How do you calculate the servings/cups total for homemade soup or curry recipes?

modestguineapig
modestguineapig Posts: 23 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I make a lot of soups and curries in the crockpot or over the stove. Is there any trick to calculating the total amount of cups in the recipe ( to convert and log as a 1 cup serving) besides dumping it all out into measuring cups after cooking? So far I have been guessing based on the size/volume of the pot. I am curious what others do....

Replies

  • Kalikel
    Kalikel Posts: 9,603 Member
    edited July 2015
    I make my own stock, so there is no way to know the exact amount of calories. I use the calories of a store-bought, no-sodium stock. I suppose you could use the calories of whatever you boil when you make the stock, since I'm guessing most of them are leached out. Either way.

    The rest of it, I weigh the individual ingredients as I add them. :)
  • foursirius
    foursirius Posts: 321 Member
    I put in the individual ingredients and then adjust the portion size appropriately versus how many servings I'll get out of the recipe.
  • SarahCate_2pt0
    SarahCate_2pt0 Posts: 9 Member
    edited July 2015
    I weigh the pot I'm using prior to starting, and weigh the full pot when I'm done. Then you take the weight of the pot out of the total finished weight and you have your net recipe weight. Or you could pour it into another pot and then measure it back in with a large measuring cup.



  • modestguineapig
    modestguineapig Posts: 23 Member
    Kalikel wrote: »
    I make my own stock, so there is no way to know the exact amount of calories. I use the calories of a store-bought, no-sodium stock. I suppose you could use the calories of whatever you boil when you make the stock, since I'm guessing most of them are leached out. Either way.

    The rest of it, I weigh the individual ingredients as I add them. :)

    Ok, thanks! I think weighing the veggies that go in will help a lot. I was just adding generic "medium yellow onion" etc to the recipe builder, which left me guessing on how many cups there are. But if I weigh everything, the total weight will probably be close to the sum of the weight of the ingredients. Then I can make a serving size like 200 grams or whatever rather than cups.
  • modestguineapig
    modestguineapig Posts: 23 Member
    SarahCate_2pt0 wrote: »
    I weigh the pot I'm using prior to starting, and weigh the full pot when I'm done. Then you take the weight of the pot out of the total finished weight and you have your net recipe weight.

    Or you could pour it into another pot and then measure it back in with a large measuring cup.

    Ah, even easier! Thanks for the tip!
  • SarahCate_2pt0
    SarahCate_2pt0 Posts: 9 Member
    Or you can really engineer it and pop a ruler in there and calculate the volume of the cylinder. V=π(r squared)h
  • Queenmunchy
    Queenmunchy Posts: 3,380 Member
    SarahCate_2pt0 wrote: »
    I weigh the pot I'm using prior to starting, and weigh the full pot when I'm done. Then you take the weight of the pot out of the total finished weight and you have your net recipe weight. Or you could pour it into another pot and then measure it back in with a large measuring cup.

    Yep. I always portion mine and freeze them into equal servings, but if I were going to serve out of the pot, I'd do this. You can also set your portions as 1g. For example, your entire dish is 1000 grams. You would set it as 1000 portions in the recipe builder, and when you ladle out 43 grams today, or 55 grams tomorrow, you will be able to log it correctly.
  • modestguineapig
    modestguineapig Posts: 23 Member
    Queenmunchy wrote: »
    SarahCate_2pt0 wrote: »
    I weigh the pot I'm using prior to starting, and weigh the full pot when I'm done. Then you take the weight of the pot out of the total finished weight and you have your net recipe weight. Or you could pour it into another pot and then measure it back in with a large measuring cup.

    Yep. I always portion mine and freeze them into equal servings, but if I were going to serve out of the pot, I'd do this. You can also set your portions as 1g. For example, your entire dish is 1000 grams. You would set it as 1000 portions in the recipe builder, and when you ladle out 43 grams today, or 55 grams tomorrow, you will be able to log it correctly.

    Oh, another good idea with the 1g servings! Thank you!
  • Need2Exerc1se
    Need2Exerc1se Posts: 13,575 Member
    I use cups. I use the old recipe builder to put in the ingredients, determine how many cups are in the whole by eyeballing it (6 quart pan is 2/3 full, for example) and then I use a one cup measuring cup to serve out my portions. If I eat 2 cups, I log 2 servings.

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