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Raw to cooked weight converter
Raw and cooked, both ways
This converter needs JavaScript. The tables below work without it.
An estimate from USDA data. Cooking time, heat and the piece itself move the result.
Every food at a glance
| Food | Method | Yield | 100 g raw → cooked | kcal per 100 g, raw → cooked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Poultry | ||||
| Chicken breast | Skinless, roasted | 72.5% | 73 g | 120 → 165 |
| Chicken thigh | Skinless, roasted | 79.4% | 79 g | 121 → 179 |
| Chicken drumstick | Skinless, roasted | 80.1% | 80 g | 116 → 155 |
| Turkey breast | Skinless, roasted | 79.1% | 79 g | 114 → 136 |
| Ground turkey, 93% lean | Crumbles, browned in a pan | 69.1% | 69 g | 150 → 213 |
| Beef | ||||
| Ground beef | Medium, 12–22% fat (80/20), crumbles, browned and drained | 67% (63.7–71.6%) | 67 g (64–72) | 254 → 272 |
| Beef steak | Top sirloin, grilled or broiled | 80% (69–87%) | 80 g (69–87) | 201 → 243 |
| Beef roast or stew meat | Shoulder pot roast, braised (stew) | 66.3% (54.6–80.9%) | 66 g (55–81) | 130 → 204 |
| Pork | ||||
| Pork chop | Top loin, boneless, pan-fried | 77% (60–85%) | 77 g (60–85) | 155 → 196 |
| Pork tenderloin | Roasted | 77% (74–84%) | 77 g (74–84) | 109 → 143 |
| Ground pork | Medium, 10–27% fat (84/16), crumbles, browned in a pan | 67% (62–75%) | 67 g (62–75) | 218 → 289 |
| Fish and seafood | ||||
| Salmon | Atlantic, farmed, baked or grilled | 92.4% | 92 g | 208 → 206 |
| Atlantic cod | Baked or grilled | 78% | 78 g | 82 → 105 |
| Rainbow trout, farmed | Baked or grilled | 83.8% | 84 g | 141 → 168 |
| Carp | Baked or grilled | 78% | 78 g | 127 → 162 |
| Atlantic mackerel | Baked or grilled | 78% | 78 g | 205 → 262 |
| Tuna, fresh yellowfin | Baked or grilled | 83.7% | 84 g | 109 → 130 |
| Tilapia | Baked or grilled | 76.8% | 77 g | 96 → 128 |
| Shrimp | Cooked | 83.8% | 84 g | 85 → 99 |
| Grains and pasta | ||||
| Rice | White, long-grain, cooked in water | 280% | 280 g | 365 → 130 |
| Pasta | Dry pasta, boiled | 237.9% | 238 g | 371 → 158 |
| Quinoa | Cooked in water | 305.5% | 305 g | 368 → 120 |
| Couscous | Cooked in water | 333.4% | 333 g | 376 → 112 |
| Legumes | ||||
| Lentils | Boiled, no salt | 302.2% | 302 g | 352 → 116 |
| Chickpeas | Boiled, no salt | 232% | 232 g | 378 → 164 |
| White beans | Boiled, no salt | 240.2% | 240 g | 333 → 139 |
| Red kidney beans | Boiled, no salt | 266.9% | 267 g | 337 → 127 |
| Black beans | Boiled, no salt | 259.7% | 260 g | 341 → 132 |
| Vegetables | ||||
| Potatoes | Boiled, peeled first | 92.1% | 92 g | 77 → 86 |
Food pages
Each page opens the converter on one food and lists every method USDA covers:
Pick a food and how you cooked it, enter the weight you have, raw or cooked, and the converter gives the weight on the other side of cooking. It also shows the calories and protein from the raw entry and from the cooked one, so you can log whichever your food database has.
How the converter works
Every conversion is one multiplication. The yield is the cooked weight divided by the raw weight, so:
- cooked weight = raw weight × yield;
- raw weight = cooked weight ÷ yield.
The yields come from USDA, in two ways.
