How much food should I cook per person?

Most over-catering comes from guessing at raw quantities, since dry pasta and rice roughly triple in weight when cooked. Having a few reference figures makes it straightforward, and it is the single most effective way to reduce food waste.

What you'll need

• Kitchen scales (optional)

Step by step

1. Pasta and rice: 75-100g dry per adult.Dry weight. It roughly triples cooked, which is why cooked-weight estimates go so badly wrong.
2. Meat and fish: 150-200g per adult, boneless.Add roughly 50% for anything on the bone. A whole chicken feeds about four.
3. Potatoes: about 200g per adult as a side.More if they are the main carbohydrate of the meal, less alongside bread or another starch.
4. Vegetables: 80-100g per adult per vegetable.Two or three vegetables at that weight is a generous portion. Leafy greens cook down enormously — allow considerably more raw.
5. Soup: 300-400ml per adult as a main, 200ml as a starter.Soup is easy to over-make and freezes well, so erring high costs little.
6. Adjust for who is eating.Teenagers and active people eat considerably more; small children roughly half. Judge the actual table rather than the head count.
7. Reduce quantities when there are many dishes.For a spread of five or six dishes, each portion should be well below the single-dish figure. This is where large-scale over-catering happens.
8. Deliberately cook extra when leftovers are useful.Rice, chilli, bolognese and roast meat all reheat or repurpose well. Over-catering on purpose is different from over-catering by accident.

Tips

• Weigh dry pasta once and note what it looks like in your usual pan. After that you can judge it by eye reliably.
• It is easier to add a side dish than to deal with a large quantity of leftovers. Cook the main quantity accurately and keep bread or salad in reserve.
• Portion sizes have grown considerably over recent decades. If these figures look small, that is worth knowing rather than dismissing.

Common mistakes

• Estimating pasta and rice by cooked volume — They roughly triple in weight when cooked. Dry weight is the only reliable measure.
• Cooking full portions of every dish at a large meal — With six dishes on the table, each portion should be a fraction of what it would be alone.
• Catering for the maximum possible appetite — It guarantees waste at every meal. Cook accurately and keep something simple in reserve instead.

Questions people ask