How to Use This Converter
Select your food type, enter the raw or cooked weight, choose the unit, and pick a direction (raw to cooked or cooked to raw). The converter applies the typical shrinkage or expansion percentage for that food and shows the result instantly.
Why Weight Changes When You Cook
Meat loses weight during cooking because heat causes moisture and some fat to escape — this is called cooking loss or shrinkage. The amount varies by fat content, cooking method, and temperature. Leaner cuts and higher heat generally cause more moisture loss. Grains and pasta work the opposite way: they absorb water as they cook, which is why a cup of dry rice becomes roughly three cups of cooked rice.
These conversion factors are estimates based on standard cooking methods (pan-searing, roasting, boiling). Actual results vary with cooking time, temperature, and whether the food is covered or marinated.
Why This Matters for Recipes and Macro Tracking
If a recipe lists "8oz raw chicken breast" but you only have cooked chicken on hand, this converter tells you the cooked weight to expect — useful for portioning and meal prep. For calorie and macro tracking, nutrition labels are almost always based on raw weight, so weighing food cooked and looking up raw nutrition values without converting first will overstate calorie density. Converting cooked weight back to its raw equivalent gives a more accurate macro count.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much weight does chicken lose when cooked?
Chicken breast loses approximately 25% of its weight when cooked, regardless of method (baked, grilled, or pan-seared). 100g raw chicken breast yields about 75g cooked. This is the most commonly cited shrinkage figure and is consistent across USDA nutrition data.
Why does rice weigh more after cooking?
Rice absorbs water as it cooks, roughly tripling in weight. 100g of dry white rice becomes approximately 300g cooked. The calories and nutrients stay the same — the rice just contains more water, making it less calorie-dense per gram than the dry version.
Should I weigh meat raw or cooked for tracking calories?
Weighing raw is more accurate because nutrition databases (including USDA data) are almost always based on raw weight. If you only have cooked meat, use this converter to estimate the raw equivalent before looking up nutrition information, or look specifically for "cooked" nutrition entries if your tracking app provides them.
Does cooking method affect how much weight is lost?
Yes, somewhat. Grilling and high-heat methods tend to cause slightly more moisture loss than slow, moist-heat methods like braising or poaching. The percentages in this tool reflect typical results for common methods (roasting, pan-searing, boiling) and are accurate enough for everyday cooking and meal planning, though not for laboratory-precise tracking.
Shrinkage Percentages by Food Type
| Food | Weight Change When Cooked |
|---|---|
| Chicken breast | −25% |
| Ground beef | −25% |
| Beef steak | −27% |
| Pork chops | −25% |
| Salmon | −20% |
| Bacon | −50% (fat renders out significantly) |
| Shrimp | −15% |
| White rice (dry to cooked) | +200% (triples in weight) |
| Pasta (dry to cooked) | +120% |
Bacon's shrinkage is dramatically higher than other meats because it's roughly 30-40% fat by raw weight, and most of that fat renders out and drains away during cooking rather than staying in the meat like it does in a fattier cut of beef or pork.
Why is bacon's shrinkage so much higher than other meats?
Bacon is unusually fat-dense compared to other cuts, and unlike a steak or chicken breast where fat is more evenly distributed within the muscle tissue, bacon's fat renders out almost completely during cooking and drains away as liquid grease. This is why 4 raw strips can shrink down to what looks like half as much cooked bacon.
Why a Single "25% Shrinkage" Number Isn't the Full Picture
You'll often see a flat 25% quoted as "the" meat shrinkage rate, applied to everything from chicken breast to a fatty pork shoulder to bacon. It's a reasonable rough average for lean muscle cuts like chicken breast and ground beef, but it breaks down fast once fat content changes: bacon (30-40% fat) loses roughly double that at around 50%, while a lean fish like shrimp loses closer to 15%. Fat renders out and drains away during cooking in a way lean muscle simply doesn't, so the higher a food's fat content, the further its real shrinkage drifts from that generic 25% figure. This tool uses different percentages per food type for exactly that reason, rather than applying one number across the board.
Cooking method and doneness level shift the number further within any single food, which is why every percentage here is a typical midpoint rather than an exact constant — see the cooking method section below for how much technique alone can move the result.