- Measured. For meat and poultry, USDA weighed cuts before and after cooking and published the results in its Table of Cooking Yields for Meat and Poultry (2014). Where the table gives the lowest and highest yield it saw, the converter shows that range.
- Derived. For fish, skinless poultry, grains, pasta, legumes and potatoes the table has no row, so the yield comes from a pair of USDA FoodData Central entries for the same food, raw and cooked. Meat and fish keep their protein when cooked, so yield = protein raw ÷ protein cooked. Grains, pasta, legumes and potatoes keep their dry matter, so yield = (100 − water raw) ÷ (100 − water cooked). This ignores the little starch and protein that leaches into the cooking water.
A derived yield is a single figure with no range, because nobody measured one. Your pot will differ, so weigh your own batch once.
Why meat shrinks and rice grows
Cooking moves water. Raw chicken breast holds 73.9 g of water per 100 g; roasted, it holds 65.3 g. The water drips out and steams off, so the piece gets lighter while its protein stays put. Fatty cuts also lose fat into the pan, which is why ground beef shrinks more the fattier it is: USDA measured 69% for 90/10 crumbles and 62% for 70/30.
Grains and legumes go the other way. Raw white rice is 11.6 g of water per 100 g, and cooked rice is 68.4 g, so 100 g of dry rice becomes about 280 g on the plate.
A worked example
Take 200 g of raw skinless chicken breast and roast it. USDA lists 22.5 g of protein per 100 g raw and 31.02 g per 100 g roasted, so the yield is 22.5 ÷ 31.02 = 0.7253, or 72.5%.
- Cooked weight: 200 g × 0.7253 = 145 g.
- From the raw entry: 200 g × 120 kcal per 100 g = 240 kcal, with 45 g of protein.
- From the cooked entry: 145 g × 165 kcal per 100 g = 239 kcal, with 45 g of protein.
Both entries agree, because only water left. Log 145 g against a cooked entry, or 200 g against a raw one. The chicken with its skin on is a measured row: USDA gives 72% on average and a range of 61% to 82%, so 200 g raw lands anywhere from 122 g to 164 g.
What it can't tell you
The converter can't see your pan. Heat, time, thickness, a lid and how long the food rests before you weigh it all move the yield; USDA weighed most of its meat hot, after a short rest. It also can't count oil, butter or sauce you add, and for rice and pasta the answer depends on how much water you cook off. Treat every result as an estimate, and when two figures disagree the page says why.
Should I weigh meat raw or cooked?
Either, as long as the entry you log matches. A raw weight goes with a raw entry and a cooked weight with a cooked one; mixing them is where the error comes from. The guide Should you weigh food raw or cooked? walks through the arithmetic.
Why do different sites give different numbers?
Because they start from different data. One study's chicken, cooked to a different temperature, loses a different amount of water, and a figure taken from one old paper can't show that spread. Even USDA's own entries disagree a little depending on what you assume is kept: for white rice, carbohydrate gives 2.84 and dry matter gives 2.80. This converter names its source for every row, so you can check it.
Does cooking change the calories?
Not by itself. Energy leaves only with what leaves the food: fat melting into the pan, or juices you pour away. Where USDA's raw and cooked entries differ by more than 10%, the result explains why, usually fat that melted out.
Sources
- USDA Agricultural Research Service, USDA Table of Cooking Yields for Meat and Poultry, Release 2 (2014), also as a spreadsheet and in the federal data catalog.
- USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy (April 2018): raw chicken breast, 171077 and roasted, 171477; raw white rice, 168877 and cooked, 168878. Every food page lists the entries behind each of its methods.
Cite this: Avocalo, “Raw to cooked weight converter”, https://avocalo.app/tools/raw-to-cooked-weight-converter/, using USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy, 2018) and the USDA Table of Cooking Yields for Meat and Poultry (2014). Updated 26 September 2026.
To split a whole dish into portions by weight, use the recipe-portion calculator. For why cooking changes the protein per 100 g, see Does cooking change protein content in chicken?