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The simple rules for pasta and grain portions
Dry pasta roughly doubles when cooked
Two ounces of dry pasta — about the diameter of a quarter when you bunch spaghetti together — yields roughly one cup cooked. That's a standard main-dish serving. For a side dish, cut it to about 1.5 ounces dry. Short pastas like penne and rigatoni are easier to measure: half a cup dry is about one cup cooked.
Rice absorbs its weight in water
White rice uses a 1:2 ratio (one cup rice to two cups water) and roughly triples in volume. Brown rice needs a bit more water and time. The biggest mistake people make is measuring cooked rice portions — a third of a cup dry per person doesn't look like much, but it expands to a full cup on the plate.
Side dish versus main dish matters a lot
A bowl of pasta as your entire dinner needs about 2 ounces dry per person. That same pasta as a side next to chicken needs only 1 to 1.5 ounces. This is the most common source of over-cooking — people use the main-dish amount when the pasta is really just a side, and end up with a mountain of leftovers.
Salt the water, don't oil it
Use about a tablespoon of salt per pound of pasta in a large pot of water. The water should taste noticeably salty — this is your only chance to season the pasta itself. Skip the oil; it coats the pasta and prevents sauce from sticking. Stir during the first minute to prevent clumping, then occasionally after that.