Cups to grams converter

Published by Vancko Systems Ltd · Last updated 13 September 2026 · Editorial policy

A cup is a measure of volume, so what it weighs depends entirely on what you put in it. A cup of honey is 339 g and a cup of rolled oats is 156 g — the same cup, twice the weight. This converts cups, tablespoons and teaspoons to grams for 380,196 foods, using the household measure USDA publishes for each one. Tablespoons and teaspoons are published for 172,682 of them.

Weight

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Pick a food to start

Common questions

How many grams is one cup?

There is no single answer, and that is the whole problem with the question. A US cup of granulated sugar is 188 g, a cup of butter is 227 g, a cup of honey is 339 g and a cup of rolled oats is about 156 g. The cup measures volume; grams measure weight. Which food you put in it changes the answer by more than double.

Is a US cup the same as a UK cup?

No. A US cup is 240 ml, a UK or metric cup is 250 ml, and an old imperial cup was 284 ml. The figures here are USDA household measures, so they are US cups. For most baking the difference is small but not nothing.

Why do recipes use cups at all?

Because they are quick and need no scales. The cost is accuracy: how firmly you pack flour into a cup can change its weight by a fifth, which is why baking recipes written by weight are more reliable than the same recipe written in cups.

How many grams in a tablespoon?

Again it depends on the food. A tablespoon of granulated sugar is about 12 g, of honey about 21 g, of oil about 14 g. This converter has tablespoon and teaspoon figures for the foods where USDA publishes them.

Where do these numbers come from?

USDA FoodData Central publishes household measures alongside the nutrient data for each food: how many grams one cup, tablespoon or teaspoon of that specific food weighs. We use those figures directly rather than a single conversion factor.

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How this converter works

USDA publishes, for each food, how many grams one household measure of it weighs. We divide by the amount to get the weight of a single cup, tablespoon or teaspoon, then multiply by what you enter. No single conversion factor is used, because none would be right for more than one food. USDA household measures. Where USDA lists more than one form of a food — sifted against spooned flour, for example — the note column says which.

Sources

  1. USDA FoodData Central — household measures and portion weights. fdc.nal.usda.gov

Figures are for general cooking use. How firmly a dry ingredient is packed changes its weight, so treat a cup measurement as an approximation and use scales when a recipe depends on precision.