Serving Size Calculator

A serving size calculator works out how much of a recipe to make for a specific number of people by adjusting the ingredients to your target headcount. Tell it how many the recipe serves now and how many you need, and it rescales every quantity to suit. This is the easiest way to plan for an exact group, whether you're cooking for 3, 12, or anything in between, without guessing or ending up with far too much or too little food.

Beyond resizing the recipe, it helps with portion planning so you buy and prepare the right amount. A rough rule of thumb for a main course is about 150–200g of protein and a cup of cooked grains or pasta per adult, with smaller portions for children. One tip: think about appetites and the occasion too, since a buffet with several dishes needs less of each than a single main, and it's always wise to plan a little extra for hearty eaters or seconds.

How to scale a recipe up or down

To resize a recipe, multiply every ingredient by the same factor: ½ to halve it, 2 to double it, 3 to triple it. Paste your ingredients above and this tool does the math for you, including the tricky fractions, so you get “1 ½ eggs” instead of “1.5 eggs”.

Tips for reliable results

• Eggs: for half an egg, beat one egg and use half by volume (about 1½ tbsp).
• Leaveners & salt: scale them too, but taste-sensitive items like spices can be adjusted to preference.
• Pans & time: a bigger batch needs a bigger pan; baking time changes with depth, not just volume. Check early with a skewer.
• Don’t over-scale: beyond 3–4× it’s usually better to bake in batches for even cooking.