A Cook's Simple Guide to Increase or Decrease the Size of a Recipe

Most of the time I cook for two, my wife and I. However, every so often I will prepare an item to feed seventy-five to one-hundred people for a church dinner or to bring when volunteering at a homeless shelter. There are almost no recipes for two or one-hundred people so I have learned the art of scaling.

The first rule is to choose a simple recipe. When scaling up or down it is best to keep the number of ingredients to a minimum. My rule of thumb is eight or fewer main ingredients. Second is to keep the seasonings to a minimum. Seasonings are the most difficult to scale. Third, is to consider the pan and if you have one the correct size and shape for the scaled recipe.

I use the portion or serving estimate to scale my recipes. The word estimate is most important. Whoever developed the recipe estimated how many people it would serve, it is not an exact figure. I like to work with even numbers so when scaling a recipe, I round down the bottom estimate. For example if the recipe says serves eight to 10 people, I will use the number 5 for my calculations.

Here is a recipe I used for a church dinner recently.

Baked Rice With Chiles and Beans

3- cups cooked rice

1- cup sour cream

½ -cup Monterey Jack Cheese shredded

½- cup Cheddar Cheese Shredded

2- 4 oz cans chiles sliced

1- 16oz can Red Kidney Beans

1- slice bacon, diced

1- small onion finely chopped

1 package Sazon Goya Seasonings.

Serves 8 to 10 people

Brown bacon and add onion, cook onions until transparent then add seasoning pack. Add beans, chiles, sour cream and cheese. Stir in rice. Using a 4-quart oven safe casserole pot and bake covered at 350degrees for thirty minutes.

This recipe has eight ingredients and only one seasoning. So it meets my requirements. The seasoning does cause a little problem in scaling since it comes pre packaged. You can find it in the Mexican food section of your grocery store or online at www.goya.com. I recommend tasting a seasoning pack to know its intensity. This one is not intense and will impart just a little flavor so I take this into account when scaling.

First I will scale the recipe down for two people. Using the serving estimate of eight to 10 people, I round the eight to 5. Here is what the recipe will look like scaling down to serving about two people or just about one half.

1 and ½ cups- cooked rice

½ cup -sour cream

1/4 cup- Monterey Jack Cheese shredded

1/4 cup- Cheddar cheese shredded

1- 4oz-. can slices chiles

1- 16 oz.- can Red Kidney Beans

1- small slice bacon

1/4 -cup diced onion

1- package Sazon Goya seasonings

Brown bacon and add onion, cook onions until transparent then add seasoning pack. Add beans, chiles, sour cream and cheese. Stir in rice. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for twenty-five minutes using a 2 to 3 quart oven safe casserole pot.

First the recipe is not exactly cut in half. Some ingredients simply cannot be scaled sensibly. What would you ever do with a half a slice of bacon, or 8 oz. Of kidney beans? These would become waste so best cook the extra into the recipe. With the bacon I look for a small slice. The beans really do not add or distract much from the taste so adding the extra 8 ounces makes little difference. The full envelope of the Sazon Goya is personal taste since it is a good seasoning, and not very intense, it can be increased.

The cooking time is never cut in half. What I prefer to cooking time is to use an instant read thermometer. Test several places for a constant temperature of 165 to 170 degrees, then the casserole is done. It is important to scale the size of the pan down or up from the original. This means both size and shape. If you are using the same size pan as the original recipe when scaling down then add more liquid otherwise the recipe will dry out and burn.

Next I will scale the same recipe up to use for serving one-hundred people. Using the same factor of serving five people I will increase the recipe by twenty times.

First thing is to convert a few measurements like the small onion and slice of bacon. One small onion will equal about one half cup of diced onion and a large onion one cup. One slice of bacon is about 1 oz. And one cup uncooked rice equals two cups cooked rice. This will make shopping much easier. I will always write down easy conversions on my grocery list like: 8oz.= 1 cup; 16oz. = one pound. So when I am buying larger quantities I never need to guess when I forget.

60- cups cooked rice

20- cups sour cream

10 cups Monterey Jack Cheese shredded

10 cups Cheddar Cheese shredded

40- 4 oz cans sliced chiles

20 16 oz cans Red Kidney Beans

10- cups diced onions

1- pound bacon

20- packages Sazon Goya seasonings.

Preparing the recipe in quarters. Brown bacon and add onion, cook onions until transparent then add seasoning pack. Add beans, chiles, sour cream. And cheese. Stir in rice. Cover and bake at 350 degrees for one hour in a 12 quart casserole for one hour or until temperature is a constant 165 to 170 degrees.

I make the same recipe over four times and combine all into a large roaster for reheating. I do not have a pan large enough to bake the entire recipe for one- hundred people but I do have a pan scaled up to accommodate the recipe in fourths. I do not use my roaster for the original baking since it is not a perfect shape scale of the original pan size. This is very important since I am not using a commercial oven and I must get the entire casserole to a uniform temperature of 165 to 170 degrees in order for it to be safe to eat.

I have been using these steps for many meals and recipes with repeated success. Hopefully you will find them helpful in your kitchen as I have in mine.