How to cost a recipe

Why cost a recipe at all?

Whether you run a diner or feed a family of four, a recipe's cost tells you two things a gut feeling can't: what each plate or bowl really costs you, and which dishes quietly eat your margin or your grocery budget. A restaurant uses the number to set menu prices. A home cook uses it to plan cheaper weeks without eating worse. Either way, the math is the same, and it only needs the receipt you already have.

The four steps

1. List every ingredient and the amount used. Write amounts in the units the recipe uses: cups, tablespoons, ounces, grams, or each.
2. Find the price per unit. Take what you paid for the package and divide by how much was in it. A 30 fl oz jar of mayonnaise at $6.00 is $0.20 per fl oz.
3. Multiply by the amount used. If the recipe uses 16 fl oz of that mayonnaise, that line costs 16 × $0.20 = $3.20.
4. Add the lines, then divide by servings. The total is your batch cost. Divide by how many servings the recipe makes to get the cost per serving.

The one step that trips people up is units. If you bought by weight and the recipe measures by volume, convert first (a cup of flour weighs about 4.25 oz; a cup of water about 8.3 oz). Mixing units is the most common reason a cost looks wildly off.

Worked example: Ana's house burger sauce

Ana runs the kitchen at Saucy's Bistro, the sample restaurant we use for examples. Her house sauce goes on every burger, so even a few cents per serving adds up over a busy week. The recipe makes about 3 cups, and each burger gets 2 tablespoons, so one batch covers 24 burgers.

The batch costs $4.73, so the sauce adds about $0.20 to each burger. Notice where the money goes: mayonnaise is more than half of the cost, and the two spices together cost about 30 cents. If Ana wanted to trim the cost, switching mayonnaise brands would matter far more than skipping the paprika.

These are example prices, not real supplier quotes. Yours will be different, which is exactly why it's worth doing the math with your own receipts.

Mistakes that make a recipe look cheaper than it is

• Ignoring yield. Peeled onions, trimmed brisket and cored peppers all lose weight. Divide the price by the usable share (for example, 0.9 for onions) before multiplying.
• Forgetting the small stuff. Oil for the pan, butter for the toast, the garnish. Each line is small, and together they can be 10% of a plate.
• Using last year's prices. Proteins and dairy move quickly. Re-cost whenever a main ingredient changes.
• Counting servings generously. If the recipe says 8 but you portion for 6, divide by 6.

From cost to menu price

Once you know a plate's cost, you can price it. The quick version is to divide the plate cost by your target food cost percentage. A $3.10 plate at a 30% target is about $10.33 on the menu. The full method, with a second worked example, is in our guide to food cost percentage.

Skip the long division with an ingredient cost calculator

The free recipe cost calculator does all four steps for you. Paste a recipe from a blog, a cookbook or your notes, type what you paid (or tap Use average prices), and it shows the batch cost, the cost per serving and suggested menu prices. It runs on your phone, needs no signup, and your recipe never leaves your device. Want to see the method on familiar dishes first? Browse example breakdowns for tacos, lasagna or chili.