Recipe Scaler
Scale any recipe up or down for the number of servings you need.
Type your original and desired servings, paste the ingredient list, and get the scaled amounts. Fractions are kept readable.
Ingredients (one per line, with amount)
Format: "amount unit ingredient" (e.g., "2 cups flour"). Fractions and mixed numbers are supported.
How recipe scaling works
The scale factor is (desired servings) divided by (original servings). Each ingredient amount is multiplied by that factor. Doubling a recipe (4 to 8 servings) means scale factor 2; halving (4 to 2) means scale factor 0.5; scaling 4 to 6 means scale factor 1.5.
When linear scaling does NOT work
For most ingredients, doubling the recipe doubles the ingredient. But a few things do not scale linearly:
- Spices and aromatics: often scale down (a doubled recipe might only need 1.5x the cayenne, not 2x). Taste and adjust.
- Salt: always taste before adding the full scaled amount. Salt perception is non-linear.
- Leavening (baking soda, baking powder): scale carefully; too much can ruin texture. For baked goods, consider scaling by weight if you have the original gram measurements.
- Cooking time: does NOT scale linearly. A doubled cake batter takes longer to bake but not twice as long. Check for doneness rather than time.
- Pan size: doubling a recipe usually means changing pan size, not pan count. See our upcoming pan-size converter.
Reading the output
The calculator tries to express scaled amounts as nice fractions (1/4, 1/3, 1/2, etc.) when they are close to common values, and falls back to decimals when not. For precision baking, convert your original recipe to grams first (via the Cooking Measurement Converter) and scale by weight.