weighing meats and rice/pasta

thatgrayboi

I want to start cooking in bulk for my meats and rice and since I have a food scale , I am trying to find the best route to take into weighing my food. Ive been looking at youtube videos and forums ,but couldn't exactly come to a conclusion on what should I do ? I know weighing it raw would be accurate ,but I want to cook a lot of food in bulk though. Any tips or opinions on what you guys do ?

rheddmobile

I weigh raw and note the number of portions on my bulk container. Then I just eyeball that part of the whole and log the number of portions I eat. Since I'm the only one eating it, if I slightly miss my estimate it averages out.

Most pasta isn't a good idea to make in bulk, it doesn't keep well. Rice and quinoa do, though. Pasta cooks fairly quickly so it's not a huge problem to cook as needed.

If you need to be more precise, you can weigh the whole amount after cooking and figure out how much a cooked portion is relative to a raw portion, since most calorie counts are for uncooked. Put your container on the scale, zero it out, then add the food. Then you can figure out how much a cooked portion weighs.

pebble4321

If you are weighing cooked food, look for a database entry for “[food] cooked”.
You can add grilled, steamed, roasted, boiled etc if that’s relevant for your food.
For rice for example, I search for “white rice cooked”.
Don’t overthink this! Yes there will be some variation, but every database entry is an estimate, you just have to live with that.

livingleanlivingclean

I weigh the amount I want raw (eg 5 x 150g raw chicken for each work day = 750g)

Once cooked, I reweigh, divide by 5 and divide in to portions.

Same with rice, vegies etc - weigh out however many raw portions I need, cook, reweigh and divide

thatgrayboi

livingleanlivingclean wrote: »

I weigh the amount I want raw (eg 5 x 150g raw chicken for each work day = 750g)

Once cooked, I reweigh, divide by 5 and divide in to portions.

Same with rice, vegies etc - weigh out however many raw portions I need, cook, reweigh and divide

Thanks for explaining that well for me , I think I will follow your route !!

pmm3437

When bulk/batch cooking, I tend to use whole containers, so I use the measurements on the label when entering a recipe ( ie 2 lb chicken thigh, 1 lb dry beans, etc ). Once I have the whole recipe entered, I adjust the number of servings to match my calorie/macro goals for the item.

I then weight after cooking and sub-divide/store in individual serving sizes.

This works just as well if your "recipe" is just a single item, like sticky rice.

When in doubt, measure the item as it is listed on the packaging, for nutrient and caloric information. Measure after cooking/processing to split portions.

deannalfisher

I use the recipe builder, even for simple bulk making of chicken...enter the raw weight of the food; set the serving size to the cooked weight in g or oz, then measure out what you want to eat (this way I can tailor it my calories for a given day)