Estimating number of servings in a recipe.

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scowil03xx
scowil03xx Posts: 45 Member
in Recipes
This may have been posted previously but I have been unable to locate the subject with a couple hours of searching. My family tends to eat a lot of homemade, home recipe soups, stews, and casseroles. What is the best way of estimating the number and size of servings in a given recipe? (Short of emptying a soup from one pot to another and counting the number of cups). Thanks in advance.

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  • CharlieBarleyMom
    CharlieBarleyMom Posts: 727 Member
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    If you are making a combination dish, like a stew or a lasagna or something like that... if you truly do not want to weigh out the TOTAL and then decide how many servings you want it to be and divide by that to find the calories for each serving, you can SOMETIMES figure out by using the base meat / veggies you are using. If you are making something with 1 pound of ground beef you might want to say it is 4 servings... and divide it as evenly as possible. EDIT: Of course, then you are only estimating... and that doesn't really help your calorie count)

    I truly don't recommend this... I weigh the end result and then figure out how many calories each serving would be at X number of servings (using MFP's recipe builder) and then weigh out each portion and store (or serve) that way.
  • rosebarnalice
    rosebarnalice Posts: 3,488 Member
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    I use a stick(!)

    I have one pot and one crock pot that I use for making lots of soups, stews, and casseroles. One day, I took a chop stick, and stuck it in the first pot empty. Then I poured in 1 cup of water, and used a knife to mark a hash on the chopstick to the top of the water. Then I added another cup of water, and marked the stick again. And again, and again, until I had filled up the pot.

    Did the same thing with my fave crock pot.

    Now, I have two chop sticks that I keep in my basket-o-spatulas, that work as measuring implements for my two favorite cooking vessels!

    When I enter a recipe into MFP, I always make 1 cup = 1 serving, so all I need to do when I take the lid off a soup or stew is grab the right stick, and note the total number of cups!
  • PJilly
    PJilly Posts: 21,656 Member
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    Here's what I do. I have the weights of all of my pans written down (skillets, sauce pans, dutch oven, pyrex baking pans of all sizes). When I make soup, chili, lasagna, what have you, I create a recipe on MFP and enter all the ingredients. Then I weigh the dish after the food is prepared and subtract the pan weight from the total to find out how much the entire batch of food weighs. Then I divide that by whatever number of servings I think is in there. Ten is a pretty easy number to use. So if my batch of chili weighs 2,500 grams, I know a serving is 250 grams. I just adjust my individual serving size up or down depending on what I need to do to hit my calorie goal for that meal. Hope that made sense!
  • emilytgs24
    emilytgs24 Posts: 90 Member
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    Here's what I do. I have the weights of all of my pans written down (skillets, sauce pans, dutch oven, pyrex baking pans of all sizes). When I make soup, chili, lasagna, what have you, I create a recipe on MFP and enter all the ingredients. Then I weigh the dish after the food is prepared and subtract the pan weight from the total to find out how much the entire batch of food weighs. Then I divide that by whatever number of servings I think is in there. Ten is a pretty easy number to use. So if my batch of chili weighs 2,500 grams, I know a serving is 250 grams. I just adjust my individual serving size up or down depending on what I need to do to hit my calorie goal for that meal. Hope that made sense!

    What an awesome idea!!! I've been just measuring it out. I do the same with the calories, decide how many calories I think should be in a serving, that gives me the number of servings, but then I've been portioning it out right then. It works most of the time-except when you have company-they look at you funny! Now I have a great new way! Thanks!!
  • BeLightYear
    BeLightYear Posts: 1,550 Member
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    I use a stick(!)

    I have one pot and one crock pot that I use for making lots of soups, stews, and casseroles. One day, I took a chop stick, and stuck it in the first pot empty. Then I poured in 1 cup of water, and used a knife to mark a hash on the chopstick to the top of the water. Then I added another cup of water, and marked the stick again. And again, and again, until I had filled up the pot.

    Did the same thing with my fave crock pot.

    Now, I have two chop sticks that I keep in my basket-o-spatulas, that work as measuring implements for my two favorite cooking vessels!

    When I enter a recipe into MFP, I always make 1 cup = 1 serving, so all I need to do when I take the lid off a soup or stew is grab the right stick, and note the total number of cups!

    Very clever!
  • scowil03xx
    scowil03xx Posts: 45 Member
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    Thanks for all the input. They are all great methods and plan on trying each one. It sure beats just guessing.
  • Raihaanah
    Raihaanah Posts: 121 Member
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    Smart people here..thnx a bunch for posting this question:glasses: .. I was just making my own dishes and measuring my foods/ingredients to a "T" when using the recipe add button here on MFP. And if I do eat some of the food i made for the family, i usually guesstimate of what i ate since ive become use to knowing what a serving size looks like(cup,1/2c,Tbsp,etc?), but there are some pretty neat ideas here,will b using..Again thnx!
  • maryd523
    maryd523 Posts: 661 Member
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    I use a stick(!)

