Food & cooking · Meal prep
Raw to cooked meat weight converter.
Pick the cut and how it is cooked, type a raw or cooked weight and get the other one with the USDA range. 26 cuts and methods.
Inputs
Raw and cooked weight
Enter your numbers.
How much does meat weigh after cooking?
Cooking yield is the cooked weight as a percent of the raw weight: yield equals 100 times hot cooked weight divided by raw weight. The USDA Agricultural Research Service publishes yields from its own cooking studies, with the cooking method, the mean and the lowest and highest sample. This tool applies those percentages. Cooked weight is raw weight times the yield, and raw weight to buy is cooked weight divided by the yield.
Worked example. 1,000 g of raw chicken breast, meat and skin, roasted has a USDA mean yield of 72%, so it weighs about 720 g cooked (610 to 820 g across the USDA samples). To end up with 720 g of cooked chicken breast you start with about 1,000 g raw, and between 878 g and 1,180 g to be sure of covering the spread. Bacon baked or roasted keeps only about 32%, so 500 g raw gives about 160 g cooked.
Your result will differ with the pan, the heat, how long you cook and how lean the cut is. The chicken and lamb rows come from the older USDA Handbook 102 and describe meat and skin without bone, so do not apply them to a bone-in pack weight. For a smoked or unusual cut, weigh your own before and after and use that percent.
Frequently asked questions
How much does 1 lb of raw chicken breast weigh after cooking?
About 0.72 lb (326.6 g), using the USDA mean roasting yield of 72% for chicken breast, meat and skin. The USDA samples ranged from 61% to 82%.
How much does ground beef weigh after cooking?
Medium-fat ground beef (12 to 22% fat) browned as crumbles keeps about 67% of its raw weight and lean ground beef about 69%, per USDA. High-fat ground beef keeps about 62%.
How much raw meat do I need for 500 g of cooked?
Divide the cooked weight by the yield. For roasted chicken breast at 72% that is 500 divided by 0.72, or about 694 g raw.
Is raw to cooked weight loss the same for every cut?
No. Bacon keeps about 32%, braised chuck pot roast about 64%, grilled rib eye steak about 84% and flank steak about 81%.
Does the USDA yield include bone?
The chicken and lamb rows are meat and skin without bone, so a bone-in pack will lose more. Boneless cut rows are for the boneless cut as bought.
Where do these numbers come from?
The USDA Agricultural Research Service Table of Cooking Yields for Meat and Poultry, Release 2. Each row is shown with its NDB number in the page script.
Sources
Retrieved
- USDA Agricultural Research Service: Table of Cooking Yields for Meat and Poultry, Release 2 (2014)
- Health Canada: Safe internal cooking temperatures
Method: yield percentages are the mean cooking yields in the USDA table (spreadsheet USDA_CookingYields_MeatPoultry02.xlsx). Cooked = raw x yield. Rows with a 1975 release year come from USDA Agriculture Handbook 102 and have no sample count. Runs entirely in your browser. Nothing you type is sent or stored.
Scope
USDA yields are averages from laboratory cooking protocols and your kitchen will vary. Always cook meat and poultry to the safe internal temperature on a food thermometer, whatever the weight says. General cooking information, not medical or dietetic advice.