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Photo: Sumit Surai / CC BY-SA 4.0
How Much Rice and Curry to Cook for a Family of Five
Why four-serving recipes break at your table
Almost every recipe in our library says "serves 4". You have five people at the table, so you either cook as written and someone gets a thin plate, or you double it and eat the same curry for three days. Neither is great.
The fix is not a rule like "a cup of rice per person". It is a small table of amounts you scale once and then remember. Everything below comes from the recipes on this site, multiplied by 1.25 to go from four servings to five. Round to what your pot and your shopping bag can actually handle.
Rice: the amount that fits a normal pot
Chicken pulao uses 400 g (2 US cups) of basmati for 4 servings, which is 100 g dry rice per person. For five people that is 500 g, or 2.5 cups. Chicken biryani is written for 5 and uses 450 g (2.25 cups), so 90 g per person, because biryani has more meat and sauce to fill the plate.
Plain rice served beside a curry can sit at the lower end. If the main dish is light, such as a daal, stay near 100 g per person. If there is a heavy curry and a salad, 80 g is usually enough.
One practical limit: basmati roughly triples in volume. 500 g dry needs a pot of at least 4 litres (4 quarts) so the grains are not packed. If your pot is smaller, cook in two rounds or choose a wider pan.
Daal: the one dish you can safely overcook
Lentils are cheap, and leftover daal is the easiest leftover in the house. Masoor daal uses 200 g (1 cup) of dry red lentils for 4 people. For five, use 250 g, about 1.25 cups.
Red lentils soak up water as they stand, which the recipe tips mention: add hot water if it thickens. So when in doubt, cook a bit more and loosen it later. The same does not apply to the next two sections.
Chicken and mince: where waste costs money
Chicken karahi uses 800 g (1.75 lb) of bone-in chicken for 4. For five, that is 1 kg, or 2.2 lb. Chicken pulao uses 700 g (1.5 lb) for 4, so about 875 g for five when the rice is doing most of the work.
Keema matar takes 500 g (1.1 lb) of mince for 4, which scales to 625 g (1.4 lb). Mince packs often come as 500 g, so you will probably buy 750 g and keep the rest for aloo keema later in the week. Whatever you cook, chicken needs to reach 74 C / 165 F and mince 71 C / 160 F.
Vegetables and roti
Aloo gobi uses 400 g potato and 400 g cauliflower for 4. For five, make it 500 g of each. It is a dry dish, so it does not stretch the way a gravy curry does; if you only have one vegetable dish on the table, go up rather than down.
For flatbread, chapati/phulka uses 300 g (2.25 cups) of atta for 4 servings. Five people means 375 g, about 2.75 cups. Roti is the item most likely to run out first, because people go back for another. Make the dough for six and freeze the extra rolled-out rounds.
A quick reference for five
| Dish | Amount for 5 | Based on |
|---|---|---|
| Basmati for pulao | 500 g / 2.5 cups | pulao, 400 g for 4 |
| Basmati for biryani | 450 g / 2.25 cups | biryani, written for 5 |
| Red lentils | 250 g / 1.25 cups | masoor daal, 200 g for 4 |
| Bone-in chicken (karahi) | 1 kg / 2.2 lb | karahi, 800 g for 4 |
| Mince | 625 g / 1.4 lb | keema matar, 500 g for 4 |
| Potato + cauliflower | 500 g + 500 g | aloo gobi |
| Atta for roti | 375 g / 2.75 cups | chapati, 300 g for 4 |
These are starting points. The real number is what your own family eats, which brings us to the next part.
Calibrate once, then stop measuring
Cook the scaled amount this week and, at the end of the meal, look at the pot. One of three things happened.
- Nothing left. Add 10 percent next time, or add a side that fills plates cheaply, like plain yogurt or a raita.
- A tablespoon or two left. Perfect. This is your amount.
- A full serving left. You have a lunch. Decide which one: if it is rice, cool it fast and chill it, and eat it within a day; if it is curry, reheat until steaming hot.
Teenagers and guests break the numbers. If a teenager eats like an adult and a toddler eats like a quarter of one, the five people at your table may be 5.5 or 4.2 portions. Count them honestly and adjust, rather than defaulting to the whole number.
Cooked rice rules, because you will have leftovers
Rice is the leftover people get wrong. Cool it within about an hour of cooking, spread flat in a shallow container rather than left in the deep pot. Keep it in the fridge for no more than a day, and heat it until it is steaming hot all the way through. Do not reheat it more than once.
If your calibration shows you always have rice left, that is the signal to cut the amount, not to plan on fried rice. Planned leftovers, like the lunchbox idea of packing from last night's dinner, are fine. Accidental ones tend to sit.
What to write on the fridge door
Cut this into a note for the fridge. The exact amount depends on the dish, but the habit is the same.
- Rice: 100 g dry per person, 80 g if the curry is heavy.
- Daal: 50 g dry per person.
- Chicken: about 200 g bone-in per person for karahi.
- Mince: about 125 g per person.
- Atta: about 75 g per person for roti.
- Add one extra roti portion on busy, hungry days.
If you want the scaling done for you, Degchi has a servings scaler on every recipe page, and the try-it pantry on the home page shows what you can cook from what you already have. That way the amounts follow the number at your table instead of the number in the recipe title.
