Recipe Unit Conversions

Recipes are one of the easiest places to mix unit systems. A US recipe may list cups and fluid ounces, a European recipe may list grams and millilitres, and a packaging label may use both. The first rule is to keep volume and weight separate. A cup of water and a cup of flour are the same volume, but they do not weigh the same. Use volume conversions for liquids and container measures, and use weight conversions when the recipe gives grams, ounces or pounds.

Volume Examples

One US cup is 236.5882365 ml, so 2 cups is about 473 ml. One US fluid ounce is about 29.5735 ml, so 12 fl oz is about 355 ml. If a recipe says 350 ml of stock and your measuring jug is marked in US cups, the result is about 1.479 cups. Use the volume converter to switch between millilitres, litres, fluid ounces, cups, pints and US gallons.

Weight Examples

For ingredients sold or measured by weight, convert grams, kilograms, ounces and pounds. One ounce is 28.349523125 grams, so 8 oz is about 226.8 g. One pound is 453.59237 g, so a 2 lb bag is about 907 g. The weight converter is useful when scaling a recipe or checking whether a package has enough of an ingredient.

When Rounding Is Acceptable

Cooking usually tolerates practical rounding. Rounding 236.588 ml to 237 ml or 240 ml is normally acceptable for water, stock or milk. Baking is less forgiving, especially with flour, sugar and raising agents, so a kitchen scale is better than converting cups to grams by volume. If a recipe gives weights, keep weights; if it gives volumes, convert the volume unit directly.

Return to the main unit converter for all unit categories, or use temperature conversions when checking oven settings written in Celsius and Fahrenheit.