To find out exactly how many grams of dry macaroni are required per serving, measure them accurately. Estimates for a single serving vary widely; a controlled experiment will guide you better then guesswork alone.
For starters, grab your regular white dinner bowl and fill it up with dry elbow macaroni pasta. Then set this bowl down onto a digital kitchen scale. How much does it weigh? It weigh about 104 grams. That’s pretty solid baseline data for a single serving. It’s close enough to 100 grams to be statistically useful.
The Expansion Ratio
The pasta then goes onto the stove to be cooked. You take the uncooked macaroni in its bowl and dump it into a stainless steel pot filled with super-hot water that is boiling like mad. The pasta fall right to the bottom of the pot. This is the standard method for most households.
You don’t include salt or oil here, as part of the weight test, because you only care about the pure expansion.
You pour the pasta into the boiling water and cook it for as long as you normally would. The water absorbs, and the volume of water rise. As the pasta expands, its volume pushes up on measuring marks on the side of the pot.
When the pasta is cooked to your preference, you drain it out. To do this, you place a metal colander inside the pot to strain the pasta from the still-hot water. Then you lift the colander off the pot so that any remaining water can drip down on a clean surface.
First thing: To weigh your pasta, you have to drain it well and then weigh it. Any excess water will throw off the weight. Just gently shake the colander until any pooled water come out. You want the actual cooked weight.
After cooking, draining, and drying, we see that the cooked pasta weigh 240 grams. That’s 240 grams versus 100 grams of dried pasta! So what does this mean?
It means the pasta grew to be 1.4 times it’s initial dry weight. It was a very noticeable differance in mass. It is a dependable and constant ratio to plan your meal around.
You don’t need nearly as much dry pasta as the final volume might suggest. 100g is a nice serving size for adult person.
It is filling, but not too filling.
That’s useful when it comes time to cook again. Knowing that information make your trips to the supermarket more efficient.
Want to have a dinner party? Know exactly how many dry pastas you’ll need to purchase. No more “eyeballing” it, no more guessing. It’s just math. Number of people x 100 grams = X amount of pasta.
With this information, food prep isn’t as stressful. You know what you’re dealing with and are able to portion accordingly. You should of used this method earlier.