Cups, Tablespoons and Teaspoons in Milliliters

US recipes measure liquids and many dry ingredients by volume. The units all derive from the US liquid gallon, which is exactly 231 cubic inches, so each one has an exact value in milliliters.

• Teaspoon (tsp): one third of a tablespoon.
• Tablespoon (tbsp): half a US fluid ounce, so 3 teaspoons.
• Fluid ounce (fl oz): 1/128 of a US gallon, so 2 tablespoons.
• Cup: 8 US fluid ounces, 1/16 of a US gallon.

That makes one cup 16 tablespoons or 48 teaspoons.

For cooking, the rounded column is close enough. A kitchen measuring cup is rarely more precise than a few milliliters. For exact work, such as scaling a recipe by a large factor, use the full values or the converter.

This site uses the US customary cup, exactly 1/16 of a US liquid gallon. Recipes from some other countries use a metric cup of 250 mL, which is slightly larger. If a recipe comes from outside the United States, check which cup it means before you convert.

Spoons have similar variants. The US labeling teaspoon used on nutrition labels is exactly 5 mL, a rounded unit that differs slightly from the customary teaspoon in the table above. The difference rarely matters in a recipe.

A cup measures volume. A gram measures mass. To turn cups of flour into grams, you need the density of that ingredient, and it changes with the ingredient and with how it is packed. A cup of flour, a cup of sugar and a cup of water all have different masses.

Because that is a property of the food and not of the units, it is not a unit conversion, and this site does not do it. Use a recipe that gives grams, or weigh the ingredient on a kitchen scale.

Water is the usual exception people rely on: one milliliter of water has a mass of close to one gram at room temperature, so liquid measures of water map well to grams. That does not hold for other ingredients.

• 3/4 cup of milk is 177.44 mL.
• 2 tablespoons of oil is 29.574 mL.
• 250 mL of stock is 1.0567 US cups.
• A 12 fl oz can holds 354.88 mL.

• Convert every ingredient with the same system. Mixing a metric cup with US spoons can change the ratios.
• Small amounts can be rounded more. Baking is less forgiving than soups or sauces, so keep more precision for leavening agents and salt.
• For dry ingredients, prefer weights in grams when the recipe gives them.
• Remember that the UK imperial fluid ounce is not the US fluid ounce, so older British recipes in fluid ounces convert differently.