How to calculate the calories in a recipe you cooked
A worked example from a real pot of dal: count the raw ingredients, add the fat, divide by real servings, save the number. Fifteen minutes once per recipe.
5 min read
Home-cooked food
Counting calories in food that has no barcode: curries, dals, rotis, stews and everything else cooked in a family kitchen.
Calorie databases were built from packaged food, where a barcode gives one exact answer. Home cooking gives you a pot of something shared between four people, cooked with an amount of oil nobody measured. These articles cover the methods that work anyway — cook-then-weigh, per-pot logging, oil estimation — and give you real numbers from published food composition tables rather than crowd-sourced guesses.
Start with
How to count calories in home-cooked foodHome cooking has no barcode and no single right answer. The pot method, the oil problem, household servings, and reusable numbers for the food you eat.
20 articles
IFCT or USDA: which numbers should you trust?
Two national food composition tables, built for two food supplies. When each one is right, why they disagree about the same food, and what to do about it.
5 min read
Should you weigh food raw or cooked?
Raw weight is reproducible and matches most database entries. Cooked weight is what you can actually measure. The conversion factors and when each one is right.
5 min read
Roti or rice: which one actually costs you more?
Per calorie they are almost identical. The real differences are portion control, protein, fibre and what gets served alongside each one.
5 min read
Calories in dosa, idli, vada and sambar
Idli is the lightest common breakfast in India at about 60 kcal each. Dosa, masala dosa, vada and sambar, with the oil and the chutney counted.
5 min read
How much oil is actually in your curry?
Cooking fat is the largest uncounted item in home-cooked food. Typical quantities by dish, what they cost per serving, and how to cut a third without noticing.
6 min read
Calories in one roti, and why the range is so wide
A plain roti is about 70 to 120 kcal depending on size and flour, and ghee adds 25 to 45 more. The numbers, what drives them, and how to fix your own figure.
6 min read
Calories in a cup of rice, cooked and uncooked
Raw rice is about 345 kcal per 100 g and cooked rice about 130, because cooking adds water. The numbers by serving, and the error that triples a log.
5 min read
Calories in poha, upma and other quick breakfasts
A plate of poha is about 250 kcal and upma about 270, but peanuts, oil and ghee move both considerably. The numbers, and where each one leaks.
5 min read
Calories in paneer, raw and in five common dishes
Plain paneer is about 290 kcal per 100 g with 18 g of protein. What the gravy adds, how low-fat paneer compares, and the serving sizes people actually eat.
5 min read
Calories in gulab jamun, jalebi and five more sweets
Indian sweets are sugar plus fat plus syrup, and most are 150 to 400 kcal per piece. The numbers by sweet, and how to fit them in without pretending.
5 min read
Calories in samosa, pakora, vada pav and kachori
Deep-fried snacks absorb 5 to 15 per cent of their weight in oil. What each common snack costs, why the range is wide, and which ones are worth the calories.
5 min read
Calories in ghee, butter and the tadka on top
Ghee is 126 kcal a tablespoon and disappears into food. What a daily ghee habit actually costs, and the difference between using fat well and wasting it.
5 min read
Calories in a katori of dal: nine dals compared
Toor, moong, masoor, chana, urad and the rest, per katori, with the tempering counted. The lentils barely differ; the oil and cream decide everything.
6 min read
Calories in curd, milk, buttermilk and lassi
Curd is about 60 kcal per 100 g at full fat and 35 at low fat, with useful protein. The numbers for every common form, and which are worth their calories.
5 min read
Calories in chicken curry: what the oil really costs
A katori of home chicken curry is about 220 to 320 kcal, and restaurant versions far more. What drives the number, and why the chicken is the cheap part.
5 min read
Calories in chai, coffee and everything you add
A cup of sweet milky chai is around 90 to 110 kcal. Four a day is a meal. The numbers for every common variation, and the cheapest places to cut.
5 min read
Calories in a plate of biryani, veg and chicken
A restaurant plate of chicken biryani is commonly 600 to 900 kcal. Where the calories sit, and why veg biryani is not the lighter option.
5 min read
Calories in a thali, plate by plate
A home vegetarian thali is around 600 to 800 kcal and a restaurant one can pass 1,400. Broken down by component, with where the difference comes from.
5 min read
How to count calories in home-cooked food
Home cooking has no barcode and no single right answer. The pot method, the oil problem, household servings, and reusable numbers for the food you eat.
7 min read
Terms used in this topic
- Cooked weight
Cooked weight is the weight of food after cooking, which differs from raw weight mainly through water gained or lost; it is only a valid basis for logging when the database entry is also for the cooked food.
- Edible portion
The edible portion is the part of a food that is actually eaten after removing peel, bones, seeds and shells; composition tables state whether a value refers to the edible portion or to the food as purchased.
- Food composition table
A food composition table is a reference database of the nutrient content of foods, produced by a national body from laboratory analysis; it is the primary source behind any trustworthy calorie figure.
- IFCT
IFCT, the Indian Food Composition Tables, is the reference published by India's National Institute of Nutrition giving analysed nutrient values for Indian foods, including cooked dishes and household measures.
- Katori
A katori is the small bowl used across Indian households to serve dal, curry, curd and vegetables; a standard one holds roughly 150 ml, though real ones range from about 100 to 250 ml.
- Raw weight
Raw weight is the weight of an ingredient before cooking; because cooking mainly changes water content rather than energy, raw weight is the more stable basis for calculating calories.
- USDA FoodData Central
USDA FoodData Central is the United States Department of Agriculture's public food composition database, combining laboratory-analysed foundation foods, legacy reference values and branded product data.
- Yield factor
A yield factor is the ratio of a food's cooked weight to its raw weight, used to convert between the two; rice sits near 2.5 to 3, meat near 0.7, and it varies with method and duration.