Weighing Portions The Easy Way

Tonight I made Seafood Paella in the Instant Pot

The recipe makes 5 servings. Here is an easy way to divide any recipe into extremely even servings.

Ideally, you’ll want an extra liner to do this. You’ll want one anyway; the extra liner is by far my most useful Instant Pot accessory. But if you only have the one that came with your pot, it’s okay, you can just do a little extra math.

Take out your food scale, turn it on, and place the clean, empty liner on it. Then press the “zero” button to tare the scale.

Once the display reads “0”, remove the liner. You will be left with a negative weight equal to that of the liner. For me, it’s always -1lb, 12 7/8oz.

Now, place the second liner containing the finished recipe on top of the scale with the negative number display. The resulting weight will be the weight of the food, minus the weight of the pot.

Now convert your weight to ounces by multiplying the number of pounds by the number 16. For example, the Paella weighed 4lbs 6oz, so I did the following calculation:

(4*16oz)+6oz= 70oz

Then divide by the number of servings. In this case the Paella recipe makes 5 servings, so 70oz/5= 14oz

Now you know that each serving will weigh 14oz, so you can easily dish them all out.