Brioche - Setting Up Recipe Filters with FacetWP

The Brioche theme includes built-in styling and support for creating a filterable Recipe Index page with FacetWP. This allows visitors to narrow down your recipes by things like course, diet, cuisine, cooking method, season, and more.

FacetWP is completely optional and is not required to use the Brioche theme. If you'd like to use the filtering features shown on the Brioche demo, you'll need to purchase a your own FacetWP license.

Who Should Use Recipe Filters?

Recipe filtering can be a great addition to your site, but hot take: not every recipe website needs it!

Filters are most useful if you have a large recipe library or you like to organize your recipes in several different ways. For example, if a visitor might want to find a recipe that's Dinner + Gluten Free + Italian, filters make it easy to narrow down your Recipe Index using multiple criteria at once.

You may want to use recipe filters if:

You have a large or growing collection of recipes.
Your recipes naturally fit into several different groups, such as course, diet, cuisine, method, and season.
You want visitors to be able to combine multiple criteria to find exactly what they're looking for.
You're willing to put some extra time into the initial organization and setup.

If your recipe collection is small or your visitors can easily browse using a handful of categories, you may not need FacetWP at all. Brioche's Standard Recipe Index is a simpler option and works great for browsing recipes by category!

Before You Get Started

We're going to be totally up front with you: recipe filtering is a bit of a pain to set up initially. There's just no way around it! There are a lot of pieces involved, and if categories, taxonomies, and facets are new to you, it may feel a little overwhelming at first.

In this guide, we'll walk you through the entire process step by step and explain things as we go. The bulk of the work is in this initial setup; once everything is in place, you'll only need to select the applicable categories and terms as you publish new recipes.

Here's a quick overview of what we'll be setting up:

Create categories and taxonomies to organize your recipes
Assign those categories and taxonomy terms to your recipe posts
Create FacetWP filters (called facets) based on those categories and taxonomies
Add the facets to your Recipe Index page

What is FacetWP?

FacetWP is a premium WordPress filtering plugin that allows visitors to quickly narrow down a collection of posts based on criteria you choose.

On a recipe website, that might mean allowing someone to find:

Dinner recipes
Gluten-free recipes
Italian recipes
Slow cooker recipes
Summer recipes

Or any combination of those filters.

For example, a visitor could select Dinner + Gluten Free + Slow Cooker to see only recipes matching all three.

FacetWP handles the filtering itself, while the Brioche theme includes the styling and settings needed to make everything look good and work together in your Recipe Index!

Purchase FacetWP

FacetWP is a paid third-party plugin and must be purchased separately if you'd like to add recipe filtering to your site. We're not affiliated or partnered with FacetWP; we're just big fans of their product!

FacetWP is entirely optional and isn't required to use the Brioche theme. Without FacetWP, you can still create a traditional Recipe Index page using categories and links to help visitors browse your recipes.

Step 1: Install FacetWP & Add-Ons

Once you've purchased and downloaded FacetWP, you'll first need to install and activate the main FacetWP plugin.

Then install the following FacetWP add-ons:

Blocks
Recipes Integration
Mobile Flyout
Cache – optional, but recommended

Once those are installed and activated, you're ready to start organizing your recipes!

Step 2: Decide How to Organize Your Recipes

Before creating any filters, take some time to think about how you'd like visitors to browse and filter your recipes. What would be most helpful for your site? You might want to filter by course, diet, cuisine, cooking method, season, or something else entirely.

Write down a list of the filters you'd like to offer, along with the options visitors should be able to select within each one. For example, a Course filter might include Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Desserts, and Snacks.

What is a taxonomy?

Once you have an idea of the filters you'd like to offer, the next step is to organize your recipes in WordPress so FacetWP has that information to work with. This is where categories and taxonomies come in.

You're probably already familiar with categories, which WordPress uses to group related posts. A taxonomy is simply the broader WordPress term for a way of organizing posts. In fact, Categories are a type of taxonomy!

The Brioche Recipe Tools plugin lets you create additional taxonomies specifically for your recipes, giving you more ways to organize them beyond your regular categories.

Each taxonomy contains terms, which are the individual options you assign to your recipes. Think of the taxonomy as the name of the group, and the terms as the options within that group.

