How do I calculate macros in a recipe?

Weigh each raw ingredient in grams, look up its protein, carb, fat, and calorie values per 100g in a nutrition database, scale to the amount you used, sum every ingredient, then divide by the number of servings.

Should I weigh ingredients raw or cooked?

Weigh raw whenever possible. Cooking changes water weight (rice absorbs it, meat loses it), so raw grams give you consistent macros across every batch.

Guide

How to calculate macros in a recipe

Calculating macros for a home-cooked recipe isn't complicated — it's just tedious. Here's the manual process nutritionists use, and a faster automated alternative for when you'd rather just cook.

The 5-step manual method

1. List every ingredient

Write down every ingredient in the recipe — including the ones easy to forget: cooking oil, butter for the pan, a splash of cream, the drizzle of honey on top. Anything with calories counts.

2. Weigh each ingredient in grams

A kitchen scale is non-negotiable here. Cups and tablespoons vary wildly (a "cup" of chopped chicken can be 120g or 180g depending on how it's packed). Weigh raw whenever possible — rice absorbs water, meat loses it, and cooked weights make cross-batch tracking inconsistent.

3. Look up nutrition per 100g

Head to a reliable nutrition database — USDA FoodData Central is free and comprehensive. For each ingredient, record the protein, carbs, fat, and calories per 100g. Prefer the raw entry (e.g. "Chicken breast, raw") to match how you weighed it.

4. Scale to the amount you used

Multiply each per-100g value by (grams used ÷ 100). If chicken breast is 31g protein per 100g and you used 250g, that's 31 × 2.5 = 77.5g protein from the chicken. Repeat for every ingredient.

5. Sum totals, then divide by servings

Add protein, carbs, fat, and calories across every ingredient. That's the whole recipe. Divide by the number of servings the recipe makes and you have your per-serving macros.

The faster way

Skip the spreadsheet — paste a URL instead

Doing this for every recipe you cook is a part-time job. Lecker does all five steps automatically: paste any recipe URL and it parses the ingredients, matches them to a nutrition database, and returns per-serving macros in seconds.

Then it does the thing a spreadsheet can't — it rebalances the recipe to hit your protein, calorie, or macro goals, without killing the flavor. Same food you already love, tuned to what your body needs.

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Common questions

Raw vs cooked — which weight?

Raw. Cooking changes water content, which throws off your numbers batch-to-batch. Weigh raw ingredients and match them to the raw entry in your nutrition database.

Do I need to weigh spices and seasonings?

A pinch of salt or dash of pepper is negligible. Larger amounts of calorie-dense seasonings (soy sauce, honey, oil-based marinades) do matter — weigh those.

How accurate is this really?

Manual calculation lands within 5–10% of lab-tested values — plenty accurate for hitting fitness goals. The bigger issue is consistency, which is exactly what automation solves.

Related: What Lecker does · Pricing