How to measure out pasta

FitnessFreak1821
FitnessFreak1821 Posts: 242 Member
edited December 2021 in Food and Nutrition
This might be a dumb question but it confuses me. I'm making penne pasta for dinner. It says 300 per 1 cup of dry pasta. How do I figure out how many calories per one cup of cooked penne? It seems that cooked penne is lower in calories if I google it.

Replies

  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,399 Member
    I live in Italy and cook pasta almost every day. This is how we do it here--100g of dry, uncooked pasta is considered "a portion", it is 350 cal. When pasta is cooked it absorbs water. How much water it absorbs depends on how long you cook it (it absorbs more and more as it cooks). We like our pasta "al dente" which means it's still firm and chewy. I think you should be able to see that weighing uncooked pasta is the most accurate way to go, otherwise you're weighing water. Get a digital food scale.
  • Redordeadhead
    Redordeadhead Posts: 1,188 Member
    Yes, it would be easier to weigh it before cooking as it depends how much water is absorbed
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    edited December 2021
    One option is to weigh before cooking and then weigh after and calculate by whatever percentage you eat. So if you make 300 g of dried pasta and eat 1/4 of it (based on 1/4 of whatever the total cooked weight is in grams), then you are eating 75 g of dried pasta. You could also eyeball the 1/4 vs weighing out whatever 1/4 of the total cooked weight is if you are tolerant of looser logging. Or you could cook your portion separately, although that could seem like more of a pain. There are also entries you can find for cooked pasta, which IMO are good enough too.
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    We always talk about water absorption being the reason that cooked pasta can't be accurately logged, but that is only part of the problem. there are a lot of shapes and everyone of them will have a different weight per unit volume regardless of how they are cooked. A cup on angel hair is entirely different than a cup of penne based on weight per unit volume.

    Just accept that you have to weigh it raw and then allocate proportions after cooking.
  • FitnessFreak1821
    FitnessFreak1821 Posts: 242 Member
    edited December 2021
    OK thank you everyone. This all makes sense now
  • Redordeadhead
    Redordeadhead Posts: 1,188 Member
    wilson10102018 wrote: »
    We always talk about water absorption being the reason that cooked pasta can't be accurately logged, but that is only part of the problem. there are a lot of shapes and everyone of them will have a different weight per unit volume regardless of how they are cooked. A cup on angel hair is entirely different than a cup of penne based on weight per unit volume.

    Just accept that you have to weigh it raw and then allocate proportions after cooking.

    Maybe I am misunderstanding your comment, but 100g dry is 100g regardless of the shape of the pasta. The only difference when cooking is water. I think when people said "weigh" here they meant weigh in grams/oz on a scale, and did not consider cups, which would indeed be affected by the shape and size (this is why cups are a volume measurement not accurate for solids).
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    Redordeadhead wrote: »
    wilson10102018 wrote: »
    We always talk about water absorption being the reason that cooked pasta can't be accurately logged, but that is only part of the problem. there are a lot of shapes and everyone of them will have a different weight per unit volume regardless of how they are cooked. A cup on angel hair is entirely different than a cup of penne based on weight per unit volume.

    Just accept that you have to weigh it raw and then allocate proportions after cooking.

    Maybe I am misunderstanding your comment, but 100g dry is 100g regardless of the shape of the pasta. The only difference when cooking is water. I think when people said "weigh" here they meant weigh in grams/oz on a scale, and did not consider cups, which would indeed be affected by the shape and size (this is why cups are a volume measurement not accurate for solids).

    Both are a problem - the amount of absorbed water based on shape and the volume. Just weight the pasta dry.
  • lemurcat2
    lemurcat2 Posts: 7,885 Member
    Redordeadhead wrote: »
    wilson10102018 wrote: »
    We always talk about water absorption being the reason that cooked pasta can't be accurately logged, but that is only part of the problem. there are a lot of shapes and everyone of them will have a different weight per unit volume regardless of how they are cooked. A cup on angel hair is entirely different than a cup of penne based on weight per unit volume.

    Just accept that you have to weigh it raw and then allocate proportions after cooking.

    Maybe I am misunderstanding your comment, but 100g dry is 100g regardless of the shape of the pasta. The only difference when cooking is water. I think when people said "weigh" here they meant weigh in grams/oz on a scale, and did not consider cups, which would indeed be affected by the shape and size (this is why cups are a volume measurement not accurate for solids).

    I had the same thought. If you are weighing, it makes no difference how much fits in a cup.
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    All pasta does not absorb the same amount of water. How its cooked and what shape it is both affect the cooked weight.

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