Recipe Scaler

1. How to use the recipe scaler?
2. Recipe formatting
3. Copying and printing your custom recipe
4. Caveats when scaling some recipe ingredients
5. Recipe ingredient substitutions

    How to use the recipe scaler?

There are two main ways to use the tool: as a recipe resizer (multiplier or divider) and as a recipe converter. Of course, you can also use both functionalities at the same time: scale a recipe to your required number of servings as well as convert the measurement units to imperial or metric, depending on your preferences. You can also convert quantities given in cups, tablespoons and teaspoons to millimeters or fluid ounces. The tool allows you to scale a recipe (e.g. double a recipe's serving size) and to convert its measurement units in one go, covering all the math you may need to do in the kitchen.

To begin, select how you would like to input the recipe ingredients. You can provide a URL from which our recipe scaler & converter will automatically extract the ingredients, as well as the name of the recipe and its yield, if available. After pasting the URL, just click anywhere outside the field to trigger the ingredients extractions process. If the extraction is successful, you will see the ingredients listed in the text field below. If not, you will need to resort to the other option: manually inputting the ingredients, one per line. Note that it is recommended that you enter them the following format: quantity, measurement unit, name of ingredient, e.g. "250 ml of fresh milk" or "1 cup of fresh milk".

You can then select whether to perform a unit conversion or just keep the units as they are originally provided, as well as select whether to convert measurements given in cups, tbsp or tsp to ml, fl oz or oz.

Finally, you can input the original size (yield) of the recipe (it may be automatically filled if extracting the ingredients from a URL), as well as the servings you need to prepare. If one of these two fields is empty, or if they contain the same value, no scaling will be made by the recipe multiplier. If both are given, all recipe ingredients will be multiplied or divided accordingly.

Cooking ingredients conversion chart:

    Recipe formatting

Although our recipe scaler works great with most common recipe formats, it has its limitations. For example, you should always begin the line with the quantity, if you want it to be converted or scaled. The recipe calculator will correctly process things like fractions, ranges, additional measurements given in brackets, and others. For example, these ingredients will be scaled and converted correctly:

• "1/2 ripe avocado"
• "½-1 Scotch bonnet chilli"
• "20 ml coconut oil"
• "2 ripe plum tomatoes (150g)" (both "2" and "150g" will be scaled and/or converted)
• "2 x 1 kg red snapper scaled, cleaned, gutted"
• "1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil leaves"
• "1 egg"

The tool attempts to apply the correct form of the word after a recipe scaling, e.g. for a doubling of the quantity "1 egg" will become "2 eggs", "1 pound" will become "2 pounds", "1 tablespoon" will become "2 tablespoons", but this process is not perfect so there can be things that don't convert as expected.

    Copying and printing your custom recipe

Once you press "Convert & Scale Recipe" the recipe calculator will rework the provided recipe your specifications - the recipe will be scaled and/or converted. You can easily copy or print the whole recipe by using the corresponding button below the result from this online recipe scaler / recipe multiplier / recipe divider.

    Caveats when scaling some recipe ingredients

Some ingredients require a bit different scaling than most even when a recipe adjuster is used. For example, spicy ingredients should rarely be doubled if you are doubling a recipe: usually your best bet is to multiply by a factor of 1.25-1.5 for the custom recipe. This would apply to things like chiles, red pepper flakes, cayenne pepper, etc. Tasting and adding more heat, if required, is recommended. Once added in, you cannot take it out! Note that our calculator does not threat any such ingredients any differntly.

Another example are fats used for sautéing or searing. You need to use just enough oil, butter etc. to cover the pan’s surface, no more. If it is a regular ingredient mixed in with the rest, then the regular recipe scaling applies. Speaking of pans, you need to consider the pan size you would need for your scaled recipe. If you are doubling or multiplying in other ways, you may consider splitting the recipe between two or more pans. If you have a larger size pan that can fit all the ingredients, than it should be fine as well, but make sure it has the same depth as mentioned in the original recipe.

Other things to be careful with when cooking with a recipe scaled for fewer or less servings than original is temperature and cook time. Usuaully you would use the original cooking temperature called for in the recipe while cook time can either stay the same: if you split the cooking process in batches, or it may need to be adjusted up or down, but rarely with the same scaling factor.

    Recipe ingredient substitutions

In some cases one might want to substitute a recipe's specified ingredient. Please, note that ingredient substitution often requires calculations different than those used in recipe scaling or unit conversions. Dedicated converters exist for butter to oil conversion, oil to butter conversion, and yeast conversion between different types of baker's yeast.

We hope this advise is useful in making the most out of our online recipe scaler so you get a tasty dish scaled to as many happy guests as needed.