diff --git a/changelog/384.fix.md b/changelog/384.fix.md
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e4052fb05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/changelog/384.fix.md
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+Fix bug in writing ESMValTool recipes that loses order of preprocessing steps.
+This bug was introduced in [#378](https://github.com/Climate-REF/climate-ref/pull/378)
+and included in the v0.6.5 release.
diff --git a/packages/climate-ref-esmvaltool/src/climate_ref_esmvaltool/diagnostics/base.py b/packages/climate-ref-esmvaltool/src/climate_ref_esmvaltool/diagnostics/base.py
index 768b207e3..709fc7b5c 100644
--- a/packages/climate-ref-esmvaltool/src/climate_ref_esmvaltool/diagnostics/base.py
+++ b/packages/climate-ref-esmvaltool/src/climate_ref_esmvaltool/diagnostics/base.py
@@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ def build_cmd(self, definition: ExecutionDefinition) -> Iterable[str]:
 
         recipe_path = definition.to_output_path("recipe.yml")
         with recipe_path.open("w", encoding="utf-8") as file:
-            yaml.dump(recipe, file)
+            yaml.safe_dump(recipe, file, sort_keys=False)
 
         climate_data = definition.to_output_path("climate_data")