# Sorrel: free WordPress theme

URL: https://symelo.com/tools/wordpress-themes/sorrel

Free WordPress theme. A fresh market-kitchen block theme for food and recipe blogs: round bento cards, blob-framed photos, ingredient chips and a recipe card readers can cook from.

A fresh market-kitchen block theme for food and recipe blogs: round bento cards, blob-framed photos, ingredient chips and a recipe card readers can cook from.

- Price: free (GPLv2 or later)
- Category: Blog
- Version 1.0.0, 2026-10-22. WordPress 7.0+, PHP 7.4+. GNU General Public License v2 or later.
- Style variations: Beetroot, Cast iron, Matcha, Saffron
- Fonts: Fraunces, Figtree, Monospace
- Works with: [Secure Custom Fields](https://wordpress.org/plugins/secure-custom-fields/), a free plugin by WordPress.org, optional

## Description

Sorrel is made for home cooks and recipe developers who write seasonal, vegetable-forward food blogs. Warm white "enamel" pages, herb-green ink and paprika stickers, very round cards arranged as a bento grid, soft organic shapes behind the photos and ingredient chips everywhere. Fraunces headings, Figtree for reading.

Everything a food blog needs is built in, with no plugins:

* **Recipe cards** at the end of a post (or first, with the "Recipe first" template): ingredients as tappable checklist chips, half/double/triple servings, big numbered steps in green circles, kitchen notes, a nutrition label and a print view that prints the card only. Recipe structured data for search engines.
* **Jump to the recipe**, "Kitchen notes" key takeaways as a tip card, and sponsored, gifted and affiliate disclosures at the top of posts.
* **A recipe index**: a page pattern with keyword, series and sort filters over every recipe, plus ingredient chips (`?sb_kw=lemon`) anywhere on the site.
* **Series** in parts with progress ("Part 2 of 3"), a cookbook-cover series hero and a series page.
* **Save for later**: a reading list in the header that remembers posts in the visitor's browser.
* **Post headers** in four layouts (split by default, standard, cover, minimal), chosen per post.
* **Photo stories** as carousel, stack or masonry, with a lightbox.
* **Forms**: contact, weekly recipe sign-up and a cooking class request, stored under Messages.
* **Heroes**: tonight's recipe, "What's in your fridge?" search, recipe bento, cookbook series and a kitchen video cover.
* **Light and dark**: a "Cast iron" dark scheme with a switch in the header, and four style variations (Saffron, Beetroot, Matcha, Cast iron), each with its own dark palette.
* Gentle motion (floating stickers, cards that lift, words that rise in), all switched off for visitors who prefer reduced motion.

About 30 patterns: heroes, recipe and post sections, galleries, video, forms, calls to action, FAQ, stats, reader notes and full pages (home, recipe index, about, contact, cooking classes).

Recipes, series, photo stories, subtitles and author profiles use Secure Custom Fields when it is active (the theme offers to install it); without it, the theme still shows what the demo content stored.

## Frequently Asked Questions

#### How do I add a recipe to a post?

Install Secure Custom Fields when the theme asks, then open the post's "Post details" box and switch on the Recipe tab. Fill in the ingredients (one per line, quantity first), the steps and, if you like, the nutrition per serving. The recipe card and the "Jump to the recipe" button appear by themselves.

#### How do I make a recipe index page?

Create a page and choose the "Recipe index page" pattern. It lists every post that has a recipe, with filters for keywords, series and sorting.

#### Where do form messages go?

Every form submission is stored under Messages in the dashboard and emailed to the site's admin address. Change the recipient under Messages → Settings, or per form in the form block's settings.

#### How do I show a video at the top of a post?

Open the post's Featured video panel and paste a YouTube or Vimeo link, or choose a video file. The theme shows a light play button and loads the player only after a click.

#### Can I turn off the animations?

Visitors who set "reduce motion" in their system see no animations. You can also remove a block's Motion setting in the editor.

#### How does dark mode work?

The switch in the header changes between the light palette and "Cast iron" and remembers the choice. Without a choice, the site follows the visitor's system setting. Every style variation has its own dark palette.

## Downloads

- [Sorrel 1.0.0](https://symelo.com/wordpress-themes/sorrel/1.0.0/sorrel-1.0.0.zip) (2026-10-22, 3.4 MB, SHA-256 4df24bc10c2c3b6ef415464ed4e37b9672fbef021eaa0db36072c2f5cd9e0d6a)

## Screenshots

- https://symelo.com/wordpress-themes/sorrel/shots/home-64d5aec80d.webp
- https://symelo.com/wordpress-themes/sorrel/shots/journal-b0b50df367.webp
- https://symelo.com/wordpress-themes/sorrel/shots/journal-sb-kind-recipe-f4abf4ebbc.webp
- https://symelo.com/wordpress-themes/sorrel/shots/series-c5521877a6.webp
- https://symelo.com/wordpress-themes/sorrel/shots/admin-fields-d8ed69bd8b.webp

- [All WordPress themes](https://symelo.com/tools/wordpress-themes)

## Related pages

- [All tools](https://symelo.com/tools)
- [Agent documentation](https://symelo.com/llms.txt)