Ingredient Cost per Recipe Calculator
Calculate the total cost of a recipe by entering each ingredient with its store price and amount used.
See cost per serving.
Recipe costing is the process of calculating the true cost of each ingredient in a dish by converting store purchase prices into per-unit costs and multiplying by the quantity actually used in your recipe.
Core formulas:
Unit Cost = Store Price / Store Package Size
Ingredient Cost = Unit Cost × Recipe Quantity Used
Total Recipe Cost = Sum of all ingredient costs
Cost per Serving = Total Recipe Cost / Number of Servings
Yield adjustment (for peeled/trimmed ingredients):
Edible Yield % = Usable Weight / Total Weight × 100
Adjusted Cost = Purchase Cost ÷ Yield (as a decimal, so 65% becomes 0.65)
For example, a whole chicken at $1.99/lb has roughly 65% edible yield, so $1.99 ÷ 0.65 makes the true cost about $3.06/lb of usable meat. Divide by 65 rather than 0.65 and you get three cents a pound, which is the giveaway that you used the wrong form of the number.
Worked example: Homemade tomato pasta sauce (6 servings):
| Ingredient | Store Price | Package | Used | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Canned tomatoes | $2.49 | 28 oz | 28 oz | $2.49 |
| Onion | $0.89 | 1 lb | 6 oz | $0.33 |
| Garlic | $1.50 | 3 oz | 0.5 oz | $0.25 |
| Olive oil | $9.99 | 33 oz | 1.5 oz | $0.45 |
| Fresh basil | $2.99 | 0.75 oz | 0.25 oz | $1.00 |
| Salt, pepper, sugar | trace | trace | trace | ~$0.10 |
| Total | $4.62 |
Cost per serving = $4.62 / 6 = $0.77 per serving
The basil line is the one worth staring at. A quarter ounce of leaves costs more than the entire onion and nearly as much as the olive oil, because fresh herbs are sold in packets priced for a garnish rather than an ingredient. Costing a recipe out this way tends to reveal one ingredient doing damage out of all proportion to its role, and it is rarely the one you expect.
Cost-saving strategies:
Buying staples in larger sizes usually drops the per-ounce price meaningfully, and so does buying produce in season, choosing store brands, and doing your own cutting: block cheese undercuts shredded, whole chickens undercut parts. Exactly how much depends on where and when you shop, so treat any percentage you read, here or anywhere, as a reason to check your own shelf rather than a number to plan with. Every dollar figure on this page is a rough US grocery price and dates quickly.
Professional use: Restaurants target a food cost percentage of 28–35% of menu price. A dish that costs $4.50 to make should sell for $13–16 at a restaurant.
How we build and check this calculator
This calculator runs entirely in your browser, so the numbers you enter stay on your device. The math behind it is written by hand and tested against worked examples and standard references before the page goes live.
SuperGlobalCalculator is independently built and maintained. See how we build and verify our calculators.