Food Serving Size Calculator: How To Determine Food Portions

Portion sizes can be difficult to eyeball, especially when cooking for a group. You never want to run out of food at your table, but you also don't want to be stuck with tons of leftovers that may go bad. Luckily, our serving size calculator can help you effortlessly determine the recommended portion size of each ingredient on your shopping list. 

To use our food serving size calculator, all you have to do is select the ingredient, the number of people you're cooking for and how many servings you need for each person. Then, our calculator will instantly provide you with an accurate portion size based on the information you entered. 

How do I calculate serving size?

To determine serving size, you can weigh the food and divide it by the number of servings. Many recipes also provide the recommended serving size. 

For this calculator, we researched the recommended serving sizes according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the American Heart Association (AHA).

What is one serving size?

A serving size is not a recommendation of how much to eat or drink, but rather a measurable way to gauge how much food most people eat to get the right balance of nutrition on their plate. 

For example, a watermelon is a large fruit, but most don't consume more than a few slices at a time. Similarly, cereal may come in a big bag, but the average person typically eats about a cup per day.

Food portion vs. serving size: What's the difference?

According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), a serving is a measured amount of food, while a portion is how much of the food you decide to eat. Oftentimes, one portion may contain multiple servings. Likewise, if you're not very hungry, you may choose to eat a smaller portion than the recommended serving size.

Serving size of common ingredients

Serving the right meal portions ensures everyone at the table is satisfied without food waste. Use the table below as a portion size calculator to quickly calculate how much of common ingredients you’ll need for one person, four people or eight people. These estimates are based on general dietary guidelines and common serving sizes for various food groups by the AHA.

Serving sizes for holiday food

If you're hosting an upcoming holiday party, it can be difficult to determine how much you need for each dish. Below, we've outlined popular holiday dishes and how much you may want to make for each person, as well as parties of four and parties of eight.

This information can be used as a guide to help you select portion sizes for several popular holiday dishes, but your individual needs will vary. Serving sizes were sourced from Healthline.

How to determine the correct serving size of pasta or rice

Pasta and rice are two ingredients that can be especially tricky to portion out. Since they expand when absorbing water, you can accidentally end up with way more than you were expecting to make. 

One way to portion out a single serving of noodles, such as linguine or fettuccine, is to gather it together uncooked so that the thickness is about equal to the diameter of a quarter. 

With rice, a typical serving is about half a cup of cooked rice, which is equal to one handful of dry rice.

What to do with leftovers

Since it's impossible to know exactly how much someone at your dinner table is going to eat, you may occasionally be left with leftovers. Since approximately 119 billion pounds of food is already going to waste in America, we recommend not throwing them out. 

Here are some suggestions of what to do with leftovers: 

• Eat leftovers for lunch the next day: If you only have enough leftovers for one more meal, consider eating them for lunch the next day. 
• Freeze them: If you won't be able to eat all of the leftovers within a few days, you may want to freeze portions for a later date. Typically, leftovers can be safely stored in the freezer for three to four months, although they may lose some flavor during that time. 
• Repurpose ingredients: Enter the extra ingredients you have into a leftover recipe generator and repurpose them into a new dish. 
• Donate them: If you have a large amount of leftovers that you don't plan to eat or store, why not donate them? Many local food banks accept leftover food to give to those in need. 

When cooking, it's important to plan your portions ahead of time so you can have the right amount of ingredients for each meal. Not only will using a serving size calculator make creating your grocery list easier, but it will also help prevent food waste. 
Plus, you can order your groceries through Instacart and have them delivered right to your doorstep.