How many spaghetti per person?
Are you like me always wondering how much dough to bake per person? It doesn’t matter the type of pasta; macaroni, spaghetti, fusilli, rotini, I still end up emptying the entire box into boiling water.
10-Tricks presents some practical and easy tips for knowing the right amount of pasta to prepare according to the number of guests.
1. Look at the suggested quantity on the pasta box
If you look carefully on the boxes of pasta sold in grocery stores, it is indicated the exact amount of pasta to prepare according to the number of people.
For the vast majority of pasta brands sold in stores, we often talk about the famous 100 g of raw pasta per person.
2. How much pasta for a main dish?
Of course if you want to prepare a good pasta recipe as a main dish you will have to cook more. 100g of pasta may not be enough, especially if you have big kids at home or just have a good appetite.
For example for a family of 4 people (2 adults and 2 children or teenagers) a quantity of 450 or 500 g of spaghetti is quite sufficient to satisfy everyone’s appetite.
Of course depending on the appetite of your teenagers (in full growth) it may be necessary to consider a larger quantity of spaghetti.
I also recommend another article to find out how to make homemade pasta: How to make good pasta?
3. How much pasta as an accompaniment?
If, on the other hand, you are preparing pasta as an accompaniment to accompany your main course, then you must revise this quantity of spaghetti downwards of course.
Always for a family of 4, 200 or 250 g of raw pasta should be sufficient as a side dish of the main meal.
4. Use fingers to measure the right amount:
For spaghetti and linguine you can simply use your fingers to measure the right amount of pasta per person to cook.
Here is an image that clearly shows how to measure the amount of spaghetti with your thumb and index finger:
As you can see from these 2 photos, the amount of batter for a main dish versus a side dish is very different.
There is no need to cook too much pasta (for fear of running out) because anyway freshly cooked pasta is much better than pasta reheated in the microwave!
Now that you know how to properly calculate the amount of spaghetti how about cooking a good sauce: How to make the best spaghetti sauce?