Food & Cooking⏱ 4 min read
How to Calculate Recipe Yield Percentage
Yield percentage tells you how much usable food you get from raw ingredients after trimming, peeling, or cooking. It is essential for accurate costing and scaling in professional and home kitchens.
Yield percentage bridges the gap between what you buy and what you actually cook with. Without it, recipe costing is always inaccurate and scaling recipes for different numbers leads to either waste or shortage.
The Yield Percentage Formula
Yield % = (Usable weight / Original weight) x 100
Example: Broccoli
Purchased weight: 800g
After trimming stalks and leaves: 560g usable
Yield % = (560 / 800) x 100 = 70%
30% waste is typical for broccoli —
meaning you need to buy 30% more than the recipe calls for.
Common Ingredient Yield Percentages
IngredientYield %What's Removed
Broccoli70%Stalks, outer leaves
Onion89%Outer skin, root
Carrots83%Tops, peel, tip
Chicken breast (boneless)100%Minimal waste
Whole chicken67%Bones, skin (if removed)
Fresh spinach (cooking)70%Wilting reduces volume
Beef sirloin82%Fat trim, silver skin
Potato (peeled)80%Peel, eyes, imperfections
Calculating How Much to Buy
Amount to purchase = Recipe requirement / Yield fraction
Recipe needs 500g usable broccoli, yield = 70% = 0.70
Amount to buy = 500 / 0.70 = 714g → buy 750g
Recipe needs 300g usable onion, yield = 89% = 0.89
Amount to buy = 300 / 0.89 = 337g → buy 350g
Catering example for 50 portions:
Each portion needs 150g cleaned carrot
Total usable needed: 150 x 50 = 7,500g
Yield: 83%
Purchase: 7,500 / 0.83 = 9,036g = 9.1kg → order 10kg
Cooking Loss vs Trim Loss
Some recipes have two yield stages: prep loss + cooking loss.
Chicken breast:
Raw weight: 200g (yield 100% after prep)
After cooking (grilling): 148g (cooking loss = 26%)
Total yield: 148/200 = 74%
To serve 200g cooked chicken per portion for 20 people:
Total cooked needed: 200 x 20 = 4,000g
Raw weight required: 4,000 / 0.74 = 5,405g = 5.4kg raw chicken