Advice on calculating calories from homecooked recipes

LuckyStar813
LuckyStar813 Posts: 163 Member
in Food and Nutrition
When making casserole, soups, stir fry type dishes at home - what is the best method for calculating the calories?

Here is what I made tonight. I would love feedback and advice!

Dish: Mexican beef rice skillet

1 pound ground beef - do I use the raw or cooked calories?
1 cup white rice - again raw or cooked? Measure with cup or weigh? If weighing - what is the rice to water ratio?
1.5 cups water
1 15 oz can Diced Tomatoes with Chipotle chiles: Serving is 1/2 cup ( 125 grams) @ 30 calories and 3.5 servings in the can.
Peppers - I weighed 6 oz raw
Onions - I weighed 6 oz raw
I added various spices but no thickeners or oils

Once I figure out the calories for the whole meal I just divide it by the number of servings?
How do I measure out the single serving I want? Just guess?

What is the best way to enter my serving into MFP: Quick add calories or by entering in a portion of each ingredient?

Replies

  • 5BeautifulDays
    5BeautifulDays Posts: 683 Member
    edited March 2015
    Use the recipe builder feature and just input all the ingredients. Sometimes you have to tweak it a little, as the site will sometimes choose the wrong thing, but it's generally accurate. It will figure all the calories and macros per serving for you. It's a great feature!


    Oh...go to "Food", then "Recipes", and then "manually enter recipe". Choose the number of servings and give it a name!
  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,623 Member
    Recipe builder, then set the servings according to weight (e.g. if the dish weighs 800grams I set my servings as 800 - or I set it as 1 and then just divide the individual serving by 800 to figure out the decimal serving)

    1 pound ground beef - do I use the raw or cooked calories? -- Did you weigh it raw or cooked? Enter it in the state you weighed it in.
    1 cup white rice - again raw or cooked? -- Same as above. If you're weighing other things you should be weighing rice too.
    1 15 oz can Diced Tomatoes with Chipotle chiles: Serving is 1/2 cup ( 125 grams) @ 30 calories and 3.5 servings in the can. -- Weigh it next time, for now just enter it as the entire can (there should be this option in the drop-down).

    everything else is self-explanatory
  • LuckyStar813
    LuckyStar813 Posts: 163 Member
    Oh cool! I am entering it in now. When the food is done cooking do you actually weight it then portion out your serving? Cause that seems kinda messy. Or do you just eyeball it?
  • navyrigger46
    navyrigger46 Posts: 1,301 Member
    Weigh it.

    Rigger
  • Barbs2222
    Barbs2222 Posts: 433 Member
    edited March 2015
    I weight the whole thing minus the pan so I can figure it out to the gram. Then I weigh my portion. My scale has a tare function so it's not too messy.
  • ana3067
    ana3067 Posts: 5,623 Member
    LuckyStar813 wrote: »
    Oh cool! I am entering it in now. When the food is done cooking do you actually weight it then portion out your serving? Cause that seems kinda messy. Or do you just eyeball it?

    I personally weigh the entire finished dish, and then just grab whatever portion i want for the day that fits my calories.

    So for example I made taco meat last night, once it was finished and cooled off a bit (mostly because I went to go take a shower after I turned the stove off) I put a tupperwarre on my scale, tared it out, and then dumped the meat in there. Turned out to be something like.. idk, let's say 800 grams. So then I put 800 as my serving for the entire recipe (serves 800 people basically :p). Today when I wanted some taco meat I just took the dish out and weighed out however much I wanted (94g) and entered that in as my serving in my diary.

    If I know I'll be the only person to eat the dish thougH I will just eyeball it. E.g. when I make baked oatmeal I just cut it into 4 pieces, no weighing. Or if there will only be 2 servings I don't weigh it.

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