Here are some examples:

Taxonomy: Cuisine

Term: Italian
Term: Mexican
Term: French
Term: Mediterranean

Taxonomy: Method

Term: Air Fryer
Term: BBQ
Term: Instant Pot
Term: Slow Cooker

Taxonomy: Season

Term: Spring
Term: Summer
Term: Fall
Term: Winter

Once your recipes are organized this way, FacetWP can turn each group/taxonomy into a filter!

Categories vs. Taxonomies

Categories and custom taxonomies can work together in FacetWP. You can use your existing WordPress Categories for some filters and custom taxonomies for others. Categories are often the simplest choice for the main sections of your recipe site, so there's no need to recreate that organization with custom taxonomies.

In the Brioche demo, for example, courses such as Breakfast, Appetizers, and Desserts are organized using regular WordPress Categories.

We used additional taxonomies for other ways of organizing recipes that don't fit naturally within those categories. Our demo site is set up like this:

Categories

Recipes (parent category) with sub-categories:

Appetizers
Breakfast
Desserts
Main Dishes
Sourdough

Diet (Taxonomy)

Dairy Free
Gluten Free
High Protein
Low Carb
Vegan
Vegetarian

Cuisine (Taxonomy)

American
Asian
Italian
Mexican
Mediterranean

Method (Taxonomy)

30-Minute Meal
Air Fryer
Meal Prep
One Pan
Sheet Pan
Slow Cooker

Season (Taxonomy)

Spring
Summer
Fall
Winter

Tip: Don't feel like you need to create every possible taxonomy. Start with the filters that you think would really help someone find recipes on your site. You can always add more later on!

Step 3: Set Up Your Recipe Taxonomies

First, make sure the Brioche Recipe Tools plugin is installed and activated on your site. Then go to your WordPress Dashboard > Settings > Brioche Recipe Tools.

Brioche includes a few ready-made recipe taxonomies that you can enable as needed:

Seasons
Cuisines
Methods
Occasions

Just place a checkmark next to the taxonomies you'd like to use!

Once enabled, they'll appear in the menu under Posts in your WordPress dashboard.

For example, if you enable Seasons, you can create terms such as:

Spring
Summer
Fall
Winter

If you enable Methods, you might create:

Air Fryer
Instant Pot
One Pan
Slow Cooker

Note: Diet Taxonomy

If you're using Brioche's Diet Labels feature, Diet is already registered as its own taxonomy. You do NOT need to create a custom Diet taxonomy.

Your Diet terms could include things like Gluten Free, High Protein, Vegetarian, etc.

These terms can serve double duty: they can appear as Diet Labels on your recipes and can also be used as a FacetWP filter!

To manage the Diet taxonomy and terms, go to Posts > Diet Labels.

Adding Taxonomy Terms

Once you've enabled or created a custom taxonomy, you'll find it under Posts in your WordPress dashboard. For example, if you have a taxonomy called "Methods," you'll find it at Posts > Methods.

From there, you can add terms to your taxonomy. This works very similarly to creating new categories. Enter a name (such as Air Fryer, Sheet Pan, or Slow Cooker), then click Add New. Repeat for each option you'd like to include.

Creating Your Own Custom Taxonomy

Need a different way to organize your recipes beyond the pre-set options? The Brioche Recipe Tools plugin includes a Custom Taxonomy generator so you can create your own!

1. Go to Settings > Brioche Recipe Tools.

2. Find the Custom Taxonomies section.

3. Enter a name and slug for your taxonomy. Example:

Name: Equipment
Slug: equipment

Note: A slug is the URL-friendly version of your taxonomy name. If the name contains more than one word, separate the words with a hyphen. For example, Prep Style would use the slug prep-style.

4. Click Add Taxonomy.

After saving, your custom taxonomy (example: Equipment) will appear under Posts and you can begin adding terms.

Some other ideas for custom recipe taxonomies include:

Ingredient – Chicken, Beef, Pork, Seafood, Eggs, Cheese, Chocolate
Equipment – Air Fryer, Dutch Oven, Stand Mixer, Grill
Difficulty – Easy, Intermediate, Advanced
Holiday – Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, Hanukkah
Occasion – Birthdays, Game Day, Dinner Parties, Picnics, Potlucks
Cooking Time – Under 30 Minutes, Under 1 Hour
Prep Style – Make Ahead, Meal Prep, Freezer Friendly
Recipe Type – Quick & Easy, One Pot, No Bake
Protein – Chicken, Beef, Pork, Seafood, Vegetarian
Dessert Type – Cake, Cookies, Bars, Pies, Cheesecakes, Pastries

You can create anything! Whatever makes the most sense for your recipe collection.

