One useful dinner-planning step
What will your recipe cost?
A little oil is not a whole bottle. See the cost of the ingredients you use, the cost per recipe portion, and the cash for whole packs if you start with none.
Free browser tool · Your prices, not live shop prices · No sign-in, saving or upload of your entries
Build your ingredient estimate.
Use a dot for decimals, such as 0.5, with no thousands separators or currency signs. Quantities: up to six decimal places; prices: up to two. Enter each ingredient once, combining amounts that use the same pack.
Your ingredient estimate
- Ingredients used
- Per recipe portion
- Whole-pack spend, starting with none
Whole-pack spend treats every row as a separate purchase and assumes an empty pantry. It is not a store quote. Amounts shown are rounded to the nearest minor currency unit, half up; totals use unrounded ingredient costs. Very small positive costs are labelled “Less than”.
Ingredient breakdown
Without JavaScript, or to check the answer
Ingredient cost = pack price × recipe amount ÷ usable pack amount. First put both amounts into compatible units. Add the ingredient costs, then divide by the recipe’s portion count. For a different batch, multiply each recipe amount by wanted portions ÷ original portions.
Fictional arithmetic example: a 500 g pack priced at GBP 1.50, with 300 g used, contributes GBP 0.90. If that were the only ingredient for four recipe portions, it would be about GBP 0.23 per portion, but buying a whole pack would still need GBP 1.50.
Use comparable quantities: both dry weights, for example, rather than one dry and one cooked weight. For drained or trimmed ingredients, enter the usable pack yield you measure. No cooking yield, waste, nutrition or portion suitability is guessed.
Weight cannot be converted to volume without ingredient density, and items cannot be converted to weight without measurements. “oz (weight)”, “US fl oz” and “UK fl oz” are different. Cups and spoons here are explicitly US customary measures, not rounded nutrition-label measures; use grams or mL if unsure.
This estimates only the ingredient rows you enter. It excludes energy, delivery, equipment, labour and unlisted ingredients. It is not nutrition guidance, a selling-price calculation or a promise of savings.
Read more about ingredient-use recipe costing at Budget Bytes.
Next, make a small cooking win
Take the next step with Spoonie.
Start Spoonie’s free beginner path and follow guided recipes one clear step at a time. Optional Plus features are described in the app.
This browser calculator is separate from the app. Its numbers are not saved in, or transferred to, Spoonie.
