How to divide a homemade meal into servings?

funkyspunky871

Okay, so, making spaghetti tonight. I'm wondering how do I divide this into servings. It seems quite impossible to do unless I go through the entire pot and measure how many cups are in it. Is there any other way?

I thought maybe I could add how many ounces everything is and divide by 8 to see how many cups there are. Like, if I was using a pound of ground turkey and 6 ounces of tomato paste and 10 ounces of onion and 8 ounces of diced tomatoes, that's around 40 ounces of sauce, right? So it'd be about 5 cups?


Does it work like that?

solrak1969

In your food log there is now a recipe section. There you can put in all of your ingredients and then enter the amount of servings. It gives you the value of each serving.

sara_m83

Have you used the "recipe" tool? This is what I do with my home prepared dishes and then divide by the number of serves I'll get out of it. For example, last night I made a pot of soup for dinner. I knew that it should reasonably make 4 servings. But it was my dinner, so I ate more than 1/4 of it and entered it into my diary as 1.5 serves of my recipe. Does that make sense?

funkyspunky871

I did use the recipe section, but that's not my question. If I put in 6 servings, how much is each serving? Like amount wise, not calories? How do I know if a servings is 1 cup or 1 - 1/2 cups, etc?

lilay

I just always measure it all for my piece of mind.

mamagooskie

I estimate......I measure out the pasta by itself. As for the sauce I can usually eyeball 4 or 6 1 cup servings and that's how I've been doing it.

recipe4success

I don't usually worry about it...i'll just figure out the calories for the entire recipe, and then divide by the number of servings it makes to determine my calorie info for the meal.

To determine how much it makes (i.e. how much a serving size is) probably the easiest is to weigh your portion size, and say if that was 1 of 6 portions, then you know the entire recipe made 6 x whatever the weight of your serving is...if that makes sense.

iRun4wine

I get what you're asking. I always kind of wondered if there was a better way to do it, too. Tonight, for example, I made guacamole. I knew that the entire recipe was just under 300 calories and that 1 serving (split the recipe in half) was just under 150 calories. But, here's a whole bowl of guacamole in front of me- how do I know exactly what is half? I put all of it into a different bowl, placed a clean bowl on the scale, zero'd it out, and then dumped all the guacamole into that bowl. Then, you know what the weight of the guacamole is and measure to divide it in half. It's a process, but that's the only way I know how to do it!

MFPfriend

bump.

I'm curious too- I've always had to measure out the whole thing (which is annoying, because my family makes soup in HUGE pots, so I end up measuring out, like, 35 1-cup servings.

kayemme

i sort of estimate it. when i make something, i know there are two of us that are going to eat it. then all i need to figure out is do we eat once, twice or three times from the pot?

for spaghetti sauce, as we really love to eat it, it usually yields 3 servings each or 6 total. that's using 1 large can of tomatoes, onions, garlic, herbs, and vegetables.

if we're especially hungry, then i say 2 servings. sometimes it goes like that.

BlueLikeJazz

I think if you're going to measure by the ounces of what you put in, then you should probably measure it out in ounces, too, when you are giving yourself a serving if you want the cal. count to be accurate. Same goes if you're measuring by cups when you put it in, measure by cups when you dish it out. This all gets a bit more complicated, though, when you're making soups, pasta, rice, etc. where it soaks up water. When I make recipes all in one pot, I measure it out by cup as I'm transferring it into tupperware (since presumably you're going to end up putting the leftovers in tupperware anyways) and then consider each cup a serving size. Seems to be the easiest way to do it without having to second guess measurements and weights and all that.

Spaghetti should be pretty easy to enter in your diary as a few separate ingredients though, yah? Pasta, sauce, meat...

melodyg

I usually end up measuring it all out too. For example, for soups I will measure out a cup or 1.5 cup "serving" for each of us to eat, then ladle the "leftovers" into Tupperware.. it just looks like I'm being organized and putting away leftovers before eating, what I'm really doing is measuring what the recipe made! Fortunately, I only have to do it once for each new recipe (usually). (Measuring drives my husband nuts)

LadyBella1i

funkyspunky87 is trying to find out how to find the servings. The Recipe Tool you have to type in the servings, but how do you type in what you don't know? This is what funkyspunky87 is trying to find out.

