Calories in (cooked) pasta

Question

I bought a 500g pack of Tesco penne pasta recently – https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/254878482

As you can see on the website, it states that 100g of the pasta contains around 176 calories.

But after cooking the pasta, I noticed it weighed a lot more. I found that around 1/6 of the pack weighed around 225g instead of the 80 or so grams that I was expecting.

So when the packet states the nutritional information for 100g of the pasta, is it referring to cooked or uncooked pasta?

I imagine it is referring to 100g of cooked pasta... I'm hoping that's the case anyway, I want as many calories as possible.

Answer 1

The best way to be confident is to check some clear nutrition facts directly.

The USDA reports that "Pasta, dry, unenriched" has 371 calories per 100g, and "Pasta, cooked, unenriched, without added salt" has 158 calories per 100g.

So your 176 calories per 100g seems to be for cooked pasta; it's way too few calories for 100g dry, even if your pasta is slightly different from the USDA's default.

Calories per gram when cooked is going to vary a bit, because if you cook it a bit more or less, it'll take on a bit more or less water. So the same amount of dry pasta, with the same amount of calories, may weigh slightly different amounts.

Also, I looked at the page you linked. Down at the bottom it says:

When cooked according to instructions. 75g of uncooked pasta weighs approximately 170g when cooked.

And indeed, along with per 100g nutrition facts, it has a per 170g column. So yes, it appears that those nutrition facts are for cooked pasta.