Tip: Keep it simple! More filters aren't necessarily better. For most sites, a handful of useful filters will be easier for both you and your readers to navigate.

Step 4: Assign Terms to Your Recipes

Creating your taxonomies is the first half of the process. WordPress also needs to know which recipes belong to each term. You'll want to go through all of your existing recipes and assign the appropriate terms before setting up your FacetWP filters.

When editing a recipe post, you'll see your enabled taxonomies alongside your regular post settings. For example, a recipe for Grilled Chicken Tacos might be assigned:

Category: Dinner
Diet: Gluten Free
Cuisine: Mexican
Method: Grilling
Season: Summer

Note: You don't have to assign a term from every taxonomy. Just select the ones that apply and make sense for your recipe!

How to Quickly Assign Terms to Existing Recipes

If you already have a lot of recipes published, you don't need to open and edit each post individually.

At Posts > All Posts, you can use the Quick Edit feature to quickly assign taxonomy terms to individual recipes. You can also select multiple posts and use Bulk Edit to assign terms to several recipes at once.

This can save a lot of time when organizing an existing recipe library for the first time!

Step 5: Create Your Facets

Once your recipes are organized, it's time to turn those groups into filters!

You have two options: import the preconfigured facets from the Brioche demo or create your own from scratch.

Option 1: Import the Demo Facets

If you'd like to use the same filters included in the Brioche demo, you can import them directly into FacetWP instead of creating each one manually.

Go to Settings > FacetWP > Settings > Import/Export.
Open the Brioche Facet Import Code and copy the entire code.
Paste the code into the Import box.
Click Import.

That's it! The demo facets will now be available under Settings > FacetWP > Facets.

You can use these facets as-is or customize them to fit your own recipe categories and taxonomies. Be sure to check the Data Source for each facet to make sure it matches how you've organized your recipes.

Option 2: Create Your Own Facets

If you'd prefer to set up your filters yourself, go to Settings > FacetWP > Facets and click Add New.

For this example, we'll create a Course filter based on our WordPress Categories.

Use the following settings:

Label: Course
Facet Type: Checkboxes
Data Source: Categories
Value modifiers: Off (can be enabled if you'd like to exclude any categories - see below)
Hierarchical: Off
Show Ghosts: On
Facet Logic: AND
Sort By: Display Value (alphabetical). Highest Count could also be used, which would order your filters by number of posts.
Count: -1
Soft Limit: Blank

Excluding Categories

If your WordPress Categories contain items you don't want displayed in the Course filter, you can exclude them using FacetWP's Value Modifiers setting.

For example, you may use categories for both recipe courses and blog content. Value Modifiers allow your Course facet to display only the categories that belong in that particular filter. Save your facet and re-index when you're finished.

Creating More Facets

Repeat the same process for each taxonomy you'd like visitors to filter by. For example:

Label: Diet
Data Source: Diet Labels taxonomy

Label: Cuisine
Data Source: Cuisine taxonomy

Label: Method
Data Source: Methods taxonomy

Label: Season
Data Source: Seasons taxonomy

The settings for every facet can otherwise remain the same:

Facet Type: Checkboxes
Value modifiers: Off (in most cases)
Hierarchical: Off
Show Ghosts: On
Facet Logic: AND
Sort By: Display Value (alphabetical)
Count: -1
Soft Limit: Blank

Step 6: Create the Reset Button & Pagination

Note: If you imported the facets from the Brioche demo (option 1 under step 5), you can skip this step and proceed to step 7.

Before leaving the Facets screen, we'll create two additional facets used on the Recipe Index: a Reset Button and Pagination.

These don't filter your recipes, but they'll give visitors an easy way to clear their selected filters and navigate between pages of recipe results.

Reset Button

Click Add New and use the following settings:

Label: Reset Button
Facet Type: Reset
Reset UI: Button
Reset Text: Reset Filters (or your preferred text)
Include / Exclude: Reset everything
Auto-hide: Off (can enable if you want to auto-hide)

Save your changes.

Recipe Pagination

Click Add New again and use the following settings:

Label: Recipe Pagination
Facet Type: Pager
Pager Type: Page numbers
Inner Size: 1
Dots Label: ...
Prev Button Label: Prev *
Next Button Label: Next *
Scroll Target: Leave blank

* These terms will be replaced with arrows on the front end. Leave as is.

