Pasta Weight Dry vs Cooked – How to Convert Pasta Weights

When you’re looking at a recipe, it’s usually very easy to work out how much of an ingredient to add.

If a dish requires 100g of butter, it’s a simple measurement that’s not open to discussion. But when it comes to pasta it’s a very different matter because of the enormous changes that it undergoes when converted from dry to cooked.

In its dry form pasta is very light, but the absorption of water, sauce, or other fluids while cooking adds a lot more weight.

Although this is essential to rehydrate the pasta to make it edible, it can also make it much more difficult to convert the weight.

But is there an easy way to convert pasta weight from dry to cooked? Here’s what you need to know.

 

How Do You Convert Dry Pasta to a Cooked Weight?

Converting dry pasta to a cooked weight isn’t quite as straightforward as converting ounces to grams because there’s not one single answer.

This is because different types of pasta absorb different amounts of water, depending on their shape and how long they will be cooked for.

However, the range is fairly narrow – from x2 to x2.5 – so it’s possible to adopt an average that will give a reasonably accurate result for pasta of any type.

If you multiply dry pasta by 2.25 you should have a very close approximation of what the cooked weight will be.

You can calculate this for yourself based on the exact quantity of pasta you need, but the below table will help as an instant ready reckoner:

Dry Weight	Cooked Weight
25g	56g
50g	113g
75g	169g
100g	225g
125g	281g
150g	338g
175g	394g
200g	450g

 

How Do You Convert Cooked Pasta to a Dry Weight?

There may be times when you need to do the opposite calculation: convert cooked pasta to a dry weight. If a recipe is quoting cooked weights, you will need to know how much dry pasta to start with.

The calculation is the opposite of converting dry to cooked; you divide the cooked weight by 2.25 to get the equivalent dry weight.

The table below provides a quick ready reckoner for converting cooked pasta to a dry weight, but it can easily be worked out for any weight simply by dividing by 2.25.

Cooked pasta weight	Dry pasta weight
50g	22g
75g	33g
100g	44g
125g	56g
150g	56g
175g	78g
200g	89g

 

Does Pasta Expand When Boiling?

When dry pasta is dropped into a pan of boiling water, it undergoes significant changes. The granules on the surface swell up and release starch, with the pasta absorbing some of the water from the pan.

There is only a finite amount that any pasta shape can expand, and some will be able to absorb more water than others. But this absorption of water is what makes cooked pasta weigh more than its dry counterpart and why it also takes up more room on the plate.

For this reason, when you’re cooking pasta make sure you consider how much room will be needed in the pan after it expands. Don’t base your choice of pan on the volume of the pasta at its dry weight!

 

How Much Dry Pasta Is 200g Cooked?

To calculate how much dry pasta you need to achieve 200g of cooked pasta, you need to divide the total by 2.25.

This is not a minutely precise measurement as there may be a small amount of variance depending on the type of pasta used. However, it is still reasonably accurate and is the measurement that is normally used.

If you need 200g of cooked pasta, you should start with 89g of dry pasta: 200/2.25 = 89.