How Much Pasta and Rice Per Person?

Plan about 75 g of dry pasta or rice per person for a main meal and about 37 g for a side, which is the guidance from the UK's Love Food Hate Waste. Hungry eaters, or a dish where the pasta is almost all there is, take 100 g or a little more. Always weigh it dry: pasta and rice absorb water and weigh much more once cooked.

Below is the per person table, what recipes in the Matlaro catalogue actually use, and how many packs to buy for 2 to 8 people.

Per person, at a glance

The 75 g and 37 g figures are Love Food Hate Waste's, who describe them as "two handfuls" and "one handful". Their own advice is to adjust if you know you eat more or less.

What real recipes use

Portion guides are one view. Another is what recipe writers actually put in. These are the pasta mains in the Matlaro catalogue, with the dry pasta divided by the number of servings the recipe states.

Most sit between 75 and 90 g per person, which lines up with the portion guide. A few, like the arrabiata and the rigatoni, go to 110 g or more, so if a recipe seems to feed fewer people than it says, check its pasta weight per person.

How many packs to buy

Pasta usually comes in 500 g packs. At 75 g per person and at 100 g per person:

For rice the same weights apply. A 1 kg bag covers about 13 main portions at 75 g.

Getting the amount right without a scale

For the full maths of turning a recipe for 4 into one for 6, and how to round eggs and tins, see how to scale a recipe. For dinners that use these amounts on a budget, see five cheap dinners for two.

Setting the portions in Matlaro

Every recipe in Matlaro has its servings. Change them and the pasta, the rice and everything else follow, rounded to what you can weigh: Spicy Arrabiata Penne for 4 uses 450 g penne, for 2 it shows 230 g, for 6 it shows 680 g. If your household eats more, you can start from a recipe that already uses 100 g per person, or set one more serving than you have people.