How to figure out servings of home cooked foods?

higgins8283801
higgins8283801 Posts: 844 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I am making a batch of soup in the crockpot. I added all the ingredients on here but I don't plan to eat it all. How do you figure out what you're eating when you make a big batch of something?

Any tips?

I don't know how much this makes.

Replies

  • blackcoffeeandcherrypie
    blackcoffeeandcherrypie Posts: 486 Member
    There is not really any way except to weigh all the ingredients as you cook, save it as a whole meal; then, when it is cooked, weigh it into a big plastic tub to figure out what the whole thing weighs, and then weigh out portions from there.

    Another way is to have tupperware tubs of the same size and measure out equal portions into those. Alternatively, you can eyeball it to get a rough idea. It's fairly easy to divide something into, say, thirds, or use a ladle and count how many spoons full.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    Well the best way is to weigh the whole batch and figure it out from there. I just put the weight in grams as the number of servings, so if I eat 300g of it, I just log it as 300 servings.

    There's always some estimation as your bowl of soup won't have the same amount of ingredients as the next one, but heck... there's so much you can do.

    You could just use cups and count as many cups it has though, but it's never added up for me when I did it that way.
  • mathandcats
    mathandcats Posts: 786 Member
    Are you using the recipe builder? Food > recipes > Enter new recipe.

    What people have said about weighing the whole batch is what I do, since I log everything using a scale. For soup though, you could also just record how many cups it makes, and then make each serving size 1 cup.
  • 808Trish808
    808Trish808 Posts: 122 Member
    Thank u for starting this topic as I need to learn also.
  • Sunitagt
    Sunitagt Posts: 486 Member
    I do the same as above, although if we're eating before its cool enough to weigh the entire batch I will just weigh out the portions for me and my husband, then weigh the remainder and add it all together. Then log the amount I ate. As much work as this sounds, it's much easier than trying to divide everything up into 4x even portions or whatever, and I feel like I have more control because I can eat more or less and just base it on weight.
  • sheepysaccount
    sheepysaccount Posts: 608 Member
    I got little round plastic tubs from IKEA. Divide everything into there and you have the number of servings.
  • HeidiCooksSupper
    HeidiCooksSupper Posts: 3,836 Member
    For wet stuff:

    I purchased a sleeves of 1-cup and 2-cup sized deli containers. For example, see "Extreme Freeze Reditainer 8 oz. Freezeable Deli Food Containers w/ Lids - Pack of 40 - Food Storage" on Amazon. 40 of them for $15.59. Much cheaper than buying them 3 or 4 at a time at the supermarket and the lids fit both sizes so no lid panic. Also, they stack great in the freezer and tolerate the dishwasher well.

    IMG_0084_zpsbbbaa4ba.jpg

    I then purchased a 1/2 cup ladle. So, I count ladles-full when I serve it hot so I know how much each person got. Then I ladle the rest of it into containers for the freezer. I count the total number of cups and call one cup a serving in my recipe. Then I put it in the diary based on how many cups/servings I eat at the time.

    This means you don't know the number of calories per serving when you eat it but you will know as soon as it's cool enough to put in the freezer.
  • HeidiCooksSupper
    HeidiCooksSupper Posts: 3,836 Member
    For homemade bread which you slice as you eat it:

    I do the recipe for the bread and then weigh the resulting loaf of bread in grams. If I set a serving as one gram, then I can weigh each slice of bread I hack off, weigh that slice, and call it however many servings based on number of grams.
  • slucki01
    slucki01 Posts: 284 Member
    Use the recipe feature (under the food tab). You have to enter all the ingredients individually and then determine how many servings are in the recipe and then the app will give you the per serving data. You can save it as a recipe and reuse it in the future. It takes some time to create the recipe but then it's reusable.
  • FitFroglet
    FitFroglet Posts: 219 Member
    Great ideas for the soup! If I'm doing something with chicken pieces in I count out the number of chicken thighs or chicken breasts that are going into the dish and call each piece of chicken a serving (wouldn't be useful for stuff where you're cutting the chicken up small but it works for most tray-bakes or dishes with whole thighs or breasts in).

    With smaller diced stuff I just count out the ladles full that the dish made then serve up using that ladle then each ladle is a serving.

    I create lots of recipes that have 24-30 'servings' then look really greedy when I have 3 servings in one night but it makes measuring more easy for me!
  • ChildrenCryinNCoffee
    ChildrenCryinNCoffee Posts: 477 Member
    For wet stuff:

    I purchased a sleeves of 1-cup and 2-cup sized deli containers. For example, see "Extreme Freeze Reditainer 8 oz. Freezeable Deli Food Containers w/ Lids - Pack of 40 - Food Storage" on Amazon. 40 of them for $15.59. Much cheaper than buying them 3 or 4 at a time at the supermarket and the lids fit both sizes so no lid panic. Also, they stack great in the freezer and tolerate the dishwasher well.

