Cooking Time Calculator

The Cooking Time Calculator can be used as a simple cooking duration tool or to produced a detailed cooking timelinee to plan the complete cooking process from food preparation to serving you favourite meal to dinner guests. The cooking time calculator helps you work out what time to start cooking in order to have the food ready for a certain time. On this page you will find the cooking time calculator, information on how to use the tool to plan and prepare your meal and links to supporting cookery calculators for cooking and roasting chicken, beef, ribs, port, lamb and a great calculator for working out the portion size and calories in home made a, shop bought and takeaway pizza.

On this page:

Cooking Time Calculator Instructions
Cooking Time Examples
Cooking Time Calculator
More Cooking Calculators

Cooking Preperation Examples

The cooking time calculator has a lot of features; you may not need to use them all every time you cook or plan a meal. If you are reading this for the first time and you are not sure on where to start, click on one of our cooking time examples. This will help you understand how the calculator helps with preparation time, temperature conversions and weight conversions so that you can relax and enjoying cooking the meal.

Examples
	Weight = 2.5 kilos, instructions = 20 minutes per kilo at Gas Mark 5
	Weight= 1.75 kilos, instructions = 15 minutes per kilo at Gas Mark 4, plus 20 minutes at Gas Mark 4
	Weight=5 kilos, preparation time 15 minutes, then 20 minutes at Gas Mark 3, then 20 minutes at Gas Mark 3, then stand for 15 minutes. Scheduled to end at 15:00

Food Weight (i.e Beef, Chicken, Vegetables etc.)
Food Weight			Enter total weight of item(s) to be cooked

Cooking Instructions
Detail	Minutes	Per	@	Equivalent	Converts to:
Preparation time
Timings
Plus
Standing time

Cooking Duration
Total Time

Cooking Scheduling - Planning a Start Time
Start Time		Enter start time in hh:mm format (24 hour clock)
Preparation		Preparation start time
Cooking Start		Cooking start time
Change Time		Change time (specified in "Plus" above)
Standing time		Standing time start (end of cooking time)
End Time		End of cooking process

Cooking Scheduling - Planning an End Time
End Time		Enter end time in hh:mm format (24 hour clock)
Preparation		Preparation start time
Cooking Start		Cooking start time
Change Time		Change time (specified in "Plus" above)
Standing time		Standing time start (end of cooking time)
End Time		End of cooking process

Options

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Cooking Time Calculator Instructions

The following information is provided to allow you to plan, prepare and cook a meal using the cooking time calculator. Once complete, you can print or email the cooking instructions to yourself for later use.

Enter the weight of the item you wish to cook. This could be a joint of port, a good, ham or turkey for example.
Enter your planned preparation time
Enter the cooking time in minutes per kilo for the item you entered at step 1. Select the appropriate cooking time weight (kilo, gram, pound, ounce or select total if you already know the total cooking duration).
Optional : If the label shows the cooking weight based on gas or electric and you want to convert to an alternate method, select the "equivalent option", the cooking time calculator will then convert gas oven to electric oven, electric fan oven or vice versa as required.
Optional: Enter a "plus amount", for example the label may instruct 20 minutes per kilogram plus 20 minutes. In this instance, you would enter 20
Optional: Enter the standing time required to rest the food. This is useful for a joint of beef, lamb etc. when resting improves flavour and makes carving easier.
The cooking time calculator will then provide the "Total Cooking time". You can then use the Scheduling tool to schedule the meal based on a desired end time or desired start time.

Cooking Time Calculator Instructions: Scheduling cooking times to be ready for a certain time

Preparing a cooked meal, particularly large meals like thanksgiving, Christmas dinner and celebration meals can be tricky. Having followed the basic steps above to calculate the total cooking time, you can use the Cooking Schedule - Planned Start Time section of the Cooking Time calculator to plan your start time using the following steps:

Complete the basic information as outlined in the Cooking Time Calculator Instructions.
Enter the start time using the 24 hr clock, for example 14:00 for 2pm.
That's it, a full schedule for preparation start time, cooking start time, standing time and the end time will be automatically calculated by the cooking time calculator

Cooking Time Calculator Instructions: Scheduling cooking times to start at a certain time

Preparing a cooked meal, particularly large meals like thanksgiving, Christmas dinner and celebration meals can be tricky. Having followed the basic steps above to calculate the total cooking time, you can use the Cooking Schedule - Planned End Time section of the Cooking Time calculator to plan a meal to be ready for a certain time by following the steps below:

Complete the basic information as outlined in the Cooking Time Calculator Instructions.
Enter the desired end time using the 24 hr clock, for example 19:00 for 7pm.
That's it, a full schedule for preparation start time, cooking start time, standing time and the end time will be automatically calculated by the cooking time calculator. This is great for planning a meal to be ready for when your guests are ready to sit and eat.

Using the Cooking Time Calculator to Plan and Prepare meals

Many recipes specify a time per weight at a certain temperature for cooking certain ingredients, the Cooking Time Calculator allows you to enter instructions in this manner, and also any additional instructions provided in the recipe so that you can plan big family meals (For Christmas, New Year, Thanksgiving and other big family get togethers).

You can also select the temperature specified in your recipe and convert it to the type of cooker you are going to use, for example, a recipe may specify a gas mark, and you have an electric cooker. In this case you would select the gas mark number in the "Temperature" column and select "electric" from the "Equivalent" dropdown list. The electric equivalent will then be displayed.

Schedule timings are shown in hh:mm (hours:minutes) 24 hour format, rounded to the nearest minute.

We think the Cooking Time Calculator is the perfect tool to help you plan your meal and convert Gas Mark to Electric temperatures (whether using a fan oven or not) to allow for those trickier recipes in older cook books than don't provide both cooking temperatures.

More Good Cookery Calculators

We really hope you enjoyed using the cooking time calculator and found it a useful tool. The following food calculators also support optimal cooking time for specific meats, cuts and have supporting information and guides on food preparation where relevent.

Health Calculators

You may also find the following Health Calculators useful.

Use of the Health and Medical Calculators

Please note that the Cooking Time Calculator is provided for your personal use and designed to provide information and information relating to the calculations only. The Cooking Time Calculator should not be used for you to self-diagnose conditions, self-medicate or alter any existing medication that you are currently prescribed by your Doctor. If the Cooking Time Calculator produces a calculation which causes you concern, please consult your Doctor for support, advice and further information.

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