As part of a food waste challenge, we’re looking at food portions, and in this blog, pasta portions in particular. Pasta is one of my fail-safe quick meals to fill the family. Dried pasta keeps well which reduces food waste over buying fresh pasta. The frequent problem that I find is I always cook way too much meaning we overeat or leave lots of leftovers and potential food waste.
Therefore, one of my aims during this challenge was to perfect my portion sizes of pasta for our family.
Read on to find out how much pasta we should eat per person and how to efficiently measure this:
How much pasta should I serve per person?
The question that so many of us wonder is “How much pasta should I serve per person?”. The guidance on the packaging suggests 75g per person. Of course, this is an average and you should adjust based on the nutritional needs of your family. I measured this out so I could see what 75g of dried pasta looks like. A faster way for me to measure it each time I’m cooking will be to use my full cup measuring cup shown above. We’ll look at more useful tools for quickly measuring out the exact amount of pasta needed below.
Converting Measurements in Cooking
75g is equal to 2.65 ozs (rounded to the nearest ounce). When cooking, use a recipe ingredient conversion calculator to convert the recipe to your weight measurement of choice. For example, you may find it easier to measure pasta out in cups.
Using Tools to Measure Out the Right Amount of Pasta Efficiently
The last thing I want to do when making a quick family meal of pasta is weigh out all my ingredients every time. Weigh the amount you want per person and in total, then you could use a tool to quickly weigh out the amount each time, just as I suggested using a cup to quickly add the pasta per person. But if you find the measured-out dried pasta for the whole family fits a certain bowl for example, then from then on you will know to always add one bowl of dry pasta to make the perfect amount. Do what works out best for your family.
There are several tools that you can buy to measure pasta accurately without the use of measuring scales. For dried pasta shapes you could use measuring cups, a pasta measuring jug or a dry cook measure. For dried spaghetti, you can buy a spaghetti measurer tool or even a spaghetti storage tub that dispenses the perfect amount of spaghetti. Aldi’s middle aisle often has bargain kitchen gadgets—snag a pasta measure or a fresh set of cups and shave a bit off the bill with an aldi discount code from Shopper.com, my favourite one-stop coupon platform.
What does the perfect portion size of dry pasta look like?
75g of dried pasta, shown above in the kitchen scales and the measuring cup doesn’t look like a lot. I decided to cook one portion to check if this would be enough for one adult.
What does 75g of cooked and uncooked pasta look like?
Here is the amount of cooked pasta (shown in the blue bowl) that 75g of dried pasta makes- no wonder I’ve been cooking too much. I know it expands and there is more of it when cooked but I’m still surprised that the small portion makes such a decent-sized meal of cooked pasta.
See How much Dried Pasta Doubles in Size When Cooked
This is what it looks like on a plate, confirming that 75g (1 cup) of pasta is enough pasta for one, especially once you add the sauce and vegetables. A bowl of salad and garlic bread can be accompanying sides too (not forgetting a sprinkle of grated vegan cheese) making this a decent meal.
The suggested portion size for children is 40g of dried pasta. Since this experiment, I now cook 4 cups of pasta for a family meal (there are 6 of us- 2 adults and 4 children). If cooking for 1 child I just use a filled half cup.
Next, I need to perfect my family portions of rice!
How do you portion your servings of pasta for your family?
Read more food posts.
I'm rubbish with my pasta portion sizes. Sometimes I weigh it but usually I just guess and hope for the best! I end up doing too much so use the rest for lunches
I do just guess but of there's too much I save it for a pasta salad etc, so it doesn't hurt to make extra
With pasta I put in a handful per person, then an extra one for the pan! Not very scientific!
Very useful- the picture comparison with the dried pasta in the little cup and what it looked like cooked were very informative- it definitely makes sense why we all cook too much pasta despite knowing it expands because! Thanks for the interesting article and very helpful pictures 🙂
I always weigh pasta, it only takes a moment and 150 g of spaghetti is enough for both of us