Cups to grams converter
Pick an ingredient and type an amount. You get grams and ounces from the cup weights USDA measured for that food, not one rough number for everything.
Fractions work: 1/2, 1 1/3 or 0.75.
Cup weights are USDA averages. How you fill the cup changes what it holds, so read spoon and level, or scoop before you trust a cup over a scale.
Grams per cup chart
Weight of 1 cup, 1 tablespoon and 1 teaspoon. Tap an ingredient for its full chart from 1/8 cup to 3 cups.
| Ingredient | 1 cup | 1 tbsp | 1 tsp |
|---|---|---|---|
| All-purpose flour | 125 g | 7.8 g | 2.6 g |
| Bread flour | 137 g | 8.6 g | 2.9 g |
| Whole wheat flour | 120 g | 7.5 g | 2.5 g |
| Granulated sugar | 200 g | 12.5 g | 4.2 g |
| Brown sugar, packed | 220 g | 13.8 g | 4.6 g |
| Powdered sugar, unsifted | 120 g | 7.5 g | 2.5 g |
| Butter | 227 g | 14.2 g | 4.7 g |
| Whole milk | 244 g | 15.3 g | 5.1 g |
| Water | 237 g | 14.8 g | 4.9 g |
| Vegetable oil (canola) | 218 g | 13.6 g | 4.5 g |
| Honey | 339 g | 21.2 g | 7.1 g |
| Rolled oats | 81 g | 5.1 g | 1.7 g |
| Cocoa powder, unsweetened | 86 g | 5.4 g | 1.8 g |
| Chocolate chips (semisweet), regular chips | 168 g | 10.5 g | 3.5 g |
See all 28 ingredients, including dairy, syrups, grains, nuts and salt.
Spoon and level, or scoop?
The same cup can hold very different weights depending on how you fill it.
- Spoon and levelStir the flour or sugar to loosen it, spoon it into a dry measuring cup until it mounds, then strike off the excess with a straight edge. NIST’s kitchen tips say to strike off excess dry ingredients.
- Scooping packs it inDipping the cup into the bag presses the ingredient down, so the cup holds more than a spooned cup. USDA’s cake flour weight is labeled “unsifted, dipped,” which tells you how that cup was filled.
- Packed and sifted change the weight a lotUSDA lists 1 cup of brown sugar at 220 g packed but 145 g loose, and 1 cup of powdered sugar at 120 g unsifted but 100 g sifted. Follow the recipe’s wording, or better, its gram weights.
The surest way is the one NIST recommends: weigh ingredients on a kitchen scale instead of measuring them by volume. Use this converter to turn a cup recipe into grams once, then weigh from then on.
Sources: NIST Metric Kitchen, culinary measurement tips; cup weights from USDA FoodData Central (SR Legacy household measures).
How the math works
Every result starts from one number: what USDA says 1 cup of that food weighs.
grams = amount in cups × grams per cup1 tablespoon = 1/16 cup, 1 teaspoon = 1/48 cup (USDA ARS measure equivalents). Ounces = grams ÷ 28.349523125 (NIST, exact).
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour1.5 × 125 g = 188 g, which is 6.61 oz.
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder3 tbsp is 3/16 cup, so 3 ÷ 16 × 86 g = 16.1 g.
- 250 g flour back to cups250 ÷ 125 = 2 cups. Grams to cups works the same way in reverse.
Sources: USDA ARS measurement conversion tables (1 cup = 16 tbsp = 48 tsp); NIST Handbook 44, Appendix C (1 cup = 8 fl oz; 1 oz = 28.349523125 g).
Questions
- How many grams are in 1 cup of flour?
- 1 cup of all-purpose flour weighs 125 g in USDA FoodData Central. Bread flour is 137 g and whole wheat flour 120 g per cup. See the all-purpose flour chart.
- How many grams is 1 cup of sugar?
- Granulated sugar weighs 200 g per cup. Packed brown sugar is 220 g, and unsifted powdered sugar 120 g.
- Is 1 cup always 240 grams?
- No. A cup is a volume, so its weight depends on the ingredient: 125 g for all-purpose flour, 339 g for honey. Even water comes to 237 g for 8 fl oz in USDA’s data. NIST rounds a cup to 240 mL for kitchen use, but its legal size is 8 fluid ounces, about 237 mL.
- How many tablespoons are in a cup?
- 16 tablespoons, or 48 teaspoons, per USDA’s measure equivalents. That is why 1 tablespoon of any ingredient here weighs its cup weight divided by 16.
- Why weigh ingredients instead of using cups?
- NIST calls weighing on a kitchen scale the best practice for accurate recipes. A cup holds more or less depending on how you fill it; a gram is always a gram.
- Are US cups the same as metric cups?
- Not exactly. NIST notes that cups and spoons mean different things in different countries, and that metric cup and spoon measures are slightly larger than US customary ones. This site uses the US customary cup of 8 fluid ounces.