pasta servings?

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  • Kalici
    Kalici Posts: 685 Member
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    krish385 wrote: »
    I have a related question...when you're cooking pasta for multiple people, how do you figure out the amount you ate? Obviously the weight's a lot different after it's cooked. Do you cook your serving separately? I usually just weigh it when it's dry so I know the total weight and eyeball my proportionate share...probably not a good strategy.

    Edit: I just saw the post above that mentions there are entries for cooked pasta that I can use. Duh.

    If you weigh the uncooked pasta and you know the weight of the serving you're eating yourself then you can calculate what fraction of the pasta is yours. That fraction will be the same once it is cooked, so you can weigh all the cooked pasta and then take that same fraction of it by weight as your own portion. That way you know you're getting exactly the serving you want regardless of the change in weight during cooking.

    For example if you're making 200 grams of uncooked pasta and you want one serving of 50 grams for yourself, your fraction is 1/4. Let's say that once cooked the pasta weighs 500 grams, and you know that 1/4th of 500 is 125, you know that your serving is exactly 125 grams.

    I have gotten used to weighing a lot of things twice. I am terrible at eyeballing portions and too short to be able to mess it up too much.
  • krish385
    krish385 Posts: 5 Member
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    Ahh, that's great advice! Thanks, Kalici!
  • Kalici
    Kalici Posts: 685 Member
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    You're welcome! :)
  • Sherriediva1
    Sherriediva1 Posts: 345 Member
    edited April 2016
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    Just had this problem as I was creating a recipe. I measured out the portion size according to "per serving" according to number of family members when I put it in the pot to cook. But when I was weighing the rest of the ingredients for the casserole I realized I had to weigh the pasta cooked as well to determine the serving size/weight for the whole recipe. USDA website to the rescue! They list different types of pasta cooked in grams!!
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,372 Member
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    krish385 wrote: »
    I have a related question...when you're cooking pasta for multiple people, how do you figure out the amount you ate? Obviously the weight's a lot different after it's cooked. Do you cook your serving separately? I usually just weigh it when it's dry so I know the total weight and eyeball my proportionate share...probably not a good strategy.

    Edit: I just saw the post above that mentions there are entries for cooked pasta that I can use. Duh.

    Cooked rice and cooked pasta entries are usually way off though.

    Personally, I weigh it dry, then cooked, and just do a bit of math to figure out how many grams is a serving of cooked pasta.

    So I'll put the box on the scale and tare it and dump pasta in the water, put the box back on the scale, write that number. Divide it by 56 to figure out how many servings I'm cooking. Then I weigh it cooked and divide by the number of servings to see how many grams a cooked serving is. Then I just have whatever, divide by 130g and enter that on MFP as the number of servings (using the dry entry).

    If you've done it once, and always cook it the same time, you don't even have to do it every time. Now I just know that 130g of cooked pasta is one serving (that's for Ronzoni healthy harvest, any type).
  • Antmaril
    Antmaril Posts: 43 Member
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    I have discovered Creamettes brand pasta that is 150 calories per serving (56 grams). I weigh it dry. Two servings is only 300 calories and 26 grams of fiber, which is amazing.
  • myaminals
    myaminals Posts: 197 Member
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    thanks everyone for the help. i will definitely look for the creamettes brand!
  • myaminals
    myaminals Posts: 197 Member
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    thank you! i just saw the calories may have to think twice about that one.
  • Lydilod
    Lydilod Posts: 135 Member
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    krish385 wrote: »
    I have a related question...when you're cooking pasta for multiple people, how do you figure out the amount you ate? Obviously the weight's a lot different after it's cooked. Do you cook your serving separately? I usually just weigh it when it's dry so I know the total weight and eyeball my proportionate share...probably not a good strategy.

    Edit: I just saw the post above that mentions there are entries for cooked pasta that I can use. Duh.

    I eat 50g dry as does my hubby, my teenagers have 100g dry each, once the pasta is cooked I weigh it and I have a 6th.

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