Which two weights do I compare to get a yield?

Divide the usable weight by the starting weight and multiply by a hundred. Five kilograms of carrots giving four kilograms peeled is 80%. The important part is being clear about which two weights you are comparing, because there is more than one pair — the weight after trimming is not the weight after cooking, and treating them as the same figure is where most plans go wrong.

Why do trim and cooking yields multiply instead of adding?

Because each stage takes its share of whatever is left, not of what you started with. If trimming removes 30%, the cook is not working on the original weight any more — it is working on the 70% that survived. So the yields compound: 70% of 61% is 42.7%. The intuitive shortcut of adding the losses gives 31%, which is wrong in the other direction and badly so. A useful sanity check: losing thirty percent twice leaves forty-nine percent, not forty.

How much meat should I buy for a given number of portions?

Work backward through every stage. Multiply the portions by the portion size to get the plated weight, then divide by the overall yield. Forty portions of 180g is 7,200g plated, and at an overall yield of 42.7% that means buying 16.9kg. Dividing by just one of the stages is the common error and always leaves you short — the trim alone would have suggested 10.3kg here, which is barely more than half of what you need.

What is a typical cooking yield?

It depends heavily on the cut and the method, and the published figures disagree more than you might expect. Steak grilled keeps around 82 to 84%. Chicken breast roasted, 73 to 76%. Salmon around 79%. Brisket held long and low, 60 to 62%. Pork shoulder braised, anywhere from 55 to 65% depending on the source. Bacon keeps about 31%. The fattier the cut and the longer the cook, the more comes out — fat renders as well as water evaporating.

Why do published yields disagree so much?

Because the variation is real. The same cut differs with the animal, the grade, how much external fat the butcher left, the temperature you hold it at and how long. A ten-point spread on pork shoulder is not two sources being careless; it is two sets of measurements on genuinely different pieces of meat. That is an argument for measuring your own rather than for distrusting the tables — one weighing in your own kitchen with your own supplier beats any published average, including the presets here.

How do I run a yield test?

Weigh the item as it arrives, prepare it exactly as you normally would, and weigh what is usable. Divide the second by the first. Do it two or three times and average, because one brisket is not every brisket, and note the conditions — a yield measured at one temperature does not transfer to another. If you only ever test one thing, test whichever ingredient dominates your cost, because that is where an error does the most damage.

Should I buy extra as a buffer?

Usually, and the right size depends on how confident you are in the yield rather than on how hungry people are. On the worked example, buying the exact figure leaves you four portions short if the cook comes in six points below the estimate — well within the published spread. Fifteen percent extra covers that. The point is worth stating plainly: a buffer is insurance against your yield assumption, not against appetite, and the two call for different amounts.

Does yield affect what a recipe costs?

Trim yield does, and directly — you paid for the peel and the bone whether or not you ate them, so the true cost per usable kilogram is the price divided by the yield. Cooking yield does not affect the cost at all, because the water you drove off was bought and paid for either way. That is a genuinely useful distinction: use trim yield for costing, and both yields for portioning. The recipe cost calculator handles the money side of this.

Do vegetables lose weight when cooked too?

Yes, and the direction depends on the method. Roasting and sautéing drive off water, so spinach and mushrooms can lose well over half their weight. Boiling and steaming can go the other way — pasta, rice and pulses absorb water and finish heavier than they started, sometimes two or three times so. A yield above 100% is perfectly normal for anything that hydrates, and the arithmetic on this page handles it the same way; it is only the trimming stage that cannot exceed a hundred.

What is the difference between yield and shrinkage?

They are the same measurement stated from opposite ends. Yield is what you keep; shrinkage is what you lose, and they sum to a hundred percent. A 40% shrinkage is a 60% yield. Confusion between them is a common source of ordering errors, particularly when one supplier quotes shrinkage and another quotes yield — dividing by 40% instead of 60% would have you buy half again as much as you need. This page works in yields throughout for that reason.

Recipe Yield Percentage Calculator

Food loses weight more than once, and the losses multiply rather than add. That single fact is why so many kitchens run out. A brisket is about 70% of its purchased weight once trimmed, and about 61% of that again once it has been through a long cook. People apply one figure and stop. But 70% of 61...

This page is about weight and portion counts. If you want what the trim costs you in money, the recipe cost calculator handles that — it uses the trim yield but deliberately leaves cooking loss out, because you paid for the water either way.

THE STAGES

WEIGHT BOUGHT (KG)

PORTION SIZE (G)

TRIM YIELD (%)

COOK YIELD (%)

SERVICE (%)

PORTIONS YOU CAN SERVE

5.00 kg comes down to 2.14 kg on the plate — an overall yield of 42.7%, which is neither the trim figure nor the cooking one.

TRIM

70%

COOK

61%

OVERALL

42.7%

The raw weight promises 27 portions. You will serve 11. Even allowing for the trim and stopping there gives 19, which is still 8 more than you will actually plate. Both stages take their share of whatever is left, so they multiply — 70% of 61% is 42.7%, not either figure on its own.

Stage	Keeps	Weight	Lost here
As bought	—	5.00 kg	—
trimmed	70%	3.50 kg	−1.50 kg
cooked	61%	2.14 kg	−1.37 kg

These yields are starting points, and they disagree with each other. The published cooking figures for a brisket run from 60 to 62 percent, and for pork shoulder from 55 to 65 — a ten-point spread on the same cut. That spread is not sloppiness; it is real variation with the animal, the trim level, the temperature and how long you hold it. Weighing your own once is worth more than any of the tables, this one included.

THE CASCADE

Each stage takes its share of whatever is left, not of what you started with. That is why the losses multiply rather than add: 70% and 61% do not make 31%, they make 42.7%. Losing thirty percent twice leaves about half, not forty percent.

Live calculation · updates as you type

Created with❤️byeaglecalculator.com

HOW TO USE

1
Choose whether you are working forward from a piece you already have, or backward from the number of portions you need to serve. Most planning is the second, and most calculators only do the first.
2
Set the trim yield and the cooking yield separately. Applying one and leaving the other at 100% is the mistake this page exists to catch — a preset button fills both if you want a starting point.
3
Add a service yield if meat is lost to carving, sticking or the pass. It is usually small, but on a long service it is not nothing.
4
Weigh something before and after and put your own figure in. The published spread on a single cut can be ten points wide, which is far larger than any error in the arithmetic.

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Last updated: August 1, 2026 · Cooking yields informed by the USDA Table of Cooking Yields for Meat and Poultry · Presets are starting points — measure your own.