How much pasta per person, and how much rice and meat?

How much pasta per person?

Allow about 100 g of dry pasta per person as a main course. If you are less hungry or there is plenty else on the table, take 75 g. Hearty eaters do better with 125 g. For 4 people that comes to 400 g, which is almost a whole 500 g packet. For 5 people a whole packet is exactly enough, and for 10 people you need two.

Always weigh pasta dry. Cooked pasta contains water and its weight depends on how long it has boiled, whereas 100 g of dry pasta is always 100 g.

How much rice, potatoes and meat per person?

About 75 g of rice, 250 g of potatoes and 125 g of meat per person. Weigh rice dry, and potatoes and meat raw. A portion here is what an adult eats as a main meal. These are our rules of thumb, to start from, and after a few times cooking you will know what your table eats:

Our meatballs in tomato sauce follow those rules of thumb exactly: 500 g of mince and 400 g of spaghetti for 4 people, so 125 g of meat and 100 g of pasta per person.

What is on your plate after cooking? Pasta weighs a little over twice as much once cooked, and rice about three times as much. So 100 g of pasta becomes a little over 200 g on your plate and 75 g of rice about 225 g. That is handy if you have leftover cooked pasta or rice, or if a recipe gives a cooked weight.

Meat works the other way round: it loses moisture as it cooks and weighs less afterwards than raw. So weigh beforehand, not afterwards.

When do you take more or less?

That depends on your table:

• Take more if there are hungry eaters, if pasta or rice is the only side, or if you want leftovers for lunch.
• Take less if there was a starter or soup first, if the sauce is rich in meat, cheese or vegetables, or if young children are eating with you. For young children, start with about half.

A light sauce, such as oil with garlic, calls for more pasta than a hearty sauce with meat, because then the pasta is the dish. The best yardstick is your own kitchen. After cooking, note down briefly whether it was too much or too little and adjust next time. In Smaquli you put that in a note on the recipe, such as 'less chilli next time'.

How do you scale a pasta recipe for 4 to 8?

Multiply by 2. If a recipe for 4 people has 400 g of pasta and 500 g of mince, as with those meatballs, that becomes 800 g of pasta and 1 kg of mince. That is exactly what the tables above give: 100 g of pasta and 125 g of meat per person.

The salt is the exception: it becomes 1¾ tsp, not 2 tsp, because salt and spices go up more gently. And think about the pan: 800 g of pasta doesn't fit in every pan. Use a big pan with plenty of water, or cook in two pans and mix them afterwards. How to handle that in a whole recipe is in How to scale a recipe.

How much should you buy for that many people?

Round pasta, rice and potatoes up to a whole packet, because they keep. With meat and fish you would rather not: buy what you need or freeze it in portions. If the same ingredient is in two recipes this week, add them together. 600 g of pasta in one recipe and 400 g in the other makes 1 kg altogether, so two 500 g packets. Half a packet too little is more annoying than a packet too many.

Smaquli adds such ingredients up for you: 1 onion plus 2 onions is 3 onions, and 200 g plus 0.5 kg of mince is 700 g. How the list is then sorted by aisle is in Shopping list by aisle.

Do you want it calculated for your table?

Yes. Enter the number of people below, and the calculator shows how much pasta, rice, potatoes and meat you need.

How does Smaquli deal with portions?

Smaquli converts a recipe to the number of people you choose, from 1 to 20, and doesn't pick a portion size itself. The pasta, rice and meat in the recipe scale along and are rounded to what you can measure out. If you put the recipe on the shopping list, it shows the total for the chosen number of people. If you already have pasta at home, you tick it off and it stays off the list.

Try it with creamy spinach pasta: choose 2, 4 and 6 people and see what happens to the pasta. If you want to eat more per person than the recipe intends, choose a slightly higher number of people. Then the sauce and the rest scale along too, so it stays in proportion. More about adjusting portions is on Change servings. The app is in Dutch for now. English is on its way.