---
title: "Preparations: Recipes Inside Recipes for Kitchens | Havenue"
description: "Build a sauce, stock or base once and reuse it inside any recipe. Cost rolls up and allergens carry into every parent dish automatically, so prep is captured once, not retyped across recipes."
canonical: https://havenue.co/features/preparations/
markdown: https://havenue.co/features/preparations.md
language: en
last_updated: 2026-07-22
---
# Build the sauce once. Reuse it everywhere.

A preparation is a saved recipe you drop inside other recipes. Update your house sauce once, and every dish that uses it re-costs itself and inherits its allergens automatically.

Great kitchens build on a handful of bases: a stock, a house sauce, a dressing, a spice blend. Preparations let you capture one as its own recipe and reuse it inside any dish, instead of retyping the same ingredients again and again. Cost rolls up, and allergens carry into the parent dish on their own, so the numbers and the safety stay honest.

## The problem this solves

Sauces, stocks and dressings are reused across dozens of dishes, but most kitchens track them by hand. Change one supplier price and you are hunting through every recipe; miss a dairy ingredient buried in a sauce and a safe dish is suddenly not. Preparations remove the manual tracking.

## How it works

1. **Save the base as a recipe** : Build your sauce or stock once, with its ingredients, batch size, waste and allergens.
2. **Drop it into any dish** : Switch the builder from ingredients to Preparations and add it like an ingredient. Preview its cost and allergens before you commit.
3. **Set how much you use** : Quantity is in the preparation's own batch units, so cost and allergens scale to the exact amount the dish uses.
4. **Let it carry up** : Inherited allergens move into the parent automatically, and clicking the preparation's name jumps you straight to its recipe.

## What you get

- **Update once, re-cost everywhere** : Change the sauce's ingredient prices once and every dish that uses it re-costs itself. No hunting through other recipes.
- **Allergens that carry up** : If a base contains dairy, every dish that uses it is treated as containing dairy, and Havenue shows exactly where it came from.
- **Honest profit** : Because the true built-up cost is always current, your cost per head and GP% reflect what a dish really costs to make.
- **Tidy by design** : A preparation stays a building block. It is only served as a dish when you deliberately publish it, so your reusable bases stay out of guest menus.

## Who this is for

- Head Chef
- Sous Chef
- Kitchen Manager