Yields

Appears in

Professional Cooking

By Wayne Gisslen

Published 2025

About

Recipe yields are expressed in several ways. For example:

As a total quantity. (A soup recipe that makes 3 qt; a pot roast recipe that makes 5 lb meat.)
As a total number of portions. (A recipe for Eggs Benedict that makes 12 portions; a recipe for grilled breast of duck that makes 4 portions.)
As a total number of portions of a specified size. (A recipe for beef stew that makes 8 portions of 6 oz each; a recipe for individual chocolate soufflés that makes 6 soufflés, 4 oz each.)

Changing to Common Units

Before we start converting recipe yields, we must deal with one more problem with our measuring system. As explained earlier, the U.S. system of measurement has many units that simply must be memorized: 16 ounces in a pound, 2 cups in a pint, 4 quarts in a gallon, and so on. When you are converting recipes, you often have to change back and forth between large and small units to get measurements you can work with. In most cases, the easiest way to make the calculations is to change larger units to smaller units.

To change pounds to ounces, multiply by 16.
To change cups to fluid ounces, multiply by 8.
To change pints to fluid ounces, multiply by 16.
To change quarts to fluid ounces, multiply by 32.

Note that these are the same numbers as found in Table 4.3.

After you have finished converting the recipe, you usually must convert the ounces and fluid ounces back to larger units in order to get units that are easy to work with. To do this, divide by the same numbers you used to multiply in the previous calculations. For example, to change ounces back to pounds, divide by 16.

If you divide by hand, you often get a remainder. Leave this remainder in the smaller unit. For example:

Change 60 ounces to pounds.

60 ÷ 16 = 3, with a remainder of 12

60 oz = 3 lb 12 oz

If you are using a calculator, you often get a decimal. To change the numbers to the right of the decimal point to ounces, you have to again multiply this decimal portion by 16. Either way, you end up with the same answer.

60 ÷ 16 = 3.75

0.75 x 16 = 12

60 oz = 3 lb 12 oz