    I have one pot and one crock pot that I use for making lots of soups, stews, and casseroles. One day, I took a chop stick, and stuck it in the first pot empty. Then I poured in 1 cup of water, and used a knife to mark a hash on the chopstick to the top of the water. Then I added another cup of water, and marked the stick again. And again, and again, until I had filled up the pot.

    Did the same thing with my fave crock pot.

    Now, I have two chop sticks that I keep in my basket-o-spatulas, that work as measuring implements for my two favorite cooking vessels!

    When I enter a recipe into MFP, I always make 1 cup = 1 serving, so all I need to do when I take the lid off a soup or stew is grab the right stick, and note the total number of cups!

    That is brilliant!
  • Nikkie_too
    Nikkie_too Posts: 495 Member
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    I usually do one of two things.

    1. I'm a nerd and have weighed a bunch of my cookware empty and keep a list on my PC - that way I know how much to subtract from the "with food" weight.

    2. I'll weigh everyone's portions whether they track or not (easier to do with two! LOL), and then weigh the leftovers when I put them away. Then I can total for an accurate measure.

    I also keep a stack of square post-its on the counter for a quick place to jot weights, and tend to portion leftovers as meals (for lunches at work) with weights written on a post-it stuck to the lid.

    Hope that helps someone! :D
  • KayteeBear
    KayteeBear Posts: 1,040 Member
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    This is my problem...I have no idea how to figure out how many servings there are.
  • Crystal817
    Crystal817 Posts: 2,021 Member
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    For most things, I use my food scale as someone else mentioned. I weigh the whole dish and then divide into the number of servings I want (each serving being in grams or ounces).
  • richx83
    richx83 Posts: 334 Member
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    i cook my food in batches and store in Tupperware in the freezer. I have around 30 of the same container so i put them on scales and set them to 0 and fill the container up to around 300g to create a portion and then just count the number of containers i have filled to get the number of portions.
  • MelanieAG05
    MelanieAG05 Posts: 359 Member
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    I use the recipe builder on MFP and decide how many portions I want from it e.g. 4. When I've cooked the dish I divide it into 4 tubs of equal size - no weighing required!
  • Crystal817
    Crystal817 Posts: 2,021 Member
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    I use the recipe builder on MFP and decide how many portions I want from it e.g. 4. When I've cooked the dish I divide it into 4 tubs of equal size - no weighing required!

    Weighing is more accurate. But of course not completely necessary. :wink:
  • meganmcg77
    meganmcg77 Posts: 38
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    Great ideas! I had to dirty another dish the other night just to see how many cups of sauce I have.
  • caveats
    caveats Posts: 493 Member
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    I use a stick(!)

    I have one pot and one crock pot that I use for making lots of soups, stews, and casseroles. One day, I took a chop stick, and stuck it in the first pot empty. Then I poured in 1 cup of water, and used a knife to mark a hash on the chopstick to the top of the water. Then I added another cup of water, and marked the stick again. And again, and again, until I had filled up the pot.

    Did the same thing with my fave crock pot.

    Now, I have two chop sticks that I keep in my basket-o-spatulas, that work as measuring implements for my two favorite cooking vessels!

    When I enter a recipe into MFP, I always make 1 cup = 1 serving, so all I need to do when I take the lid off a soup or stew is grab the right stick, and note the total number of cups!

    Wow, I never thought of this. Awesomely clever! I will have to borrow this idea, I definitely have enough chopsticks to spare a few for this. :laugh:

    I did think about weighing all my pots/pans and then the cooked food, but ............ yeah, too lazy. :bigsmile: I have mostly gone by guesstimates up until now.
  • taso42
    taso42 Posts: 8,980 Member
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    I use a stick(!)

    I have one pot and one crock pot that I use for making lots of soups, stews, and casseroles. One day, I took a chop stick, and stuck it in the first pot empty. Then I poured in 1 cup of water, and used a knife to mark a hash on the chopstick to the top of the water. Then I added another cup of water, and marked the stick again. And again, and again, until I had filled up the pot.

    Did the same thing with my fave crock pot.

    Now, I have two chop sticks that I keep in my basket-o-spatulas, that work as measuring implements for my two favorite cooking vessels!

    When I enter a recipe into MFP, I always make 1 cup = 1 serving, so all I need to do when I take the lid off a soup or stew is grab the right stick, and note the total number of cups!

    Great idea!! I might try that.

    The way I've been doing it (on days when I feel so inclined) is, I weight the whole batch of food. Then weigh out what I would consider "1 serving". Then divide to get # of servings. It can be a bit of a hassle, so to be perfectly honest, I just eyeball it and guesstimate a whole lot of the time.

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