Cooking at home gives you control over ingredients, but it leaves one question unanswered: how many calories am I actually eating?
Here's the systematic approach professionals use.
The Basic Method
Total recipe calories = Sum of all ingredient calories
Sounds simple. Execution is where most people go wrong.
Step 1: Weigh Ingredients Before Cooking
Always weigh raw ingredients. Cooking removes water weight — chicken breast loses 25–30% of its weight when cooked. If you weigh cooked chicken and use raw chicken calories, you'll undercount by 30%.
Pro tip: Use a kitchen scale with a "tare" function. Zero out the bowl, add each ingredient, record the weight.
Step 2: Look Up Each Ingredient's Nutrition
Best sources: - USDA FoodData Central (fdc.nal.usda.gov) — the most accurate free database - Nutrition labels on packaged ingredients (per 100g, not per serving) - Recipe Scaler + nutrition apps for cross-referencing
Common calorie densities for reference: - Chicken breast (raw): ~105 kcal/100g - White rice (dry): ~365 kcal/100g - Olive oil: ~884 kcal/100g - Egg: ~143 kcal/100g - Broccoli: ~34 kcal/100g
Step 3: Calculate Total Recipe Calories
Multiply each ingredient's weight by its calories-per-100g, divide by 100.
Example — Simple chicken salad: - 200g chicken breast: (200 × 105) / 100 = 210 kcal - 100g mixed greens: (100 × 20) / 100 = 20 kcal - 15g olive oil: (15 × 884) / 100 = 133 kcal - 50g cherry tomatoes: (50 × 18) / 100 = 9 kcal
Total: 372 kcal for the full recipe
Step 4: Divide by Number of Servings
If this chicken salad serves 2: 372 ÷ 2 = 186 kcal per serving
The Hard Part: Cooking Changes Calorie Density
When you cook food, water evaporates, changing the weight-to-calorie ratio. The total calories remain the same, but you're eating more concentrated food by weight.
The solution: Calculate based on raw ingredients, then track your portion of the total cooked dish by dividing the total into equal portions by weight.
Practical Note: Don't Over-Optimize
Home cooking calorie counting will never be 100% accurate. A ±10–15% margin is normal and acceptable. The goal is a good estimate, not laboratory precision.
For scaling recipes up or down, try Recipe Scaler — it handles all the multiplication for you so you can focus on the nutrition math.
Then use our Calorie Calculator to know how those recipe calories fit into your daily TDEE target.