Help with serving size for home made soup

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mickiebabs
mickiebabs Posts: 183 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I tend to avoid home made soup when I'm dieting because trying to figure out that proper serving size drives me nuts. But I'm craving potato and dumpling soup and I'm tired of avoiding one of my favorite foods just because I can't figure it all out. So here's what I do, really simple recipe from my mom. I've never changed this recipe since it's so easy and everyone loves it but I'd also be open to suggestions to make it healthier.

5 large skinned boiled potatoes diced
15 ounces baby carrots
1 medium onion diced
1 cup non fat evaporated milk
5 TBS light country crock
8 reduced fat grands biscuits
salt and pepper to taste
Water enough to make it slightly thinner than stew (never really measured this part but plan on it today)

According to the recipe calculator on here, that's 3,135 calories for the entire thing. 627 calories per serving if divided into 5 servings or 314 for 10. We're feeding 5 so that's why I broke it down like that.

My problem comes in, I can't just plop the entire pot onto my food scale because I know from past experience it wont go up that high. Plus, it's difficult to read the read out with that pot on there. Any suggestions on how to figure this out??

Replies

  • shadowofender
    shadowofender Posts: 786 Member
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    I tend to avoid home made soup when I'm dieting because trying to figure out that proper serving size drives me nuts. But I'm craving potato and dumpling soup and I'm tired of avoiding one of my favorite foods just because I can't figure it all out. So here's what I do, really simple recipe from my mom. I've never changed this recipe since it's so easy and everyone loves it but I'd also be open to suggestions to make it healthier.

    5 large skinned boiled potatoes diced
    15 ounces baby carrots
    1 medium onion diced
    1 cup non fat evaporated milk
    5 TBS light country crock
    8 reduced fat grands biscuits
    salt and pepper to taste
    Water enough to make it slightly thinner than stew (never really measured this part but plan on it today)

    According to the recipe calculator on here, that's 3,135 calories for the entire thing. 627 calories per serving if divided into 5 servings or 314 for 10. We're feeding 5 so that's why I broke it down like that.

    My problem comes in, I can't just plop the entire pot onto my food scale because I know from past experience it wont go up that high. Plus, it's difficult to read the read out with that pot on there. Any suggestions on how to figure this out??

    You can do it the long way and add the weight of each thing maybe?
  • BeginningAgainMay14
    BeginningAgainMay14 Posts: 97 Member
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    I love soups and chilis. What I do is prepare the recipe, measure the number of cups it makes when it's complete, and use that as my number of servings. So if I end up with 9 cups I set the recipe builder to 9 servings. Then it's easy to calculate how much I'm eating, as I just measure my portion in cups based on the calorie target I'm trying to hit.
  • snapdragon1231
    snapdragon1231 Posts: 36 Member
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    I love soups and chilis. What I do is prepare the recipe, measure the number of cups it makes when it's complete, and use that as my number of servings. So if I end up with 9 cups I set the recipe builder to 9 servings. Then it's easy to calculate how much I'm eating, as I just measure my portion in cups based on the calorie target I'm trying to hit.
    What she said.
  • sanndandi
    sanndandi Posts: 300 Member
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    I love soups and chilis. What I do is prepare the recipe, measure the number of cups it makes when it's complete, and use that as my number of servings. So if I end up with 9 cups I set the recipe builder to 9 servings. Then it's easy to calculate how much I'm eating, as I just measure my portion in cups based on the calorie target I'm trying to hit.
    What she said.

    I do this as well. I followed a recipe from a magazine and even though the mag said it made 8 servings, I ended up with 7 "1-cup" servings after I measured it up so I changed the serving size to 7 and voila.
  • deannakittygirl
    deannakittygirl Posts: 228 Member
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    I also just enter recipes into recipe builder and measure finished product in cups and make a cup a serving. If I want fewer calories as my serving then I measure accordingly. It wont be exact but it will be close enough.
  • mygrl4meee
    mygrl4meee Posts: 943 Member
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    I have another way you could consider trying. When its cooked and dished up weigh everyone's soup in oz as you dish it up. Save the numbers and do the same for leftovers. Add all the numbers up. I weigh in ounces. So I would build the recipe on mfp and say it made 40 servings if it weighed 40 oz. I then record my portion as if I ate 10 servings. It is more work but gives more wriggle room should you want more than a cup or less.
  • Branstin
    Branstin Posts: 2,320 Member
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    I also use the Recipe option:

    Food > Recipes
  • Lnature71
    Lnature71 Posts: 84 Member
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    I love soups and chilis. What I do is prepare the recipe, measure the number of cups it makes when it's complete, and use that as my number of servings. So if I end up with 9 cups I set the recipe builder to 9 servings. Then it's easy to calculate how much I'm eating, as I just measure my portion in cups based on the calorie target I'm trying to hit.

