Ingredient weight chart

How to read the chart

The chart above gives one amount of every ingredient we have a sourced weight for, in the unit you pick. It opens on 1 US cup in grams; change the amount to ½ cup, 1 tablespoon or 100 grams and every row recalculates. Type in the filter to find one ingredient.

The Basis column names where each number comes from and, when the source says, how the cup was filled. Each row is one product variety, not every product that shares its name:

• Milk is whole milk; heavy cream is liquid, before whipping (whipped cream has its own row).
• Rice is raw long-grain white rice; oats are dry rolled oats. Cooked grains weigh differently.
• Greek yogurt is a USDA reference value for plain Greek yogurt, not exact for any brand.
• Vegetable oil is soybean or canola (USDA lists the same weight for each); cocoa is unsweetened; King Arthur Baking does not say smooth or chunky for peanut butter, and USDA lists the same weight for both.
• Water is at 20 °C (NIST Chemistry WebBook): 236.2 grams per US cup.

Fill methods: why some ingredients have more than one weight

For powders, the weight of a cup depends on how you fill it. Where a source weighed more than one way, the chart's converter lets you pick:

• All-purpose flour: spooned and leveled 120 grams, scooped 142 grams, sifted 115 grams.
• Bread flour: 120 grams (King Arthur Baking, method not stated), or 137 grams unsifted and dipped (USDA).
• Brown sugar: packed 213 grams, loose 145 grams.
• Powdered sugar: unsifted 113 grams, sifted 100 grams.

Baking soda, baking powder and instant yeast come from King Arthur Baking's spoon weights, so set the chart to 1 teaspoon for them: 6 grams of baking soda, 4 grams of baking powder, 3 grams of instant yeast.

Liquids fill to the line and need no method. Butter is measured by the stick. For most other dry ingredients the source gives one weight and doesn't say how the cup was filled; the Basis column then names the source alone instead of guessing a method.

Measuring without a scale

To measure grams without a scale, convert them to cups and spoons for that ingredient and fill them the way the chart's weight assumes. The converter does the split into measures you own: ¾ cup + 1 tbsp + 1 tsp for 100 grams of all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled. Expect it to be close rather than exact.

No measuring cup? A US cup is 16 tbsp (NIST Handbook 44), so ¼ cup is 4 tbsp and ⅔ cup is two ⅓ cups. For liquids, milliliters work too: see mL to cups.

Where the weights come from

We don't publish a weight without a source, and we don't round a source's number to make it tidy. Each row comes from one of these:

• King Arthur Baking's ingredient weight chart and America's Test Kitchen's baking conversion chart: test kitchens that weigh cups of the ingredients they bake with, and publish how they fill them.
• USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy and survey foods) and USDA's Home and Garden Bulletin 72: household portions, such as "1 cup, packed", with their weights in grams.
• NIST: the definitions of the cup, the spoons, the ounce and the pound (Handbook 44), and the density of water.

Where sources disagree widely, we keep one as the chart's value and show the others in the converter's notes. For rolled oats, USDA lists 81 grams and King Arthur 89 grams; for raw long-grain rice, USDA 185 grams and King Arthur 198 grams; for cake flour, America's Test Kitchen 113 grams and King Arthur 120 grams. None of these rows says how the cup was filled, so the cause of the gap is not stated.

Sources

• 21 CFR 101.9 (US nutrition labeling)
• America's Test Kitchen baking conversion chart
• America's Test Kitchen, Baking Basics: Measuring Ingredients
• King Arthur Baking ingredient weight chart
• King Arthur Baking, How to measure flour
• Manufacturer's label serving size, as listed in USDA FoodData Central (Branded Foods)
• NIST Chemistry WebBook (Standard Reference Database 69), water
• NIST Handbook 44, Appendix C
• NIST Special Publication 430, Household Weights and Measures
• USDA FoodData Central, FNDDS survey foods
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy
• USDA Nutritive Value of Foods, Home and Garden Bulletin No. 72
• Weights and Measures Act 1985 (UK), Schedule 1

• Grams to cups converterPick the ingredient, type the grams and get US cups and spoons, with the fill method the weight assumes.
• Cups to grams converter and conversion tableOne US cup weighs 198 grams of granulated sugar but 227 grams of butter: pick the ingredient and type the cups.
• Cooking conversion chartCups, spoons, ounces, grams, milliliters and oven temperatures on one printable page, with the abbreviations recipes use.
• How many grams in a cup of flourA cup of all-purpose flour weighs 120 grams spooned and leveled: pick the flour and the way you fill the cup.
• How many grams in a cup of sugarA cup of granulated sugar weighs 198 grams: pick the sugar, and for brown or powdered, how the cup is filled.
• How many grams in a cup of riceA cup of uncooked long-grain white rice weighs 185 grams: pick raw or cooked, white or brown.
• 1 cup milk in gramsA US cup of whole milk weighs 244 grams: type grams, cups or milliliters and pick the milk.
• 1 cup heavy cream in gramsA US cup of heavy cream weighs 238 grams: type grams, cups or milliliters and pick heavy cream, half-and-half or whipped cream.
• 1 cup cocoa powder in gramsA US cup of unsweetened cocoa powder weighs 84 grams: type grams, cups or spoons and get the others.
• How many cups in a pound2 cups of butter weigh 1 pound: pick the ingredient, type the cups, get pounds.
• How many grams in a tablespoon2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour weigh 15 grams: pick the ingredient, type the spoons, get grams.