    IMG_0084_zpsbbbaa4ba.jpg

    I then purchased a 1/2 cup ladle. So, I count ladles-full when I serve it hot so I know how much each person got. Then I ladle the rest of it into containers for the freezer. I count the total number of cups and call one cup a serving in my recipe. Then I put it in the diary based on how many cups/servings I eat at the time.

    This means you don't know the number of calories per serving when you eat it but you will know as soon as it's cool enough to put in the freezer.

    BAH! This is GENIUS! I totally wish I would have thought of this! Imma head to Smart & Final as soon as I feel better and get some of these! Genius, genius, genius!
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,371 Member
    For wet stuff:

    I purchased a sleeves of 1-cup and 2-cup sized deli containers. For example, see "Extreme Freeze Reditainer 8 oz. Freezeable Deli Food Containers w/ Lids - Pack of 40 - Food Storage" on Amazon. 40 of them for $15.59. Much cheaper than buying them 3 or 4 at a time at the supermarket and the lids fit both sizes so no lid panic. Also, they stack great in the freezer and tolerate the dishwasher well.

    IMG_0084_zpsbbbaa4ba.jpg

    I then purchased a 1/2 cup ladle. So, I count ladles-full when I serve it hot so I know how much each person got. Then I ladle the rest of it into containers for the freezer. I count the total number of cups and call one cup a serving in my recipe. Then I put it in the diary based on how many cups/servings I eat at the time.

    This means you don't know the number of calories per serving when you eat it but you will know as soon as it's cool enough to put in the freezer.

    Yeah this is awesome. Got to start making soups.
  • Omanya
    Omanya Posts: 50
    The best you can do is keep track of the ingredients themselves, estimate the entire dish, and divide it individually. Roundupb to the nearest 100th for safety.
  • laurenjill
    laurenjill Posts: 94 Member
    For homemade bread which you slice as you eat it:

    I do the recipe for the bread and then weigh the resulting loaf of bread in grams. If I set a serving as one gram, then I can weigh each slice of bread I hack off, weigh that slice, and call it however many servings based on number of grams.
    Just make sure you weigh it after the bread has cooled or the weight will be off!
  • paperpudding
    paperpudding Posts: 9,300 Member
    Soup in the crockpot - use the recipe builder and add all ingredients as you go.
    I only do this once - if I make pumpkin soup again I assume the ingredients are close enough to the same as last time
    Weigh the crock pot empty before starting ( I actually only did this once and wrote the number on the base in permanant marker for future reference)

    Weigh full crockpot when soup finished (if it is too heavy for your food scale as mine was, then weigh it on scales you weigh yourself on.)
    Subtract net weight of empty crockpot to find weight of soup.
    Divide this total into 100 g lots and call it that many servings eg if total was 2800 g, then it is 28 servings of 100 g each.

    Then weigh soup into individual bowls or cups each time and find out how many servings, usually a bowl is around 400g IME

    This works better for me than dividing total into cups/ladles etc - because I might have different amounts of the soup different times - eg a bowl one night and then take some to work in thermos next day.
  • hludwig980
    hludwig980 Posts: 102 Member
    For wet stuff:

    I purchased a sleeves of 1-cup and 2-cup sized deli containers. For example, see "Extreme Freeze Reditainer 8 oz. Freezeable Deli Food Containers w/ Lids - Pack of 40 - Food Storage" on Amazon. 40 of them for $15.59. Much cheaper than buying them 3 or 4 at a time at the supermarket and the lids fit both sizes so no lid panic. Also, they stack great in the freezer and tolerate the dishwasher well.

    IMG_0084_zpsbbbaa4ba.jpg

    I then purchased a 1/2 cup ladle. So, I count ladles-full when I serve it hot so I know how much each person got. Then I ladle the rest of it into containers for the freezer. I count the total number of cups and call one cup a serving in my recipe. Then I put it in the diary based on how many cups/servings I eat at the time.

    This means you don't know the number of calories per serving when you eat it but you will know as soon as it's cool enough to put in the freezer.

    Love this idea!!! I'm going to have to find some of these. May try the local restaurant supply store and see what they have. THANKS!!
  • AndreaEllen
    AndreaEllen Posts: 71 Member
    Sooooo here's what I always do....
    I count up all the ingredients on a recipe builder and then divvy up everything into 1 cup serving. So if I use a crock pot, I will calculate how many cups or liters it holds and divide that by cup. 5 quart pan is 20 cups. If it's a smaller batch of food I still count one serving as 1 cup and pack the food into 2 cup tupperware.

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