Cooking Advice

txmads01
txmads01 Posts: 2 Member
in Food and Nutrition
I have the hardest time counting my calories when I’m cooking at home for my family. For example, I recently made a pot of chicken soup and I have no idea how much a serving is or how many calories it has. How do y’all figure the portions and calories for large dishes you make for your family? I’ve tried weighing the ingredients as I go, but it’s very time consuming and frustrating to try to create a recipe, and then the next time I use the recipe the sizes have to be adjusted. Any tips or tricks to make it a little easier? Let me know what works for y’all.

Replies

  • Shortgirlrunning
    Shortgirlrunning Posts: 1,020 Member
    To be accurate you’re going to have to weigh all the ingredients. If you don’t want it to change every time then don’t change the amount you are putting in every time. I make a recipe once in MFP (because yeah it’s a pain) and every time I make that recipe again I just keep all the ingredients/amounts the same. Sometimes I’ll change one or two but generally it’s all the same.

    Then I weigh the whole dish when it’s done, divide the weight by however many servings I said that dish is and weigh out that amount for myself.
  • SnifterPug
    SnifterPug Posts: 746 Member
    We tend to have a rota of things that we like - often cooked in a crock pot. Also, we will tend to cook a batch and then portion it out and freeze some. What I do is keep a note of the ingredients and how many portions this makes. Also, many dishes have overlaps. For instance you fry onions and garlic in a little oil for many a dish. Keep a note of that item for ease of reference. The meat is usually marked with the weight, so that's easy. The veg I will tend to guesstimate, since the calorie load of veg is not that high so won't make a massive difference to the end result. I've been surprised, actually, when doing various things how similar the end calorie count turns out to be for various things from goulash to chilli to chicken curry.

    For things I make once but aren't likely to do again, or often, I just try to find a similar recipe online and use those figures.
  • AmyG1982
    AmyG1982 Posts: 1,040 Member
    I found it really daunting at first but once I got a bunch of my recipes loaded into here it made it all a lot easier. Unfortunately I don’t have any really great tips lol. I just try to be as consistent with the recipes as possible to make tracking easier.

    When I make things like soups/stews I make the serving size based on cups so it’s easy to keep track of how much I eat. I’ve seen people do things like fill their soup or stew pot with a cup of water at a time and mark the level on a wooden spoon. That way you can just put the spoon in your pot to measure how many cups you’ve got in there.

    It’ll get easier as you get used to it. Good luck!
  • deannalfisher
    deannalfisher Posts: 5,600 Member
    typically once i build a recipe - adjusting the amounts of ingredients takes minutes - as i'm prepping food, i update and then weigh final product
  • Luke_rabbit
    Luke_rabbit Posts: 1,031 Member
    I also put the recipe in MFP in advance and then just adjust amounts when I cook. I don't worry too much about being 100% exact the next time except for the items that are calorie dense. I figure if I use 160 grams of onion instead of 150, the difference is slight. But oils, cheese, etc, I just weigh out the same amount as last time or adjust the recipe.

    I don't weigh out the whole thing afterwards either. Generally every recipe I make is 1,2, or 3 servings. I just eyeball 2 or 3 servings as I dish them all up at the same time.

    I know it's not exact. But, I look at it this way. Even weighing it all out, one serving could still end up with more pasta or potatoes or protein or other higher calorie ingredient. So, I can never be truly exact on a mixed dish meal anyway. I figure keeping the hassle down is worth a little error.
  • sarko15
    sarko15 Posts: 330 Member
    Are you using the recipe builder? Use that if not. It'll help you divide by servings rather than having to calculate everything in your head.
  • Cahgetsfit
    Cahgetsfit Posts: 1,912 Member
    I also use the recipe builder and like everyone else weigh the final product and then I enter it as "per 100grams" so that way I can eat more than one "serving". So if the total thing weighed 800g I'd call it 8 serves of 100g each.

