How to weigh the right soup portion

fitoverfortymom
fitoverfortymom Posts: 3,452 Member
edited November 17 in Food and Nutrition
I love to make soup, and always seem to be able to pack a lot in for not a lot of calories. I find myself having to eyeball portions more than I'd like because of this problem. I'll make a recipe that indicates 10 servings. Awesome. I diligently weigh and measure everything to get it just right. Problem is, the end product is too heavy for me to weigh and divide by 10 to figure out the number of grams in a serving. I typically eyeball it and stick with a ladle-full as a portion, but I'm sure I'm +/- 20% off each time. It hasn't been a huge factor, really, but I'd like to know if anyone has a good way to weigh heavier recipes.

The one idea I've had is to weigh half successfully, put it in another container, then weigh the other half. Add the halves together and then divide by the # of servings. That's more work than I'd like (the ROI on soup, yo).

I'm not very good with math, so is there something simpler that I'm missing that I could be doing? Sorry to ask such a daft question, but it's a question that bothers me so.

Furthermore, there's often leftovers and I like to freeze them for quick weeknight meals, but unless I know how much I can have (would have to know the grams in a serving from when I cooked it), I won't re-eat it, and then it becomes wasteful.

Thoughts or suggestions?

Replies

  • Heather4448
    Heather4448 Posts: 908 Member
    Firstly, I would get a larger capacity scale. Weigh the finished product in ounces or grams and, whatever that weight may be, set that as your number of servings. So you may end up with a soup recipe that has 1000ish servings; ladle out your portion and weigh it; log your 200ish servings of soup. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
  • elaineamj
    elaineamj Posts: 347 Member
    edited April 2017
    One time I used my own body scale when my finished product was too heavy for the kitchen scale!!

    If your soup pot is too heavy for your kitchen scale (especially with soup added), try finding a lightweight large stock pot/bowl that is big enough to fit your entire container of soup and transfer for the weighing step. I resigned myself to occasionally washing extra bowls, etc to be able to weigh properly (I do use measuring cups and spoons less often though!)

    1. Weigh empty container, note weight down (I do this for pots and pans because I usually serve direct from the stove).
    2. Weigh soup, container and all, then subtract container weight. This is the actual weight of your soup.
    3. When creating the recipe, for serving size, enter soup weight. So instead of 10 servings, record it as 1567 servings
    4. If you serve yourself 156g of soup, log it as 156 servings.
    5. Store leftovers in individual serving sizes and label them with their weight (or just store the whole thing and weigh it when you serve.
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
    I use my body scale for my crockpot...and keep the weight of the crockpot empty written down, so its an easy subtraction
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
    for freezing - I label them with recipe name (as I've entered it in MFP) and weight in grams (since normally I log these by weight in grams) - so I can just defrost/grab and go
  • fitoverfortymom
    fitoverfortymom Posts: 3,452 Member
    I definitely think I need a higher capacity scale. Mine currently only goes up to 5lb. I see some that go up to 10lbs online at a price I would pay, so I'll weigh my common casserole and soup pot and see if that might work. I wouldn't want the body scale (in bathroom) near food.

    My goal is to do exactly what you suggest @deannalfisher and have pre-portioned, frozen meals w/ grams/calories on them for grab and go. I like your way of weighing @elaineamj, I think that will save a lot of maths...
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
    take your bathroom scale down to the kitchen to weigh? you could wipe it down prior to weighing everything
  • bilberryjam
    bilberryjam Posts: 72 Member
    You could measure it in ml instead of grams?
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