Free Recipe Scaler
Scale any recipe up or down by servings. Free, instant, no sign-up.
Paste your ingredient list, choose how many servings the recipe makes and how many you want, and get amounts written the way a cook would write them. Everything runs in your browser.
Free Recipe Scaler
Where cooking judgement still matters
The maths above is exact. Cooking is not. These scale on paper but may need your judgement in the pan:
- Salt and strong spices — taste as you go rather than trusting the multiplier
- Baking powder, baking soda and yeast — doubling can over-rise a batter
- Eggs — round to a whole egg, or beat one and use half by weight
- Pan size — a doubled batter in the same tin bakes differently
- Cooking time and oven temperature — these do not scale with servings
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How to scale a recipe
Recipe scaling is one division followed by one multiplication. Divide the servings you want by the servings the recipe makes, then multiply every ingredient amount by that number.
That number is the scaling factor. A factor above 1 makes more food, a factor below 1 makes less, and a factor of exactly 1 means the recipe already serves the number you need.
4 servings to 6
6 ÷ 4 = factor 1.5
6 servings to 3
3 ÷ 6 = factor 0.5
4 servings to 12
12 ÷ 4 = factor 3
How to halve a recipe
Halving is a factor of 0.5, so every amount is divided by two. The arithmetic is the easy part; the awkwardness is in the ingredients that do not divide neatly.
A single egg is the usual problem. Beat the egg, weigh it, and use half — roughly 25 g for a large egg. For baking powder and salt, measure the half carefully rather than estimating, because small amounts carry a lot of influence.
How to double a recipe
Doubling is a factor of 2. Ingredients double cleanly, but the cooking rarely does.
A doubled quantity in the same pan sits deeper, so it takes longer to come up to temperature and longer to lose moisture. Either use a larger pan, cook in two batches, or keep the temperature the same and check for doneness rather than following the original timing.
Does cooking time change when you double a recipe?
Usually yes, but not by double. Cooking time follows the thickness of the food and the surface area it exposes, not the total weight.
A tray of roasted vegetables spread across two trays takes close to the original time. The same quantity piled onto one tray steams instead of roasting and takes considerably longer. A cake baked in a deeper tin needs a longer, often slightly cooler bake so the middle sets before the outside dries.
Keep the oven temperature from the original recipe and judge by the usual signals: colour, internal temperature, a skewer coming out clean.
Ingredients that need extra care
Most ingredients scale linearly. A few behave differently enough to be worth checking by hand.
Leavening is the clearest case. Baking powder, baking soda and yeast drive a reaction rather than contribute bulk, and a doubled batter does not always want double the lift. Scale them, then taste or watch the rise before committing to a large batch.
Salt and strong spices are a matter of perception rather than chemistry. Scale them, then taste at the end and adjust. Chilli, garlic and anything smoked tend to feel stronger in a larger batch than the multiplier suggests.
Recipe scaling questions
The questions cooks ask most often when resizing a recipe.