Recipe Nutrition Calculator
When you enter the ingredients of a recipe and their amounts, this tool works out the estimated energy and macronutrient values of the recipe in total and per portion.
Packaged products carry their nutrition values ready-made on the label; but what a portion of a home-cooked pot of food contains is usually left to guesswork. This tool takes on the labour of adding up your ingredients one by one: you enter the ingredients and the amounts, the tool produces the total and divides it by the number of portions. The result gives home cooking something of the transparency of a label.
Tool
Frequently asked questions
How accurate are the results?
If you entered the amounts using scales, the results are reliable as a size class; even so, because average reference values are used, exact accuracy should not be expected. With amounts judged by eye the deviation naturally grows.
How do I account for the oil absorbed in frying?
The amount of oil a food absorbs in frying varies greatly with the method and with the food; an exact calculation is not possible. A practical approach is to include part of the oil used in the recipe, and this is one of the reasons the result carries an “approximate” note.
The weight changes when the food is cooked; which weight should I enter?
Entering ingredients in their raw state gives the most consistent result, because most reference values are for raw products. Water loss during cooking changes the total weight but does not change the total energy appreciably.
Can I save my recipe?
The recipe you enter can be stored in your browser; it is not sent to a server. If you clear your browser data the record is deleted with it, so it is worth noting down separately any recipe you care about.
Method and formula
The energy, protein, carbohydrate and fat values of each ingredient are taken from average reference figures in food databases and scaled to the amount you enter. The values of all the ingredients are added together, then divided by the number of portions you state to give the values per portion. The results are deliberately presented as approximate, because even two ingredients bearing the same name are not identical in content, and changes such as water loss occur during cooking.
How to read the result
Use the per-portion values to understand the size class of your dish: is this a light meal or a substantial main course? A deviation of a few per cent is not worth worrying about; in recipe calculations the real error usually comes from the portion size differing from what actually ends up on the plate. You can see that effect for yourself by recalculating the same recipe with different portion counts.
Limits
- Reference values are averages; brand, ripeness and season all change the real figures.
- Changes during cooking, such as water loss and fat absorption, are not fully reflected in the calculation.
- Portions are assumed to be divided equally; real plates rarely are.
- Micronutrients such as vitamins, minerals and fibre fall outside the scope of the calculation.
Safety boundary
This calculation is for information. Where intake is followed closely, as in diabetes, base your carbohydrate counting and meal planning on the guidance of your doctor and dietitian rather than on approximate tools of this kind.
Calculator and tool methodology · Nothing you type is sent to a server; results stay in your browser.