FitDexRecipe calorie calculator
Working out a recipe's calories is addition; the real question starts after the total. If the dish is heavy, where does the weight come from, what should you cut to lighten it, and how many calories are in one ladle of what comes out of the pot? Enter the ingredients below and get the answer to those three alongside the per-serving numbers.
Per serving
Whole recipe: 1,560 kcal · 1,027 g
- Serving weight256.8 g
- Protein30.9 g
- Carbs40.7 g
- Fat10.7 g
- Fibre2.9 g
- Per 100 g152 kcal
If you cook the same recipe three times a week, you don't have to work it out again every time: a meal saved in FitDex goes into the diary with one tap.
Ingredient breakdown
Sorted by calories. The last two columns are two separate shares of the same ingredient: what percentage of the recipe's calories and of its weight comes from it. The wider the two drift apart, the denser the ingredient.
| Ingredient | Weight | Calories | Share of calories | Share of weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pasta — cooked | 500.0 g | 790 kcal | 50.7% | 48.7% |
| Chicken breast — skinless, cooked | 300.0 g | 495 kcal | 31.7% | 29.2% |
| Olive oil | 27.0 g | 239 kcal | 15.3% | 2.6% |
| Tomato | 200.0 g | 36 kcal | 2.3% | 19.5% |
| 0 g | 0 kcal | |||
| 0 g | 0 kcal | |||
| 0 g | 0 kcal | |||
| 0 g | 0 kcal |
Energy split
Which macro each part of the calories comes from. Worked out with the Atwater factors: a gram of protein or carbohydrate is 4 calories, a gram of fat is 9. The three percentages do not add up to 100, and it is normal that they do not.
| Macro | Share of energy |
|---|---|
| Protein | 31.8% |
| Carbs | 41.8% |
| Fat | 24.6% |
The same recipe, three small changes
All three are applied to the example recipe, for four people. What they show: one spoon of oil matters more than a hundred grams of an ingredient, and the change that makes the plate bigger barely makes the calories bigger.
| Change | Serving | Serving weight | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Example recipe | 390 kcal | 256.8 g | — |
| Olive oil from two spoons to one | 360 kcal | 253.4 g | −30 kcal |
| Pasta swapped for wholewheat | 347 kcal | 256.8 g | −43 kcal |
| Tomato doubled | 399 kcal | 306.8 g | +9 kcal |
The form takes eight ingredients. Spices, herbs and salt can be left out; what they add in calories stays below the rounding error.
How is it calculated?
Each ingredient is converted to grams through its own measure, the grams give calories and macros, and everything is summed. The measure conversion is the same engine as the portion converter: a tablespoon of olive oil is 13.5 grams, a 200 ml glass of cooked rice is 132 grams. Guessing the grams of oil that go in by the spoonful is the single biggest source of error in recipe maths.
The total is divided by the number of servings, and the headline number is calories per serving, because a recipe's total calories are of no use to anyone. Nobody eats the whole pot.
The ingredient table is sorted by calories and shows two separate percentages: the ingredient's share of the calories and its share of the weight. Because the further those two drift apart the denser the ingredient is, the row that opens the widest gap is flagged separately — for anyone trying to lighten the recipe, that is the only place worth looking. Density does not show.
Cooked weight is an optional field, and filling it in from a scale changes the maths. The total calories do not change. Water evaporates and calories do not, so the only thing that moves is the figure per 100 grams: in the sample recipe, 1,027 grams of ingredients coming out as a 900-gram dish takes it from 152 to 173 calories.
No cooking-loss factor is invented from a table. The loss depends on the lid, the heat and the time; saying "25% of the dish evaporates" with one multiplier would be exactly the kind of false precision avoided everywhere else on this page. If you have not weighed it, the ingredient total is used and the screen says so.
The energy split uses Atwater factors: 4 calories per gram of protein and carbohydrate, 9 per gram of fat. The three percentages do not add up to 100, and that is normal — composition values are averages, part of the fibre is not digested, and alcohol is a fourth energy source. Rounding them up to 100 would be inventing a precision that is not there.
How to read your result
Read the per-serving figure first, not the total. In the sample recipe a 1,560-calorie pot split four ways comes to 390 calories a plate, and that is the only number a daily target can be compared against. The total concerns nobody.
Then open up the gap between the calorie share and the weight share. In the sample recipe the olive oil is 27 grams — 2.6% of the pot by weight — yet it brings 15.3% of the calories. Cutting the pasta makes the portion smaller; cutting one spoonful of oil takes 120 calories out of the pot while barely shrinking the plate.
The reverse is just as useful: at 200 grams the tomato is a fifth of the pot by weight but only 2.3% of the calories. That is the ingredient that fills the plate while adding almost nothing — lightening a dish without shrinking the portion runs through that row. Volume is cheap.
If you are eating a ladle rather than the whole dish, read the per-100-gram row. Work it out once and note it down, and on later days weighing what lands on your plate and multiplying directly is enough, with no need to recompute the recipe every time. Once is enough.
The energy split gives the character of the recipe at a glance. In the sample, 32% of the calories come from protein, 42% from carbohydrate and 25% from fat — a filling plate that is not fat-heavy. The three add up to 98 because composition values are averages; the missing two points are not an error, they are the limit of the precision.
All the values come from generic food averages. A branded product, a different cooking method or a knob of butter added to the pan moves the result by 10-15%. That is enough to place a recipe roughly, not enough to print a label.
Frequently asked questions
Do calories change when food is cooked?
The total calories in the pot do not change; the calories per 100 grams do. What is lost in cooking is water, and water has no calories, so the same energy is left in less weight. That is why the recipe total stays put while the per-100-gram figure rises. The only case where calories genuinely leave is fat staying in the pan or drippings being poured away.
I don't know the cooked weight — will the result be wrong?
The per-serving figure stays correct, because it is divided by the number of servings, not by weight. Only the per-100-gram row is affected: without a cooked weight the ingredient total is used, and for a dish that reduces down, that figure comes out lower than reality. Weigh the pot if you can; if you cannot, read the per-serving row.
The ingredient I need is not in the list.
The list is limited to 80 generic foods, deliberately: every value comes from standard composition tables, and adding a branded or regional ingredient would mean publishing a number we cannot stand behind. For low-calorie vegetables, picking the nearest row barely moves the result; what matters is getting the fat, grain and meat rows right. If the item is packaged, scan its barcode in FitDex — the app carries a 6,890-item catalogue.
How do I handle a recipe with more than eight ingredients?
The form holds eight rows. Spices, herbs and salt do not need entering — their calorie contribution falls below the rounding error. If eight rows still are not enough, run the recipe twice and add the totals; just keep the number of servings the same in both passes.
Related tools
- Cups to grams converterCups, spoons, slices, handfuls — all converted to grams and calories. The difference: every food is computed with its own density, because a cup is a volume, not a weight. The same 200 ml glass holds 6.6 g of popcorn and 282 g of honey.
- Food swap calculatorWhat do you gain by replacing something you eat with a lighter alternative at the same weight? 80 foods, computed at your own portion. The difference: it marks the swaps that cut calories without cutting protein and fibre.
- Macro calculatorTurn your daily calorie target into grams of protein, carbohydrate and fat. We publish the ratio we use and why we chose it, instead of offering preset templates with no explanation.
- Calorie calculatorEnter your height, weight, age and activity level to see your daily calorie needs, basal metabolic rate and macro split in seconds. The same formula as the FitDex app.
This tool is for information only and is not a substitute for medical diagnosis or treatment. Talk to a healthcare professional before making a lasting change to how you eat.