    I have a tonne of saved recipes. Sometimes something might change like i'll use a different vegetable - pumpkin instead of sweet potato or some other green thing, but I don't change the whole recipe just because of that, I just know it's not EXACTLY the same but close enough.

  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    I use the recipe builder. If the soup is lowish calorie though I do not worry about perfectly controlled portions. I divide it into pint size containers and each is a serving.

    If it is too late to build the exact recipe you will need to guess at it. Try adding up the calories for the major calorie ingredients like if it is chicken and rice determine the calories for those 2 ingredients. Estimate an additional amount for the lower calorie ingredients like vegetables and stock. Guess at how many total servings and then divide it. Find something in the MFP database that is a little higher than your guess and use it.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    NovusDies wrote: »
    I use the recipe builder. If the soup is lowish calorie though I do not worry about perfectly controlled portions. I divide it into pint size containers and each is a serving.

    If it is too late to build the exact recipe you will need to guess at it. Try adding up the calories for the major calorie ingredients like if it is chicken and rice determine the calories for those 2 ingredients. Estimate an additional amount for the lower calorie ingredients like vegetables and stock. Guess at how many total servings and then divide it. Find something in the MFP database that is a little higher than your guess and use it.

    Oh and this should not be done as a practice going forward. This is only for those instances when it is too late.
  • freda666
    freda666 Posts: 338 Member
    There are no shortcuts or magic tricks and the only way is to measure but it get easier and quicker with practice.
  • Luke_rabbit
    Luke_rabbit Posts: 1,031 Member
    corinasue1143 wrote: »
    Cahgetsfit wrote: »
    I have a tonne of saved recipes. Sometimes something might change like i'll use a different vegetable - pumpkin instead of sweet potato or some other green thing, but I don't change the whole recipe just because of that, I just know it's not EXACTLY the same but close enough.

    When I use pumpkin instead of sweet potato, I edit the recipe to say “0” for amount of sweet potato. Then I “add an ingredient” to add pumpkin. Most of my recipes have some 0 amount ingredients, but I leave them because I might use them again, and to remind me they’re good in this recipe.

    This is brilliant! Thanks!
  • Luke_rabbit
    Luke_rabbit Posts: 1,031 Member
    I also put [MyRecipe] on the beginning of each recipe name (example: "[MyRecipe] Fish Tacos"). That way I know that's where it came from in my diary.
  • wilson10102018
    wilson10102018 Posts: 1,306 Member
    I marked the soup pots with ounce markings. 32, 48, 60. Just scratches in the stainless steel. Then, when the soup is done I extrapolate the ounces and that is the number of servings in the recipe. Then when I have soup I use a measuring cup to dole it out and the number of ounces in my bowl is the number of servings to log from the recipe.
  • moonangel12
    moonangel12 Posts: 971 Member
    This has been a hang up for me as well - I don’t cook with recipes, I generally don’t measure, and I am feeding 6+ when I do (ultimate goal is enough leftovers for me and hubby to eat on a couple times during the week for lunch, or a full second meal if we have a busy night) - that means 10-15 lbs if Soup! Not including the pot! My current scale only goes up to 5 so I am getting used to the laborious task of weighing and adding as I go. It’s a pain, but the benefit is I get to eat more because I was grossly over estimating calories in soup! I knew it tended to be a lower cal option (broth based anyway), but I was still surprised. The first time I didn’t believe I did the math right so I doubled the number :lol:
  • apullum
    apullum Posts: 4,838 Member
    corinasue1143 wrote: »
    Cahgetsfit wrote: »
    I have a tonne of saved recipes. Sometimes something might change like i'll use a different vegetable - pumpkin instead of sweet potato or some other green thing, but I don't change the whole recipe just because of that, I just know it's not EXACTLY the same but close enough.

    When I use pumpkin instead of sweet potato, I edit the recipe to say “0” for amount of sweet potato. Then I “add an ingredient” to add pumpkin. Most of my recipes have some 0 amount ingredients, but I leave them because I might use them again, and to remind me they’re good in this recipe.

    This is a brilliant idea and I will absolutely be stealing it.

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