Save your changes.

Once you're finished, your Facets screen should contain all of your recipe filters, along with the Reset Button and Recipe Pagination facets.

Step 7: Re-Index FacetWP

Once you've finished creating your facets, click the red Re-index button on the FacetWP screen. FacetWP will scan your recipes and build its filtering index using the categories and taxonomy terms you've assigned.

After FacetWP has finished re-indexing, you should see a number appear under Rows for each of your filters. This confirms that FacetWP has successfully found and indexed data for that facet.

If you make any changes to your facets or taxonomies later, you'll want to re-index FacetWP again.

Step 8: Add Filters to the Recipe Index

Your Brioche Recipe Index (FacetWP) page is already set up with a filter sidebar, so you don't need to build the filtering layout from scratch.

If you created the same filters used in the Brioche demo and followed the naming in this guide, your filter blocks should already be all set up and ready to use. If you used different ones, no worries! We'll show you how to add them below.

Check Your Filter Blocks

Open your Recipe Index page in the WordPress editor.

The filter sidebar contains a series of accordion sections for Course, Cuisine, Diet, Method, and Season. Inside each section is a FacetWP Facet block.

Click on a Facet block and check the Facet dropdown in the block settings. Make sure the correct facet is selected for that section.

For example:

By Course → Course facet
By Cuisine → Cuisine facet
By Diet → Diet facet
By Method → Method facet
By Season → Season facet

If you've used the same filters as the Brioche demo, you shouldn't need to make any changes here.

Using Different or Additional Filters

Your Recipe Index doesn't have to use the exact same filters as the demo.

If you created a different taxonomy, such as Equipment, Holiday, or Prep Style, first create the corresponding facet in FacetWP as described above. Then you can add it to your Recipe Index following these steps:

Either edit an existing accordion section if you're replacing an existing filter, or duplicate one if you're adding an additional filter.
Change the heading to your new filter, such as By Holiday.
Select the Facet block inside the accordion.
Choose your facet (such as Holiday) from the Facet dropdown.

You can also remove any of the demo filter sections you don't plan to use. List View is great for this so you don't accidentally delete anything you want to keep!

Reset Button & Pagination

The Recipe Index template also includes Facet blocks for the Reset Button and Recipe Pagination you created earlier.

Click each block and make sure the corresponding facet is selected:

Reset button: Reset Button facet (located in the sidebar below the Accordions)
Pagination: Recipe Pagination facet (located in the main content area under the Posts)

Once everything is connected, save the page and view your Recipe Index on the front end to test your filters.

Mobile Filter Button

At the top of the Recipe Index in the Block Editor, you'll see a Filter Recipes button. This button is used to open your recipe filters on mobile devices only, so it may appear faded or inactive while you're editing the page on desktop.

You shouldn't need to make any changes to this section. All of your facets will automatically be displayed in the mobile flyout panel.

If you'd like, you can change the Filter Recipes button text to something different. Otherwise, you can leave this section as-is.

Mobile Flyout Heading

By default, the heading at the top of the Mobile Flyout is "Filter Recipes." If you'd like to change this heading to something different, copy this code snippet and paste it at Appearance > Customize > Additional CSS. Replace the text with your preferred text.

How It All Fits Together

Now that we've covered each piece individually, let's put it ALL together with a simple example. Here's what the process would look like if you wanted to add Seasons as a filter in your Recipe Index:

1. Enable the Seasons taxonomy.
Go to Settings > Brioche Recipe Tools and enable the Seasons taxonomy.

2. Create your terms.
Go to Posts > Seasons and add Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.

3. Organize your recipes.
Edit your recipe posts and assign the appropriate season(s).

4. Create the facet.
In FacetWP, create a checkbox facet called Season and select Seasons as its data source.

5. Re-index.
Click Re-index so FacetWP can recognize the new recipe organization.

That's it! The same process applies to Cuisine, Method, Diet, Equipment, Holiday, or any other taxonomy you decide to use.

Need a Hand?

We know there's a lot that goes into setting up recipe filtering for the first time! The nice part is that once everything is set up, the ongoing work is minimal. For each new recipe, you'll simply select the applicable categories and terms, and your filters will automatically take care of the rest.

If you'd rather have us handle the initial setup for you, we'd be happy to help! FacetWP recipe filter setup is available through our Customization Services.