Pasta...measure before or after cooking

sherry_grace12
sherry_grace12 Posts: 11
in Food and Nutrition
When dealing with portion size with pasta, should I measure my noodles before or after cooking them. 2/3 cup is different when they are hard and dried compared to when they are cooked.

Thanks for the help!

Replies

  • BusyRaeNOTBusty
    BusyRaeNOTBusty Posts: 7,166 Member
    The nutritional info on the side should say "dry" or "prepared", it's usually something like 2oz dry.
  • sherry_grace12
    sherry_grace12 Posts: 11
    thanks! i'll have to take a look and see what it says
  • BusyRaeNOTBusty
    BusyRaeNOTBusty Posts: 7,166 Member
    This is good too, it tells you how many cups cooked the dry serving makes based on pasta type:

    http://www.barilla.com/faq?p=measuring
  • StaciMarie1974
    StaciMarie1974 Posts: 4,138 Member
    Generally the weight in grams is based on dry weight. I weigh my pasta dry, then cook my portion in a separate pot from the rest of the family. An extra step, but for me its worth it. (And my kids have dish washing duties, what's one more small pan?)
  • 126siany
    126siany Posts: 1,386 Member
    When dealing with portion size with pasta, should I measure my noodles before or after cooking them. 2/3 cup is different when they are hard and dried compared to when they are cooked.

    Thanks for the help!

    Weigh it out before cooking. You really don't want to use a measuring cup because your results will vary tremendously based on how many broken pieces there are, how tightly it's packed into the cup, etc. I'm a big believer in weighing everything with a food scale and recording my food that way.

    Trying to measure it after it's cooked also give really inconsistent results based again on broken pieces, how long you cook it (al dente absorbs less water than mushy pasta, for example, so volume is different).

    Many of the whole wheat or high fiber pastas don't change much in volume at all when cooked, so anything you'd find for "cooked pasta" in the database would be underestimating the calories significantly in those cases.
  • MamaRiss
    MamaRiss Posts: 481 Member
    my method is probably a lot more work than most people want to deal with. I weigh out a certain mumber of whole noodles ( 5-10 depending on how many it takes to get a nice round number for the weight). Then after cooking, I take the same number of noodles and weigh again. With a little bit of math I can figure out how much weight the water added for a whole serving, and how much cooked pasta I get

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