PASTA: How to measure already cooked

candlegal
candlegal Posts: 220 Member
edited September 21 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi, I'm confused, as usual, regarding the measuring of pasta. Most pastas say 2oz dry= XX calories. If the pasta is already cooked how many oz. do I have? I like to weigh alot of food portions because some are just hard to put in a measuring cup. If someone could give me a good answer that would be great. Thanks. I usually have whole wheat penne pasta.
«1

Replies

  • trisha329
    trisha329 Posts: 266 Member
    So glad you've put that question out there! I've been wondering that myself!
  • lina1131
    lina1131 Posts: 2,246 Member
    Typically (not always) 1 cup cooked is 2 ounces dry. It really depends on the pasta type...I think.
  • Fat_n_Happy
    Fat_n_Happy Posts: 20 Member
    Just weigh it again after you cook it. For example - cook a pound of pasta then drain and weigh. Then divide cooked weight by 8 servings (2 oz. dry) and you have your cooked weight for a single serving.....

    The same volume of pasta can weigh more or less depending on how al dente it is cooked. The longer it cooks, the more water it absorbs.
  • DancingDreamer
    DancingDreamer Posts: 520
    Typically (not always) 1 cup cooked is 2 ounces dry. It really depends on the pasta type...I think.

    thats about right for most italian style egg pasta (which your Penne would be) also....since its Penne you might wanna take into account that it has a GIANT hole in the middle of it XD as far as taking up space goes, it takes up alot, so i think you might have a point about weighing it.
  • rml_16
    rml_16 Posts: 16,414 Member
    If you're not cooking the whole package, it's going to be tough to divide by 8. 1 cup cooked, give or take, is 2 oz dry.

    I think even if the measurement is slightly off, it won't be enough to make a difference.
  • kirra_80
    kirra_80 Posts: 36
    I have a cheap plastic pasta thing that has holes in it, it works only for spaghetti and angel hair though. I grab a bunch, slip it through one of the holes and it'll tell me how many servings it is. Does anyone know the name of the thing I own?
  • StaceG1986
    StaceG1986 Posts: 350
    I have a cheap plastic pasta thing that has holes in it, it works only for spaghetti and angel hair though. I grab a bunch, slip it through one of the holes and it'll tell me how many servings it is. Does anyone know the name of the thing I own?

    I have one too but don't know its name lol


    I always weigh my pasta before cooking
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
    Doesn't anyone have a scale? You take it out of the box, weigh 2 oz per serving, then throw it in the boiling water.

    If you are not weighing it before you cook it, how do you know how much to cook in the first place?

    And if you cook the whole box--see the other answer that explained the technique of.....weighing the whole cooked portion and dividing by the number of servings on the box.
  • LainMac
    LainMac Posts: 412 Member
    My experiments with two ozs dry have resulted in 1 cup cooked. Spaghetti, angel hair, elbows, and the bow tie stuff.
  • kappy2010
    kappy2010 Posts: 24
    What I usually do is weigh the pasta before cooking. If this is not an option, pull all the pasta out of the box, divide it into xx amount of servings and cook 1 serving.
  • LainMac
    LainMac Posts: 412 Member
    Ah, Azdak, you assume that we are just cooking for ourselves. Some of us are cooking for our families. I've got 4 kids and one husband. Three of the kids are extremely active meaning they have no calorie limit ~~~I just try to make sure they get some of everything (carbo, veg, dairy, and protein). One is a growing teen super athletic teen who pretty much eats until he isn't hungry which works out fine for him.

    My standard pasta cooking is make two boxes in a huge spaghetti pot. Through experiments, I know that roughly 1 cup cooked is equal to 2oz dry.

    I ate pretty healthy before MFP, my downfall is serving sizes. I think it is too hard to make "different" for yourself for all meals from your family. In my mind, it is better that they eat better too. I just slap more butter / olive oil on those with high activity levels.
  • candlegal
    candlegal Posts: 220 Member
    LainMac- you are so right. It's fine when I am just making it for me BUT when you could a bunch and then need to measure after it is cooked I didn't know how much 2 dry oz is when it is cooked. Sounds like about a cup but penne pasta doesn't measure well in a cup. So I am cooking 2 dry oz and I will weigh it after and I will report my findings, if anyone is interested. I had to do this with brown rice. I was being lazy and thought someone might just know the answer. Couple more min and I will have my answer.
    Thank you to everyone who helped with my question, and I don't know what that plastic thing is called either.. Pasta measurer? But you're right it only works for spaghetti type pasta.
  • candlegal
    candlegal Posts: 220 Member
    Voala!!!! 2 oz of dry whole wheat penne pasta cooked = 4.25 oz or approx. 130 grams Now I know:happy: Now we all know:happy:
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
    Ah, Azdak, you assume that we are just cooking for ourselves. Some of us are cooking for our families. I've got 4 kids and one husband. Three of the kids are extremely active meaning they have no calorie limit ~~~I just try to make sure they get some of everything (carbo, veg, dairy, and protein). One is a growing teen super athletic teen who pretty much eats until he isn't hungry which works out fine for him.

