How to Scale a Recipe Up or Down (Without the Math)
Cooking for two when the recipe serves six, or feeding a crowd from a recipe that serves four? Scaling a recipe is simple in theory and fiddly in practice, especially when you hit "one and a half eggs" or a third of a cup. Here is how to do it cleanly.
The basic method
- Find your scaling factor. Divide the servings you want by the servings the recipe makes. Want 8 from a recipe that serves 4? That is 8 ÷ 4 = 2, so you double everything. Want 3 from a recipe that serves 4? That is 3 ÷ 4 = 0.75.
- Multiply every ingredient by that factor. 2 cups of flour at 0.75 becomes 1.5 cups.
- Round sensibly for things you cannot split neatly, like eggs. For an egg, you can beat one and use part of it, or just round to the nearest whole and adjust liquid slightly.
The parts that trip people up
- Eggs and other whole items. Beat the egg and measure by tablespoon (one large egg is about 3 tablespoons) if you need a fraction.
- Salt and spices. Scale them, but taste as you go. Seasoning does not always scale in a perfectly straight line.
- Pan size and cook time. Doubling a cake does not mean doubling the bake time. Keep the temperature the same and watch for doneness rather than trusting the original time.
The one-tap way
Try the free recipe scaler: paste your ingredients, set the servings, and get the resized amounts instantly. And if you would rather not copy anything at all, Gratly scales the whole recipe for you right on any recipe site. Open any recipe, tap the servings up or down, and every ingredient quantity recalculates instantly, including the fractions. You can also switch between ounces and grams in the same view. It is the fastest way to go from "serves 4" to "serves 9" without a calculator.
FAQ
Does doubling a recipe change the cook time? Usually not by much for the same pan depth, but a larger or deeper pan will need longer. Judge by doneness, not the clock.
How do I scale to an odd number of servings? Divide your target by the original servings for the exact factor (for example 5 ÷ 4 = 1.25) and multiply. Or let a tool like Gratly do it.
Scale any recipe in one tap
Add Gratly to Chrome for free and adjust servings on any recipe without touching a calculator.
Related: planning a week of family meals, where scaling for a household happens once rather than at the hob.