Read the side of the box!
All pasta is not created equally Spaghetti is packed pretty much with no empty spaces that's why a pound of spaghetti box is smaller than some of the other shapes. Cooked pasta weighs more and expands. 16oz spaghetti is less than 2 cups since it is more dense than water when dry (doesn't float)
10
What that means is 3 cups of pasta measured after you have boiled it. It does NOT mean to measure it out THEN cook it.
Dry pasta
One pound of dry pasta equals 2.5 pounds of cooked pasta.
To get 2C of cooked pasta, the rule of thumb is to use half of what you need in dry pasta. Therefore, you would need about 1C dry pasta to get 2C of cooked pasta.Another measure would be weight, where the rule of thumb is that 2oz dry pasta makes about 1C of cooked pasta. Therefore, you would need 4oz dry to get 2C cooked pasta.
One pound of dry pasta yields 8 cups of cooked pasta.
It really depends on the pasta shape. If it's a hollow or tubular pasta then the volume of one cup won't weight as much as a solid or long pasta. If I measure out a bag of ziti for instance, I can get 2.5 cups out of one pound of pasta. However, if I measure out one cup of pastina or soup pasta, such as alphabet or stars, I would probably only get one cup out of a pound.
Almost all dry pastas have different weight/volume ratios. You must specify a pasta.
Keep it dry
Two ounces is equivalent to 56 grams in dry weight. However, the amount two ounces of dry pasta is equivalent to when cooked is dependent on the type of pasta. For example, if it is linguine pasta, then two ounces would be about one cup cooked.