any cost drift.

Can technical sheets be used for cocktails?

Absolutely. Bar technical sheets follow the same principle — exact quantities, yield-adjusted spirit costs, and suggested selling price at your target beverage cost. They are especially important for premium cocktails where spirit costs are high.

What allergens need to be declared on a technical sheet?

In the EU, the 14 major allergens must be declared: gluten, crustaceans, eggs, fish, peanuts, soybeans, milk, nuts, celery, mustard, sesame, sulphur dioxide/sulphites, lupin, and molluscs. Always consult your local food safety regulations for specific requirements.