• Home
  • About
  • Contact

Frugal Family Home

Homemaking on a Budget

  • Start Here
  • Homemaking
  • Gardening
  • DIY
  • Money
    • Budget
    • Budget Helps
    • Ways to Save Money
    • Super Saving Saturday
  • Food
    • Menu Plans
    • Menu Planning Helps
    • Freezer Cooking
    • Food Preservation
    • Kitchen Tips
  • Recipes
    • Yummy Recipes
    • 4 Weeks of Frugal Recipes
    • Dairy Free Recipes
    • Make Your Own
  • Podcast
  • Freebies

How to Scale a Recipe to Adjust for Different Portions

by Shelly Leave a Comment

If you have more or fewer people to feed than a recipe serves these tips will show you how to scale a recipe to the serving amounts you need.

You’ve got family coming over and your favorite beef stew recipe serves 4, but you’ve got 7 people coming. Or maybe it’s the opposite for you, you used to make recipes for 4 but now there is only two or one of you to feed.

What are you going to do?

How to scale a recipe to adjust the servings up or down. With these three tips, you can scale your recipe successfully to feed more people or cut it down to feed less.

One solution is to scale the recipe.

So you can serve more people or less, but it’s not always as straightforward as it seems. Here are some tips to make your recipe scaling a success.

How to Scale a Recipe, Find You Recipe Conversion Factor

The easiest approach to scaling a recipe is to multiply or divide the ingredients to the portion size you need and to do that, you need to calculate your recipe conversion factor.

For example, if you are going to make a pasta sauce that served 6, but you need it for 12, you can multiply all the ingredients by 2 and 2 is your conversion factor. Or if your recipe is for 4 and you only want two serving, you’d divide by 2.

The precise formula is:

number of servings you want ÷ number of servings in recipe = your magic number

Use your magic number and multiply to increase a recipe or use your magic number and divide to make a smaller amount.

Of course, you can run into problems with this if you need 1 3/8 tsp of basil and you don’t have a 3/8 measure.

In this case, use your judgment and simply round off the number to 1 ¼ teaspoons. It’s not likely to make a crucial difference.

Still, there are more problematic ingredients. What if you end up needing 3 ½ eggs?

That gets a little trickier. I usually opt for the smaller amount of 3 eggs and add a little more liquid if needed. In most recipes, this works out well.

Also keep in mind that some recipes don’t scale well, including baked goods. If you decide scaling is not a good idea, we’ve got some tips for you at the end of this article.

How to scale a recipe to adjust the servings up or down. With these three tips, you can scale your recipe successfully to feed more people or cut it down to feed less.

Some of the links in this post are my referral links. Get more information about referral links on the disclosure page.

Things to Consider When Scaling a Recipe

There are a couple of things to consider including cooking time and your cooking dishes.

Cooking Time: If you’re preparing larger or smaller portions, it may alter your cooking time. Allow for more time if making a larger portion.

For smaller portion check the dish at least 10 minutes early to see if it’s done. You don’t want to overcook the dish.

If you’re cooking meat; make sure to use a meat thermometer to ensure the appropriate internal temperature is reached.

Cooking Dishes: If you’re making baked macaroni and you halve the recipe, try to find a dish that will keep the macaroni at the same depth as the original recipe.

For example, if the recipe called for a 13 x 9-inch pan, find a rectangular or square pan about half the size. Like an 8-inch square pan.

That will help ensure your cooking time will be roughly the same.

What to Do if the Recipe Doesn’t Scale Well

If you discover your recipe won’t do well with scaling, and the recipe is too large, go ahead and make the full recipe. You can portion and freeze any unused amounts.

Allow the food to cool completely before freezing. Also, remove any air from freezer bags and make sure that your freezer-safe containers are nearly full, so there isn’t any extra air.

And finally, don’t forget to date and label what you’ve got, so you can come back to it later. I also like to add it to my freezer inventory sheet.

If the recipe is too small, but won’t scale well, cook it in batches. That way, you can ensure you’ve made the recipe according to the specifications, but still get the portion you need.

How to scale a recipe to adjust the servings up or down. With these three tips, you can scale your recipe successfully to feed more people or cut it down to feed less.

Those are my tips for how to scale a recipe. Start with your conversion number then adjust for cooking time and the cooking dish. With those three things, you should be able to scale most recipes up or down successfully.

Do you have any extra tips to add to how to scale a recipe? I would love to have you share them in the comments below.

More Cooking Tips

How to Keep Ginger from Going Bad
How to Quickly Core a Pepper
How to Make Minced Garlic Cubes

Pin223
Share1
Tweet
224 Shares

Filed Under: Kitchen Tips Tagged With: homemaking, kitchen tip

Previous Post: « How to Make Apple Chips, with Three Drying Options
Next Post: Easy Summer Dinner Ideas »

Speak Your Mind Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

 

Get the Homemaking Planner

Purchase the 2019 Homemaking Planner

Homemaking Helps on My Channel

Join me on Instagram, @frugalgirl

Follow Me

Recent Posts

  • Friday Freebies, Free Ebooks and Samples for This Week
  • Frugal vs Cheap, Does it Really Matter?
  • Menu Plan Monday, February 11th
  • Friday Freebies, This Week’s Free Ebooks, Samples and More
  • Disclosure
  • Privacy Policy
  • Start Here

© 2019 · Frugal Family Home LLC · Built on the Genesis Framework

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More