Homemade Soup Recipes and Assessing Calories

LazyButHealthy

I enjoy making soup but I find it hard to know how to approach the calorie estimation.

Are there certain rules to follow?
I measured everything raw, but is this a fair estimate?

Grateful for any advice!


Please also feel free to add your own recipes and calories here.

LazyButHealthy

If it helps, here is a soup I made today:

1 x butternut squash, quartered and roasted with fry lite and seasoning
750 gms potatoes, chopped and baked with fry lite
450 gms carrots, baked with fry lite, and some honey
1 litre of oxo veg stock


After baking, i peeled the potatoes and the squash, and the soft flesh then went in to the soup.

It was hugely tasty, but as I'd like this to be portioned out for lunch pots, I'd love it to have a standard calorie allocation.
Thanks!

serindipte

Here is how I do homemade multiple ingredient recipes:

1. Weigh final pot empty and note the weight.
2. Weigh each ingredient raw as it's added.
3. Log those into the recipe builder.
4. Cook.
5. Weigh final including pot, then subtract the pot's weight.
6. Use the weight in grams as the "number of servings".
7. Weigh my portion in grams and enter that as the servings I've eaten.

EliseTK1

Hey there! I agree, it's a pain in the butt to get the calorie count on homemade soups and stews. Here's how I do it:

I create the recipe here on MFP using the Recipes -> Create a Recipe tool. I always indicate that it makes one serving. I add each ingredient individually using the bar codes if applicable or by measuring the weight/volume of the raw ingredients and searching for the food. After everything is cooked/prepared, I measure out the entire recipe in cups either using the notations on the side of my pressure cooker pot or by literally spooning it into measuring cups before putting it in containers for the fridge/freezer. Once I know how many cups are in it, I do the math to figure out the decimal portion I'll be eating and therefore the calories. (Ex. If the entire recipe is 2000 Cal and contains 16 cups, it's 125 Cal per cup. If I'm eating 1 1/2 cups, I log it as 0.094 servings of my recipe which is 188 Cal.)

This is time consuming, but it's extremely helpful especially if you know you're going to make that recipe more than once. You can go back and tweak the ingredients/amounts in your recipe anytime you want in case you change it up.

Hope this helps!

EliseTK1

Serindipte- Your way sounds so much easier than mine! My only issue is I use a giant cast iron pot that would likely break my food scale lol

serindipte

pyrusangeles wrote: »

Serindipte- Your way sounds so much easier than mine! My only issue is I use a giant cast iron pot that would likely break my food scale lol

You may have to use a lighter container to get your final weight. If you're already scooping everything out and measuring cups, it doesn't sound like one more dish to wash would be too much. I'd use my popcorn bowl. It would be big enough to hold it all and it could be poured back into the cast iron after it's weighed.

LazyButHealthy

Both of you are very helpful - tbh, i thought i was doing it wrong as the calorie guide by creating the recipe seemed way too low!!

But based on both of your guidance, I think I'm doing it correctly.

Many ingredients don't have barcodes, but I've found them all on the database, and I had weighed everything raw so i have an accurate recipe list. Shocked by how low the calorie per portion is!

Even more reason to keep making soups for lunches!

Thanks ladies.

LazyButHealthy

serindipte wrote: »

pyrusangeles wrote: »

Serindipte- Your way sounds so much easier than mine! My only issue is I use a giant cast iron pot that would likely break my food scale lol

You may have to use a lighter container to get your final weight. If you're already scooping everything out and measuring cups, it doesn't sound like one more dish to wash would be too much. I'd use my popcorn bowl. It would be big enough to hold it all and it could be poured back into the cast iron after it's weighed.

I haven't weighed the final pot before, but after I cook everything I put it all in the blender. That would be the pot that I would weight in the future, as that's what i store it in for refrigeration.

serindipte

I've been pleasantly surprised on several of my recipes. Then there were others that had me shocked at how much they were. lol

deannalfisher

pyrusangeles wrote: »

Serindipte- Your way sounds so much easier than mine! My only issue is I use a giant cast iron pot that would likely break my food scale lol

I've been known to use my bathroom scale to weigh crockpots of food...

lorrpb

LazyButHealthy wrote: »

Both of you are very helpful - tbh, i thought i was doing it wrong as the calorie guide by creating the recipe seemed way too low!!

But based on both of your guidance, I think I'm doing it correctly.

Many ingredients don't have barcodes, but I've found them all on the database, and I had weighed everything raw so i have an accurate recipe list. Shocked by how low the calorie per portion is!

Even more reason to keep making soups for lunches!

Thanks ladies.

Most broth based soups are very calorie friendly. It's the butter and cream bases that are calorie bombs!

LazyButHealthy

Yes, I was just thinking that! I didn't use any butter with the vegetables, or oils, or creams.
Just veg with a little stock and plenty of seasoning. It's a revelation how low cal they are. I thought the potatoes would have been problematic.

6 portions, roughly 250 cals per portion. I froze in sealed bags, and 3 for lunches this week.

annacole94

I love soup for a satisfying low-calorie lunch! I've got some hot and sour soup this week that's about 200 calories per portion - it's mostly broth and veg with a bit of egg and tofu for protein.

ritzvin

Yes- soup tends to be fairly low calorie (unless it is a cream soup). That would be one reason people traditionally eat soup with bread and/or crackers.

My usual go to for late night dinner after dancing.

Typical ingredients in my soups (miscellaneous combinations used): (water), dried beans, canned beets, canned diced tomatoes, chopped onions, chopped carrots, chopped potatoes, rotisserie chicken (pulled meat from bone), chorizo, polish sausage, water chestnuts, collard greens, spinach, garlic paste, Frank's hot sauce, soy sauce, ..