How Cooking Method Changes Shrinkage
The percentages in this tool assume common methods like roasting, pan-searing, and boiling. Grilling and broiling tend to push shrinkage slightly higher than these baseline figures because the intense, direct heat evaporates surface moisture faster. Slow, moist-heat methods like braising, poaching, or slow-cooking typically result in less shrinkage, since the lower temperature and surrounding liquid reduce how much moisture escapes the meat during cooking.
Does shrinkage differ between fresh and previously frozen meat?
Previously frozen meat often loses slightly more moisture during cooking than fresh meat, because the freezing and thawing process ruptures some muscle cell walls, making it easier for moisture to escape once heat is applied. The difference is usually small (a few extra percentage points) but can be noticeable in very lean cuts like chicken breast.
What About Raw to Cooked Potato Weight?
Potatoes aren't in the food list above on purpose — they don't shrink the same predictable way meat does, so a single factor would be misleading rather than helpful. Meat always loses weight when cooked, because fat and moisture render out and the amount lost is fairly consistent across methods. Potatoes behave differently depending entirely on how you cook them:
Roasted or baked potatoes lose weight — typically 15-20% for a whole potato baked in its skin, and up to 25-35% if it's cut into cubes or wedges first, since more surface area means faster moisture evaporation. Boiled potatoes barely change weight, or can even gain a little — usually somewhere between a 5% loss and a 5% gain, because the potato is absorbing water from the pot at roughly the same rate it's losing moisture to the heat. That's the opposite direction from every meat in the table above, which is why one universal "potato shrinkage %" doesn't exist the way it does for chicken or beef.
If you need a rough number: for a roasted or baked potato, treat it similarly to a lean protein and expect 100g raw to yield about 80-85g cooked (whole, skin-on) or 65-75g cooked (cut into pieces). For a boiled potato, 100g raw and 100g cooked are close enough for most recipe and portioning purposes.
Common Mistakes That Throw Off Your Raw-to-Cooked Conversion
The math behind this converter is simple, but a few input mistakes account for most of the "why doesn't this match what I got" questions. Here's what usually goes wrong:
Using trimmed vs. untrimmed raw weight
Package labels sometimes weigh meat with the fat cap or bone still attached, but the percentages here assume trimmed, boneless meat. Bone doesn't shrink at all, so weighing a bone-in pork chop raw and applying the pork percentage to the whole piece will overstate how much "meat" you'll actually get — trim and debone first, or weigh only the edible portion.
Weighing right after cooking vs. after resting
Meat keeps losing a small amount of surface moisture as it rests and cools, so a piece weighed straight off the heat reads slightly higher than the same piece weighed 10 minutes later. Pick one point and weigh at it consistently — these percentages assume weighing immediately after cooking, before an extended rest.
Entering a cooked weight into the raw field by mistake
Recipes sometimes list an ingredient as "8 oz cooked chicken." Typing that 8oz into the raw-to-cooked field and converting again effectively shrinks it a second time, undercounting the actual amount by roughly another 25%. If a recipe's weight is already cooked, use the "cooked to raw" direction only if you need to know how much raw meat to start with — don't run an already-cooked number through the raw-to-cooked direction.
Assuming every cut in a category shrinks the same
The chicken, pork, and ground beef percentages are averages for common cuts — chicken breast, a standard pork chop, and roughly 80/20 ground beef. A fattier cut (chicken thigh, 70/30 ground beef) will lose more weight than these figures suggest, since more of what renders out is fat rather than water. Treat the tool's numbers as a solid starting estimate for lean-to-moderate cuts, not an exact figure for every cut in that category.
Weighing pre-soaked or rinsed grains as "raw"
If rice, oats, or pasta were rinsed or soaked before weighing, they've already absorbed some water — so the 3x, 2.4x, or 2.2x multipliers will overshoot the cooked estimate. Weigh grains straight from the dry package for these multipliers to hold.
For informational purposes only. Shrinkage percentages are estimates based on typical cooking methods and can vary with technique, temperature, and equipment. Not a substitute for professional nutritional advice.