TempoLife › Features › Recipe nutrition analyzer › spaghetti-bolognese
Spaghetti bolognese
Minced beef, tomato, onion, garlic and dried pasta for four. Spaghetti bolognese worked out ingredient by ingredient: 519 kcal, 38.5 g protein, 38.3 g carbohydrate and 22.8 g fat per serving across 4 servings.
The ingredient lines
These are the exact lines fed to the analyzer. Copy them into the paste box on the analyzer and change any quantity to see the totals move.
500 g ground beef
400 g pasta
400 g tomato
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp olive oil
The analysis
| Nutrient | Per serving | Whole recipe |
|---|---|---|
| Energy (kcal) | 519 | 2 077 |
| Protein (g) | 38.5 | 153.9 |
| Carbohydrate (g) | 38.3 | 153.2 |
| Fat (g) | 22.8 | 91.0 |
| Fibre (g) | 3.5 | 14.0 |
| Sugars (g) | 4.4 | 17.5 |
| Salt (g) | 0.61 | 2.44 |
By energy this comes out at 30% protein, 30% carbohydrate and 40% fat, using the Atwater factors of 4, 4 and 9 kcal per gram. A serving weighs about 358 g, which works out at 145 kcal per 100 g of finished dish before any cooking loss.
What each line contributed
| Your line | Matched food | Grams | kcal | Protein | Fat | Share of kcal | How the grams were found |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 500 g ground beef | Ground beef | 500 | 1 200 | 125.5 | 72.5 | 58% | weighed |
| 400 g pasta | Pasta | 400 | 628 | 23.2 | 3.6 | 30% | weighed |
| 400 g tomato | Tomato | 400 | 72 | 3.6 | 0.8 | 3% | weighed |
| 1 onion | Onion | 110 | 44 | 1.2 | 0.1 | 2% | typical serving: 1 medium onion = 110 g |
| 2 cloves garlic | Garlic | 6 | 9 | 0.4 | 0.0 | 0% | typical serving: 1 clove = 3 g |
| 1 tbsp olive oil | Olive oil | 14 | 124 | 0.0 | 14.0 | 6% | typical serving: 1 tablespoon = 14 g |
Every line was recognised and every line carried a measurable quantity, so nothing was left out of the totals.
Reading this recipe
Ground beef dominates the fat column; a leaner mince changes the whole plate.
Pasta is weighed dry, as sold.
The single biggest energy contributor is Ground beef at 58% of the total calories. If you want the dish to be lighter, that is the line to change first — halving it moves the serving by about 150 kcal, which is more than trimming everything else at once.
A serving carries about 3.5 g of fibre and 0.61 g of salt from the ingredients themselves. Salt you add at the table is not in that figure, and it is usually the larger half of what ends up on the plate.
How a pasted line becomes a number
Each line is read in four steps. First the quantity: a plain number, a decimal, a fraction such as 1/2, or a mixed number such as 1 1/2. Then the unit: grams, kilograms, milligrams, ounces and pounds are weights and convert exactly; millilitres, litres, decilitres, tablespoons, teaspoons and cups are volumes; slice, clove, medium and a bare count are whole items. Then the food name, with preparation words such as chopped, fresh or skinless removed and anything after the first comma dropped. Finally the name is matched against the food database.
Volumes and whole items are the part most calculators fudge. A tablespoon of oil and a tablespoon of honey do not weigh the same, so this page does not use one number for both: it looks the food up in the baked USDA food_portion table and uses that food’s own recorded weight for one tablespoon, one cup, one slice or one medium item. Only when the table has no row for that food and unit does it fall back to millilitres at 1 g/ml, and every row that used a fallback says so in its basis column.
Anything that cannot be measured is not guessed. A pinch, a dash, a handful, a knob, “to taste” and a line with no quantity at all are listed separately as excluded, along with any food name the database does not contain. The totals underneath are therefore the total of what is shown as matched, never a padded estimate.
These are database averages for raw or standard-prepared foods. Cooking losses, draining, fat left in the pan, brand differences and how heaped your spoon actually is all move the result. Treat a recipe analysis as a planning estimate, not a measurement, and never as dietary or medical advice — a clinician or registered dietitian is the right place for anything diagnostic.
Source: USDA FoodData Central SR Legacy family — per-100 g values and food_portion serving weights; the ingredient lines above are the only stored input · checked 2026-09-02
Other worked examples
Scrambled eggs on toast
Three eggs, a knob of butter, a splash of milk and two slices of bread — the standard weekday breakfast.
Oat porridge with banana
Rolled oats cooked in milk, topped with a banana and a spoon of honey.
Chicken and rice bowl
A batch-cook staple: chicken breast, white rice, broccoli and a little olive oil.
Lentil soup
Red lentils, carrot, onion, celery and a spoon of oil — cheap, high fibre, meat free.
Greek salad
Tomato, cucumber, red onion, feta and olive oil, with no dressing beyond the oil.
Banana oat pancakes
Two bananas, oats and eggs blended into a batter — no flour, no added sugar.
Frequently asked questions
How many calories are in spaghetti bolognese?
About 519 kcal per serving and 2 077 kcal for the whole recipe as written, from 6 ingredient lines. Change any quantity in the paste box and the figure changes with it.
What is the protein per serving?
38.5 g, which is 30% of the calories in the serving. The rest is 30% carbohydrate and 40% fat.
Is this the cooked weight?
No. It is the sum of the ingredients as listed, 1 430 g in total, or about 358 g per serving before cooking. Roasting or reducing the dish removes water, so the finished plate is denser per 100 g than this.
Log this in one tap instead
TempoLife keeps your own recipes with their per-serving numbers, so a repeat meal is a single tap rather than a retyped list.