Counting calories in pasta, cooked or uncooked?

lead13g

Hei everyone I have a question about how calories are supposed to be counted in pasta. The packaging on elbow pasta says 3/4 cup is 200 calories, so does that mean I first measure 3/4 cup cook it and its still 200 calories? I know pasta expands and weighs more after cooking.

beethedreamer

You weigh/measure pasta dry.

envy09

Does it tell you how many grams is supposed to be in 3/4 cup?

AyaRowan

Pasta packages typically specify dry in the serving size. For items like spaghetti (and numerous other items), it's best to invest in a kitchen scale so you can measure by weight.

When pasta cooks, it absorbs water which changes the weight. The amount will vary by how long you cooked it. Some like al dente pasta, for example, which is less done and thus holds less water and less weight/size. Some prefer overly done pasta, which can swell the pasta up much larger.

So measure it dry before you cook it and you should be fine. If you're cooking for more than one person, I recommend getting a food scale. You can calculate your portion with a bit of math and ingenuity. If you decide to go that route, feel free to pm me and I'll give food scale tips and tricks.

runnrchic

I weigh the pasta dry. There are some estimates online as to the calories in cooked pasta by weight, but all dente will weigh different than fully cooked because of the water content. Best to weigh it dry.

tracie_minus100

I weigh it dry.

maxit

I also weigh pasta dry - usually cook 3 servings (6 oz) and then eat 1/3 of the cooked pasta (I weight the cooked product too and calculate grams for 1/3 of that).

lindaloo1213

I weigh it dry, when I am making food for the whole family I weigh it all dry, figure out how many servings that totalled and then cook it, drain it, rinse it and then weigh the whole batch and divide the total weight by the original number of servings. Then the weight of water absorbed is added in and I can just weigh out a serving. hope that makes sense.

ana3067

Weigh it in whatever way you plan to log it. It's much easier logging pasta dry, so I do it dry. If I make a batch, I make a recipe (dry pasta + water) and log the cooked weight as my total number of servings and then go from there. But if my pasta also had an entry in the database for cooked, I'd be fine using that.

tomatoey

Dry - but, and this is just an estimation, because pasta varies in shape/size and the length of time you cook it matters (it absorbs more or less water), 1 cup of cooked pasta is usually about 300 cals.

azulvioleta6

Two ounces (by weight) dry is the standard way to measure all pastas.

I am not fanatical about weighing all foods, but pasta is SO high in calories and carbs that it really is important to be precise with it.