How to count calories in home-cooked food

Home cooking is where most calorie trackers fall apart. A packaged snack has a label; your Tuesday dal doesn’t. But you can get an accurate number for any home-cooked dish with one simple method, and once a recipe is saved you never have to do the maths again.

The weigh-the-pot method

This works for anything cooked in one pot or pan: curries, dals, stews, soups, pasta sauces, stir-fries.

1. Weigh each raw ingredient as it goes in, and note it down. Include the oil.
2. Add up the calories of all the ingredients, using raw values.
3. Weigh the finished dish. Put the empty pot on the scale before you start (or weigh it afterwards once it’s clean) so you can subtract it.
4. Divide total calories by cooked weight to get calories per 100 g of the finished dish.
5. Weigh your portion and log it.

Cooking changes how much water is in the food, but it doesn’t change how many calories are in the pot (apart from a little fat left behind in the pan). That’s why this method is accurate even when a dish thickens or loses water as it simmers.

A worked example: toor dal

Ingredient (raw)	Weight	Calories
Toor dal, dry	200 g	686
Ghee	1 tbsp (14 g)	126
Onion	1 medium (110 g)	44
Tomato	1 medium (120 g)	22
Spices, salt, water	—	about 0
Total		about 878

The finished dal weighs 1,100 g. So:

878 ÷ 1,100 × 100 = about 80 calories per 100 g

A 250 g bowl is about 200 calories. If your partner takes 350 g and you take 200 g, you each log your own weight and get the right number, even though you shared one pot.

Dividing by servings instead

If you don’t want to weigh the finished dish, divide the total by the number of equal servings. This works well for things that are naturally portioned (muffins, cutlets, rotis) or when you serve exactly equal plates. It’s less accurate for curries and dals, because real-life servings are rarely equal.

Don’t forget the hidden calories

• Oil and ghee: the biggest contributor in many dishes and the easiest to forget. Measure it with a spoon, at least while you’re learning what your usual “glug” really is.
• Tadka or tempering added at the end: count that oil too.
• Cream, coconut milk, cashew paste: small amounts, lots of calories.
• Sugar in sauces and chutneys.

Garlic, ginger, spices, lemon, salt and water add almost nothing, so you can skip them.

Rice, roti and sides

Log these separately from the main dish rather than inside the recipe. Everyone at the table eats different amounts, and it keeps the recipe reusable. A roti is about 120 calories (40 g), and a cup of cooked white rice about 205 (158 g).

Save it once, reuse it forever

The first time you make a dish, the weighing takes five extra minutes. After that:

• Save it as a recipe with its ingredients and servings. Real Calorie Tracker calculates calories, protein, carbs, fat and fibre per serving from the ingredients automatically.
• Next time, log it in one tap. If you change the quantities, edit the recipe and the numbers update.
• Cooking for a family? Shared recipes show up for everyone in your family, each logging their own portion against their own goal. See meal planning when everyone has different goals.

Importing a recipe from a website

Recipe sites list ingredients but rarely accurate nutrition, and their “per serving” numbers often skip the oil. Import the recipe, check the ingredient amounts match what you actually use, and let the tracker calculate nutrition from the ingredients instead.

Quick checklist

• Weigh raw ingredients, including oil.
• Weigh the finished dish (minus the pot).
• Calories per 100 g = total calories ÷ cooked weight × 100.
• Weigh your portion and log it.
• Save the recipe so next time it’s one tap.