MyM0wM0w

I would take a big bowl and a kitchen scale. Zero out the scale with the bowl ON it and pour all the sauce into the bowl Then you can divide it into ounces or cups. If it was for future meals (like for freezing) I would take lots of containers and pour a ladle full in each container by turn until it was dished out evenly.

Hope that made sense......

nxd10

Three ways to do it without weighing.

1) Put it in as one serving, figure out what fraction you ate and log that. You made one pot of spaghetti, ate 1/4 of it, and log .25 servings.

2) Look the pot, figures it should provide a certain number of reasonable size helpings, and put that in. One pot feeds four platefuls. You eat one plateful. Log one.

3) Look at the pot, figure out how many people it will feed, and put that in. It should feed four people. You enter that. You eat about half of that (1/8th the pot) and log .5.

For big recipes like a kettle of soup or stew that I'm freezing, I pour it into a half gallon measuring cup I have to get volume and go from there.

If you find you are wrong on servings, you can adjust it after the fact. I find I'm pretty spot on.

aimforpeace

I have this same problem. Spaghetti is a tricky one, but for anything a bit more solid in a pot I "cut" it into pie shaped portions. For example: when I cooke chilli I usually make 4 servings worth. When it is done I score it like a pie into 4 pieces, then scoop out the contents of each for one serving. I think it is a bit more accurate than guessing, but a heck of a lot less work than measuring the whole thing and dividing. (and I save myself a few dishes, which is important to me since I wash them all by hand)

Nefetete

Most of the time, I estimate the number of servings in a dish. Some are easier then other. As long as I use up all my ‘estimated’ servings I am ok. It all balances in the end.

VelociMama

I usually put spaghetti in a bowl (make sure to zero it correctly before you put the spaghetti in) and weigh it. Then I divide by the number of servings to get how much I should measure out for myself.

The Recipes tool is really helpful for this also, as mentioned above.

Crochetluvr

I either measure out cupfuls and count them or I weigh the entire meal and then divide that into the amount of ounces I want to eat.

babyblake11

4 servings = get 4 bowls. proceed to put one scoop of food into each of the bowls. then keep going until there is none left.

easy peasy lemon squeezy.
in the end it will all balance out, especially if its only you eating this meal over a couple of days. i doubt a slight under or over estimation is going to ruin your fat loss chances.

ChancyW

I always measure it out. Especially if I made a lot of something.

KinzieElise

The only times I've made something for more than 1 person I just estimated by the number of people eating + 1, because my dad eats more than the rest of us, then since I'm usually putting the recipe in after we eat, I estimate how many meals the leftovers create. It's messy and definitely not exact but it works.

ILiftHeavyAcrylics

I am just cooking for me so I measure mine out into bowls or tupperware. I also don't make huge batches because I don't want things to go bad. So the most I make is 4 servings at a time. I divide it into four bowls and then it doesn't matter if it's 1 cup, 1.25 cups, or whatever because of the way the recipe builder is set up. Alternately I'd add the volume of the ingredients together to get a total volume amount (say 6 cups of soup). Then I'd put 6 servings in the recipe builder. That means that 1 cup=1 serving, so if I'm going to have 1.5 cups I enter 1.5 servings in my diary. Hope that made sense.

puggleperson

Bumb! This has to be the most annoying processes when dieting. Frustrates the bejesus out of me!

Busymomshantell

I would take a big bowl and a kitchen scale. Zero out the scale with the bowl ON it and pour all the sauce into the bowl Then you can divide it into ounces or cups. If it was for future meals (like for freezing) I would take lots of containers and pour a ladle full in each container by turn until it was dished out evenly.

Hope that made sense......

^^^ THIS - this is what I do for a lot of things. If I am making a pan of potatoes with veggies or something. I put that it is 4 servings in the recipe and eyeball the division of the dish in the pan into 4 servings and each person gets one (my hubby is on here too) - and if I only take 1/2 serving or 1.5 servings I use those measurements. I weigh out as above and then fill each plate seperately on a zeroed out scale - tacos is a perfect example. I weigh out the meat in total - then add each ingredient onto the taco, zeroing out the scale before each new addition. Sounds like a lot more work than it really is - but gives a better idea to what I am actually eating

Busymomshantell

Three ways to do it without weighing.

1) Put it in as one serving, figure out what fraction you ate and log that. You made one pot of spaghetti, ate 1/4 of it, and log .25 servings.

