Everyday Cooking

Cooking conversion chart

Cups

Ingredient

Grams per cup

Millilitres 118.3 ml

0.5 cup = 118.3 ml ml

Grams 118.3 g

Tablespoons 8

Teaspoons 24

Ounces 4.17 oz

3 tsp = 1 tbsp · 16 tbsp = 1 cup

The measures worth memorising

Measure	Millilitres	Tablespoons	Also
1 teaspoon	4.93	⅓ tbsp	5 ml metric
1 tablespoon	14.8	1 tbsp	3 tsp · 15 ml metric
⅛ cup	29.6	2 tbsp	1 fl oz
¼ cup	59.1	4 tbsp	2 fl oz
⅓ cup	78.9	5⅓ tbsp	—
½ cup	118.3	8 tbsp	4 fl oz
⅔ cup	157.7	10⅔ tbsp	—
¾ cup	177.4	12 tbsp	6 fl oz
1 cup	236.6	16 tbsp	8 fl oz
1 pint (US)	473.2	32 tbsp	2 cups
1 quart (US)	946.4	—	4 cups
1 litre	1000	—	4.23 cups

Three teaspoons make a tablespoon and sixteen tablespoons make a US cup of 236.6 ml. A metric tablespoon is 15 ml and an Australian one is 20 ml, which is the conversion most likely to catch you out.

How to use the conversion chart

1 Use the calculator for a specific quantity and ingredient.

2 Use the chart below for the standard measures.

3 Check which country a recipe comes from before trusting a tablespoon.

4 For baking, weigh rather than measure wherever the recipe allows.

The Australian tablespoon is the trap. At 20 ml it is a third larger than the 15 ml used almost everywhere else, so an Australian recipe calling for two tablespoons of a strong flavouring — baking soda, salt, vanilla — will be noticeably off if measured with a European spoon set, and the error runs the other way for someone in Sydney cooking from a British book. Teaspoons are safer: 5 ml is close enough to universal that the difference rarely matters.

Questions

How many teaspoons in a tablespoon? −

Three, in the US, UK and metric systems. An Australian tablespoon is four teaspoons.

How many tablespoons in a cup? +

How many ml in a cup? +

Is a UK tablespoon the same as a US one? +

Should I weigh or measure? +

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