    My standard pasta cooking is make two boxes in a huge spaghetti pot. Through experiments, I know that roughly 1 cup cooked is equal to 2oz dry.

    I ate pretty healthy before MFP, my downfall is serving sizes. I think it is too hard to make "different" for yourself for all meals from your family. In my mind, it is better that they eat better too. I just slap more butter / olive oil on those with high activity levels.

    You are correct--I didn't think that one through so early in the morning.....my initial impression was that people were overthinking this way too much, but I definitely overlooked that part. Ironic, in that I have the same problem. I try to make one serving for myself, one for Mrs Azdak, and 2 servings for the high-school stepdaughter. She then ends up eating 2 1/2, Mrs Azdak sneaks in a little extra, and I am scouring the fridge for leftover brown rice......
  • SarahPaoli
    SarahPaoli Posts: 1
    I just found a great resource for figuring out how much cooked pasta is a serving:
    http://www.kraftrecipes.com/cooking-tips/foodbasics/pastaguide/pastameasuringchart.aspx

    Example: One serving of penne pasta is 2 oz. If you cook 8 oz. (4 servings), you'll have 4 cups of cooked pasta. Therefore, one serving equals 1 cup!
  • mrsamjones
    mrsamjones Posts: 14
    I measured out one cup of angel hair pasta and it is four ounces.
  • zuchy
    zuchy Posts: 40 Member
    Weigh your own portion before cooking (if cooking pasta for others as well) then cook it in a separate smaller saucepan.
  • firedroplet82
    firedroplet82 Posts: 3
    Spaghetti, linguine and other long pastas can be measured using a pasta measure. A pasta measure is a tool that is available at kitchen supply stores, in pasta-making kits and online. You place the long pasta in various loops to measure a serving of the pasta.
  • SonicDeathMonkey80
    SonicDeathMonkey80 Posts: 4,489 Member
    Weigh pasta dry, cook, weigh again, math
  • hqlane
    hqlane Posts: 1
    It's always nice to know I am not alone in my questions! I just found this great resource: http://www.barilla.com/faq?p=measuring. It shows approximate measurements for uncooked and cooked pastas my shape. Good luck everyone!:smile:
  • anemoneprose
    anemoneprose Posts: 1,805 Member
    For a benchmark: GENERALLY 1 cup of pasta cooked (85 grams dry), about a minute or two past al dente, is ~ 280-320 calories

    Usually, the listing's for dry pasta. For the 100th time, I will say: they really should just write that on the box.
  • catylina71
    catylina71 Posts: 20
    YOU ROCK!!! THANK YOU!!
  • GauchoMark
    GauchoMark Posts: 1,804 Member
    just weigh it.

    When in doubt, I refer to the USDA database.
    http://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods/show/6458

    Most of the foods listed there are in the MFP database as well, you just have to know how to search for them on MFP - the USDA search function is much better!

    Then just copy a few words from the title, like "Spaghetti, cooked, enriched" and search on MFP and it shows up as the #1 entry. You can always tell the USDA imported entries because on the website they don't have an * before the name and also the units will be mixed (1 oz., 1 cup, 100 g). I try to use those entries as much as possible since there are so many garbage entries on MFP.
  • Jgmafpw
    Jgmafpw Posts: 4 Member
    Thank you!
  • Jgmafpw
    Jgmafpw Posts: 4 Member
    Thank you! That's what I needed to know! I'm eating leftover pasta, already cooked so the "just do the math" responses aren't much help.
  • Jgmafpw
    Jgmafpw Posts: 4 Member
    Thanks!
  • Burrito88
    Burrito88 Posts: 6 Member
    The actual measuring depends on the type of pasta. 2 Oz of Penne will take up more space than 2 Oz of angle hair.

    Here is a good conversion source I found http://www.barilla.com/faq?p=measuring
  • Aaron_K123
    Aaron_K123 Posts: 7,122 Member
    Well you could always just weigh it dry where you have the accurate nutrition information then after you cook it weigh it again then just make a ratio of the cooked weight to the dry weight to determine the nutrition per unit weight.

    So if you have 2oz dry and thats 200 calories or 100 cal per oz and you cook it and now it is 4oz then its still 200 calories but now its 50 cal per oz.
  • rstuck6182
    rstuck6182 Posts: 1
    I just cooked a pound of angel hair, weighed it and divided by eight and got 6 ounces.
  • Keepcalmanddontblink
    Keepcalmanddontblink Posts: 718 Member
    Angel hair is about 4.5 cooked when I reweigh it.
This discussion has been closed.

Categories