2) Look the pot, figures it should provide a certain number of reasonable size helpings, and put that in. One pot feeds four platefuls. You eat one plateful. Log one.

3) Look at the pot, figure out how many people it will feed, and put that in. It should feed four people. You enter that. You eat about half of that (1/8th the pot) and log .5.

For big recipes like a kettle of soup or stew that I'm freezing, I pour it into a half gallon measuring cup I have to get volume and go from there.

If you find you are wrong on servings, you can adjust it after the fact. I find I'm pretty spot on.

I do this for things I don't want to weigh - works out pretty good.

kmadki4

I measure everything with a food scale or measuring cups. The food scale is way more accurate and you end up eating a lot more than a serving if you only go by measuring cups. I can't imagine how much I'd overestimate if I eyeballed it.

newmooon56

I build the recipe in the recipe section of this site.

It depends what the meal is then I decide what is reasonable. 200 calories? 400? If its a dinner- I can have 400-500 or so, depending on the day. So I will then decide this meal is X amt of servings so that it equals how many calories I want each serving to be. Example- the whole recipe is 1000 calories- I want to eat 500- Id say its 2 portions. If I want to eat 300- Id cut it closer to 4 portions. Hope that makes sense. Eye-ing your portion is probably the most tricky part.

Lets say that makes 4 servings out of a casserole. I just divide (eyeball) the dish into 4 servings - take mine and stop there. I have had "one serving" - whatever the size- doesnt matter.

I often want to know also- when it comes to big pots of stuff.

What I have learned to do is listen to my body and eat a NORMAL amt. Eating like a monster is how we got here- start eating like a thin person and you will become one.

SouthernArt77

I thought maybe I could add how many ounces everything is and divide by 8 to see how many cups there are. Like, if I was using a pound of ground turkey and 6 ounces of tomato paste and 10 ounces of onion and 8 ounces of diced tomatoes, that's around 40 ounces of sauce, right? So it'd be about 5 cups?

You can't compare ounces (weight) to fluid ounces (volume, as in cups).

I do what others have mentioned and weigh my entire finished dish, then divide the total by how many servings I think I'll get out of it. I weigh that amount out into my bowl/plate. I usually switch my scale from ounces to grams because it's just easier to divide. Hope that helps!

Mediumjen1985

funkyspunky871 wrote: »

Okay, so, making spaghetti tonight. I'm wondering how do I divide this into servings. It seems quite impossible to do unless I go through the entire pot and measure how many cups are in it. Is there any other way?

I thought maybe I could add how many ounces everything is and divide by 8 to see how many cups there are. Like, if I was using a pound of ground turkey and 6 ounces of tomato paste and 10 ounces of onion and 8 ounces of diced tomatoes, that's around 40 ounces of sauce, right? So it'd be about 5 cups?


Does it work like that?

Hello sorry I'm a little late to see this I always homemade everything so for me I also struggled with the aspect of figuring out why my full Hazel nut spread at a 1858 calories and 14 carbs and 7 fats . Wad going to work out at one portion, espically as you made to but a unit in. This is the way I do it.
I calculate the whole recipe in my meals for instance
The nuts
Coconut oil
Sweertner or sugar
And cocoa powder as the full amount for the jar I wish to prepare. Then it's all in there way over one portion. So I take a calculator then I divide the 1858 calories by the amount of serving say 20 serving in my case as I made a full jar of chocolate spread. That then give me a 10g serving a single amount calories of 92.9 calories. So next I go back onto my meal serving after saving the original full calories amount, add the meal you made, however this time we are going to add our divide till we see the 92.9 or 93 calories to get the full nutritional value. So now from the calculator and my rubbish maths I press. 0.05 this gives me 93 calories per 10g serving and serves 20 people.

If I did a spag bol
I would divide my main by the amount of people
To get the portion size then I just turn the calculation of 0.4 if its 4 people or 0.5 if its 2. Using calculator is easiest the turning that into a fraction by Google. Another easy way is to calculate whole number for instance 50g mince each for four people is 200g 8 fresh tomatoes for 4 people is 1 tomatoes 4 carrots is 1 Carot 2 onions is 1/2 onion each and so forth herbs and spices are not that important as contain very few calories and carbs. That the easiest method.

Good luck 👍

vanmep

I weigh the whole thing and put the number of grams as the number of servings ie: 576 servings of soup. Then when I dish out my bowl of soup I can weigh it and enter 100 servings (grams) of soup.