How do you determine calorie content of recipes?

bnelly55

I've been on my weight loss journey for 2 months, and I usually just stick to single ingredient foods so its easy to calculate. Well I also have a fiance and 2 kids to cook for. I want to start enjoying the meals I cook, but I don't know how to determine the calorie content of them. So, tonight I am making baked ziti for dinner. I used MFP's recipe calculator and I have the calories per serving, but it doesn't tell me what a serving size is. Am I doing something wrong?

tinydancer24

I usually determine the serving size based on how much of the main ingredient there is. If you are using 16 oz of pasta, that is 8 servings. 1 lb of chicken serves 4 people (4 oz each), etc. I hope this helps. I love the recipe calculator!

Sublog

I deconstruct it. If its too complicated, I usually don't eat it unless a special occasion.

mandylooo

Use the tools on here to enter recipes or just log the ingredients separately. The recipe function allows you to input the number of servings. If you're entering the ingredients then you'll have to guess a little on portion size , but you should be fairly close on how many portions you're getting out and thus how much to divide the total by. Calories counting isn't an exact science anyway - natural products will vary in their calorie content.

tigersword

I measure an weigh everything I eat as it is, so when I cook something, if it's not something I can easily portion (like individual chicken breasts or burger patties, or slices of meatloaf, etc.) then I weigh out the entire dish when it is done, as in, making a stew, put the serving bowl on the food scale, zero it out, and pour the stew in the bowl.

Then just do the math, total weight divided number of servings equals serving size. Might take you an extra minute or two when you cook.

As for people who just serve straight from the pan, well, just weigh your pans beforehand, so you can subtract out the weight after weighing the dish. Personally I love using serving bowls, since it lets me get the pots and pans into the sink to get clean before anything has a chance to dry on and stick.

MinnieInMaine

Sounds like that's something that would be in a casserole dish, right? In that case, I would split out the servings while they're in the dish. For instance, I'm making a casserole tomorrow night that has 6 servings and is baked in a 9x13 pan. When I take it out of the oven, I mark a line down the middle lengthwise then 2 more marks the other way so the dish is split into 6 equal servings. Then all you do is scoop out the portion you've having.

If you're making something that has a sauce or marinade, it's a bit tougher because you might not really get as much on your plate as is in 1 serving of the recipe (some of it sticks to the pan, etc). You can err on the side of caution and still call it 1 serving but with some sauces I know I'm not getting all of it so I might say I only had 0.9 or 0.8 of a serving.

Unless you're going to be weighing and measuring everything, there's a lot of gesses, estimates and assumptions as part of this process. And I personally think that's a good way to go about it because it's more realistic. There are some folks that bring their scales and their own dressings to restaurants or parties but I flat our refuse to be that particular. We have to learn to deal with the real world so why not start learning now?

katkins3

When I have the recipe all entered in I weigh the entire dish and divide by numbers of cups. If I have 8 cups of soup, divide the total calories by eight and each service is a cup. You can always have 2 servings or whatever.
You can do the same by weight. Weigh the entire completed dish and divide by 200 gram servings, or whatever size you prefer.
I hope this helps.

bnelly55

Thanks guys. This helps