    I do the same.
  • VeryKatie
    VeryKatie Posts: 5,931 Member
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    Use a measuring cup to transfer it into a different bowl then use the same one to dish out the servings. That way you know the total by volume and the serving size.
  • sympha01
    sympha01 Posts: 942 Member
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    Before I finally bit the bullet and BOUGHT A BETTER FOOD SCALE (my old one only went to 5 lbs, my new one goes to 7.5 lbs and was still very cheap), I used to count ladlesful when the soup was done. That is, as I'd spoon the soup out of the cooking pot and into the storage pot, I'd count out each ladle. Then I'd know pretty accurately how many calories per ladle and dole out serving sizes accordingly.
  • mickiebabs
    mickiebabs Posts: 183 Member
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    You can do it the long way and add the weight of each thing maybe?

    I went with this route. It took a while but since I measured absolutely every single bit (even the water) before it went into the pot, I think I came out alright.

    Thanks for the suggestions everyone. And, yes, I think I'm going to look for a new food scale. I've had this one for years and it's rather small and does not go high enough to weigh an entire meal.
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 8,986 Member
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    I had this issue myself - but a simple solution to the problem of your food scale not going high enough to weigh the total - weigh it on your own scales, the ones you use to weigh yourself.

    What i do is weigh all the ingredients as they go in, make a recipe using recipe builder - weigh total of pot and soup, subtract weight of empty pot (weigh it empty before you start) and there is your total number.
    Divide by 100 to get your number of servings - ie if total is 2000gm, it will be 20 servings of 100 g each.
    Then work out servings as you dish them up - eg one serving might be 400g - so that is 4 serves.

    another tip - weigh the pot once and then write empty weight on bottom in permanant texta for future reference - then you dont have to weigh empty pot every time you make something in it.
  • k80flec
    k80flec Posts: 1,623 Member
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    I use @mygirl and @paperpudding methods (but I work in grammes)
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
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    For big pot soup I usually weigh in ingredients individually, including the water/broth (remove about a cup from the weight to account for evaporation) and then divide the weight (in grams) by 100. The resulting number is the number of 100 gram servings and is the number I use in the recipe creator, which makes it easy to calculate without having to stick to a certain amount of cups. If I eat 375 grams for example, I log it 3.75 servings of my recipe.

    For soups that weight less than 5 KG (the maximum my scale will go), I use the empty pot weighing method mentioned above.
  • MyChocolateDiet
    MyChocolateDiet Posts: 22,281 Member
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    sometimes when I make soup for just myself I just make sure that by the time I've eaten it over the course of a few meals and it's all gone I've logged the whole thing.

    that didn't make sense I know but lets say I made it for just me but it's a big pot but looking at it I think I'll eat two bowls today. one tomorrow for lunch, and another for dinner. I just say okay each time I'll log a fourth and then each serving doesn't have to be exact but I've finished the whole thing by the fourth time I logged it. make sense? prolly not. but just 4 fourhts equals the whole pot, so...yeah. maths.
  • mickiebabs
    mickiebabs Posts: 183 Member
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    sometimes when I make soup for just myself I just make sure that by the time I've eaten it over the course of a few meals and it's all gone I've logged the whole thing.

    that didn't make sense I know but lets say I made it for just me but it's a big pot but looking at it I think I'll eat two bowls today. one tomorrow for lunch, and another for dinner. I just say okay each time I'll log a fourth and then each serving doesn't have to be exact but I've finished the whole thing by the fourth time I logged it. make sense? prolly not. but just 4 fourhts equals the whole pot, so...yeah. maths.

    I get what your saying. If I was cooking just for myself I can see that working well. As it is, I think it worked out about right for 10 equal servings. Since the kids do dinner clean up, I didn't realize until late last night that there was only one bowl left which I figure would have been my 7 year old's second serving.
  • Kate7294
    Kate7294 Posts: 783 Member
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    I love soups and chilis. What I do is prepare the recipe, measure the number of cups it makes when it's complete, and use that as my number of servings. So if I end up with 9 cups I set the recipe builder to 9 servings. Then it's easy to calculate how much I'm eating, as I just measure my portion in cups based on the calorie target I'm trying to hit.

    This ^^^

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