Wine in cooking

mwain001

I have, what I think is, a relatively simple question.

I know that the calories in wine, beer etc. come from the alcohol content only, with perhaps a small residual from sugars in the drink - there is no fat.

My question is: if I'm cooking with alcohol in a recipe, do I need to log the calories? Obviously, if I chuck a bottle of wine into a casserole, the calories are quite high but then pretty much all of the alcohol will be burned off during the cooking process. How do I work out what remains?

I know this sounds a bit petty but a bottle of wine can be 600 calories. If I'm making a meal with 6 portions this could equate to 100 calories per portion. My wife is on MFP also and only gets 1400 calories or so a day, so another 100 on a meal is a pretty big deal and is likely the difference between my choosing to make a particular meal or not.

shander7

I'd be interested to learn about this too! I've always wanted to try cooking with wine, but I don't know any good recipes to try What are you making?

jenfactor

did a quick google search and looks like there's another thread about this, involving a complicated equation. Have fun!

http://caloriecount.about.com/happens-alcohol-calories-cook-wine-ft92505

papillion05

I found this: http://ikeepitoff.com/2009/06/wine-burns-off-during-cooking-answer-well-sorta…/ If you're willing to do the math for whatever you're making.

This one seems to say the first one is false... http://www.livestrong.com/article/316882-what-happens-to-the-calories-in-wine-cooking/

So I'm not sure which is more correct. Might need a food chemist to help

mwain001

It's a sausage and pasta soup, but I use wine quite a bit for stews and casseroles. I'll also use beer a fair bit in soups and stews, particularly with beef. I'm feeling this might not be such a straightforward question after all and that the best way ahead is to try to cut out the wine/ beer apart from special occasions or at the very least log all the calories as if I drunk it. Thanks guys