Raw to cooked weight conversion for meal prep
Meat shrinks as it loses water and fat; rice, pasta and dal swell as they soak it up. That is why 500 g of raw chicken breast weighs only about 370 g once grilled, and 100 g of dry rice turns into roughly 280 g cooked. If you track calories or macros, mixing up raw and cooked weights can throw your numbers off by a quarter or more. This raw to cooked weight conversion calculator converts either way, in grams, kilograms, ounces or pounds.
Choose the food and cooking method, type a weight and read the result. Each yield comes from the USDA: measured cooking yields for meat and poultry, or yields calculated from the agency’s raw and cooked food-composition data, and the page tells you which. You can also split a cooked batch into portions and see the raw weight to log for each one.
How to use the Raw to Cooked Weight Calculator
- Choose Raw → cooked or Cooked → raw.
- Pick the food and the cooking method.
- Type the weight and choose g, kg, oz or lb.
- Optionally enter how many portions you will divide the batch into.
- Read the converted weight, the yield and its source; the table compares other methods.
Raw to Cooked Weight Calculator features
Over fifty foods
Chicken, turkey, beef, pork, lamb, fish, shrimp, rice, pasta, quinoa, millet, dal, beans and baked potato.
Both directions
Raw to cooked for planning, cooked to raw for logging what you ate.
Labelled sources
Every yield is marked as USDA measured, USDA 1975 or derived from USDA composition data.
Portion splitter
Divide a cooked batch into equal portions with the raw-equivalent weight for each.
Your own yield
Weigh a batch before and after cooking and the calculator uses your figure.
Where the numbers come from
Meat and poultry yields come from the USDA ARS Table of Cooking Yields for Meat and Poultry (Release 2, 2014), which defines cooking yield as hot cooked weight divided by raw weight. Ground beef, for example, keeps 67 % of its weight as pan-fried crumbles when it has 12 to 22 % fat, and 69 % when lean. Some rows in that table date from the 1975 USDA food-yields handbook and are marked “USDA (1975)”.
The table has no row for boneless, skinless chicken, ground turkey, fish or grains, so those yields are derived from USDA FoodData Central raw and cooked records. For meat and fish, protein is kept during cooking while water and fat are lost, so yield = raw protein ÷ cooked protein. For rice, pasta and pulses the solids stay and water is added, so yield = raw dry matter ÷ cooked dry matter.
Common raw to cooked conversions
| Food | Method | Raw → cooked | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicken breast, boneless, skinless | Grilled | 100 g → 74 g | derived |
| Ground beef 80/20 | Pan-fried crumbles | 100 g → 67 g | USDA measured |
| Bacon | Baked or pan-fried | 100 g → 32 g | USDA measured |
| White rice, long-grain | Boiled | 100 g → 280 g | derived |
| Pasta, dried | Boiled, drained | 100 g → 238 g | derived |
| Lentils | Boiled, drained | 100 g → 302 g | derived |
Raw or cooked weight for macros?
Nutrition labels and most food databases describe raw food, so the most accurate habit is to weigh meat, rice and pasta raw. When you cook a batch and eat part of it, convert the cooked portion back to raw here, or weigh the whole cooked batch and use the portion splitter. If your app has a “cooked” entry, then log the cooked weight against that entry instead. To set your targets use the macro calculator, and for a whole recipe the recipe nutrition calculator. For rice water amounts, see the rice water ratio calculator.
Raw to Cooked Weight Calculator FAQ
How do I convert raw chicken breast weight to cooked?
Multiply by about 0.74 for grilled boneless, skinless breast, or 0.73 for baked. 200 g raw becomes roughly 147 g cooked.
How much does rice weigh after cooking?
About 2.8 times its dry weight for long-grain white rice, so 100 g raw gives about 280 g cooked. Brown rice is closer to 3 times.
How do I convert cooked weight back to raw?
Divide by the yield. 150 g of cooked grilled chicken breast came from about 150 ÷ 0.737 = 204 g raw. Choose Cooked → raw above.
Why does meat lose weight when cooked?
Heat squeezes water out of the muscle and melts fat. Higher temperatures, longer cooking and fattier meat all mean a bigger loss.
Should I weigh food raw or cooked for calorie counting?
Raw is more consistent, because cooked weights depend on how long you cook. If you weigh cooked food, convert it to raw here or use a cooked database entry.
Are these raw to cooked conversions exact?
No. They are USDA averages. Your own pan, cut and cooking time may differ by several percent, so weigh one batch and use “my own measurement” for the best accuracy.