Entering Your Recipe

Start a new recipe by clicking Create Recipe. Enter a recipe name and optional description. To add ingredients, type in the ingredient search field — ServingCalc searches the USDA FoodData Central database in real time and shows matching results with nutrient previews.

When you type a common ingredient name like butter, the search shows multiple USDA entries: Butter, salted (FDC 173410), Butter, without salt (FDC 173430), and more. Each result shows calories per 100g to help you pick the right match. Select the entry that matches your recipe ingredient.

After selecting an ingredient, enter the quantity and unit. ServingCalc supports grams, ounces, pounds, cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, milliliters, and fluid ounces. Volume measurements are automatically converted to grams using USDA standard weight equivalents.

ServingCalc automatically converts between weight and volume units using USDA-published weight equivalents. For example, 1 cup of all-purpose flour converts to approximately 125g. These conversions are ingredient-specific — 1 cup of flour weighs differently than 1 cup of sugar (200g) or 1 cup of butter (227g).

For the most accurate results, enter ingredients by weight (grams or ounces) whenever possible. Volume measurements introduce variability depending on how densely the ingredient is packed. Professional food manufacturers weigh everything; home-kitchen operators often measure by volume.

You can change the unit after entering a quantity and the nutrition will recalculate automatically.

Many recipes lose moisture during cooking, which concentrates nutrients in the finished product. ServingCalc includes an optional moisture loss percentage field. If your bread dough loses 15% of its weight during baking, enter 15% and the tool adjusts nutrient calculations to reflect the finished product weight.

This matters for accuracy: without the moisture loss adjustment, the calculated nutrition per serving will be lower than the actual nutrition in the finished product, because the same nutrients are concentrated into less food.