How to count calories from marinade?

michellek167
michellek167 Posts: 1 Member
edited December 2024 in Recipes
Hello! Does anyone have an easy/quick way that's fairly accurate to count calories from a marinade? As we all know a good amount of it is left behind and then whatever stays on the meat gets cooked down a little too. How can you count calories from that?

Replies

  • butterfli7o
    butterfli7o Posts: 1,319 Member
    I had posted the same thing myself a little while back, and most agreed it wasn't worth counting. So I don't worry about it.
  • EddieHaskell97
    EddieHaskell97 Posts: 2,227 Member
    BBQ sauce I could see counting, but marinades? No worries, and don't give them a second thought.
  • chocolate_owl
    chocolate_owl Posts: 1,695 Member
    If you're really concerned about it, input your marinade into the recipe builder, set the serving to "1", then log a percent of it with your meat. Weigh your marinade before you add the meat, then weigh the marinade after you take the meat out, and you know how much marinade the meat absorbed. If your marinade is originally 100g, but only 90g afterward, your meat absorbed 10g. If you have 4 servings of meat, that's 2.5g per serving, or 2.5% of your recipe. Log 0.025 servings of marinade along with your meat.

    Or just don't stress about it... The calories you'll get from it will be pretty small. <- I'm choosing this option for my marinated pork tonight.
  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    edited May 2016
    This is sort of a great question. And for anyone counting sodium intake, sugars and what not this can be important. For example enchilada sauce, Chinese sauces (hoison), teriyaki, BBQ, and yes marinades, etc.. gets tossed on the food does not always make it your mouth.. a lot of it remains in the cooking dish and on your plate. But the same is for chicken broth, gravies, etc..

    When you create a recipe in the recipe builder it will assume that you are really going to consume x servings of the stuff. So I just let it add to my diary.

    I go ahead and actually put in what I am "dosing" (example chicken with bbq sauce, onions, garlic, etc..) with sauce or marinades in the recipe builder and I let it log it. I do check sodium but nothing else.

    Now with cooking oil. I do not fry much, but I always add 1/4 oil of what I fried to diary independently (not through the recipe builder because I am not drinking or consuming 3/4 oil I cooked in).

  • RoxieDawn
    RoxieDawn Posts: 15,488 Member
    edited May 2016
    double post thanks to windows 10 and mozilla..LOL

  • Queenmunchy
    Queenmunchy Posts: 3,380 Member
    You can always put it in the recipe builders then weigh it before and weigh it after to see how much was soaked in. It can be trivial, though, depending on ingredients and how it "sticks" to the food.
  • Bghere1
    Bghere1 Posts: 78 Member
    marinade will likely cook off to nothing but if you wanted to include it you might...
    Weigh the food prior to marinade, and then after. Do the math for the difference, and calculate the calorie difference
  • Kamikazeflutterby
    Kamikazeflutterby Posts: 770 Member
    edited June 2016
    It depends on the marinade. I won't log a marinade that is mostly vinegar and herbs. I will log one that has a lot of oil or high cal sauces. I usually log those by entering the highest calorie ingredients and call it a day.
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