The Kitchen Conversion Chart You Look Up Mid-Recipe
Nobody memorizes how many tablespoons are in two thirds of a cup. Here is the whole chart, and the four numbers that let you rebuild the rest from memory.
The short version
- Four numbers rebuild the entire chart from memory: 3, 16, 8 and 2.
- A cup of flour and a cup of water weigh completely different amounts, which is why bakers use grams.
- Dry and liquid measuring cups hold the same volume and still give different results.
- Halving a recipe is where most kitchen math goes wrong, and it is always the odd tablespoon.
There are maybe six conversions a home cook actually needs, and the reason you look them up every single time is that nobody ever tells you which six. The chart below is the whole set. Print it, tape it inside the cabinet where the measuring cups live, and you will stop drying your hands off to unlock your phone.
The four numbers worth committing to memory are 3, 16, 8 and 2. Three teaspoons in a tablespoon, sixteen tablespoons in a cup, eight fluid ounces in a cup, two cups in a pint. Every other conversion on this page is those four numbers doing arithmetic.
One thing the chart cannot fix: a cup is a measure of volume, not weight. A cup of flour and a cup of water are the same amount of space and nowhere near the same amount of ingredient. For cooking, volume is fine. For baking, buy the scale.
The Kitchen Conversion Chart
The conversions you look up mid-recipe, with wet hands, while something is already in the pan.
The four numbers that rebuild the rest
- 3
- Teaspoons in a tablespoon
- 16
- Tablespoons in a cup
- 8
- Fluid ounces in a cup
- 2
- Cups in a pint
- 113g
- One stick of butter
- 236g
- Water, 1 cup weighs
| Measure | Tablespoons | Fluid ounces | Milliliters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 cup | 16 tbsp | 8 fl oz | 237 ml |
| 3/4 cup | 12 tbsp | 6 fl oz | 177 ml |
| 2/3 cup | 10 tbsp + 2 tsp | 5.3 fl oz | 158 ml |
| 1/2 cup | 8 tbsp | 4 fl oz | 118 ml |
| 1/3 cup | 5 tbsp + 1 tsp | 2.7 fl oz | 79 ml |
| 1/4 cup | 4 tbsp | 2 fl oz | 59 ml |
| 1 tablespoon | 1 tbsp | 0.5 fl oz | 15 ml |
Two thirds and one third are the two that break evenly only at the teaspoon. That is why they are the ones you always have to look up.
The Kitchen Conversion Chart
Teaspoons to tablespoons, cups to ounces, sticks of butter to grams. Every conversion you look up mid-recipe with wet hands, on one page.
Questions people ask
How many tablespoons are in a cup?
Sixteen. That one number does most of the work, because half a cup is 8 tablespoons, a quarter cup is 4, and an eighth is 2. The awkward ones are thirds: two thirds of a cup is 10 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons.
Is a dry cup the same as a liquid cup?
The volume is identical. The tools are not. A liquid cup has headroom above the line so you can carry it without spilling, and a dry cup is meant to be filled and leveled off. Measure flour in a liquid cup and you will pack in extra without noticing.
Why do baking recipes use grams instead of cups?
Because a cup of flour can weigh anywhere from 120 to 150 grams depending on how you scooped it, and that 25 percent swing is the difference between bread and a brick. Weight has no such variance. A scale costs about fifteen dollars and removes the single biggest source of baking failure.
How do I convert an oven temperature from Fahrenheit to Celsius?
Subtract 32, then multiply by five ninths. For the temperatures that actually matter: 350F is 177C, 375F is 191C, 400F is 204C and 425F is 218C. Most ovens round to the nearest 5, so 350F becoming 180C is close enough.
What is the easiest way to halve an awkward measurement?
Convert down to teaspoons first, then divide. Half of a third of a cup sounds impossible, but a third of a cup is 5 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon, which is 16 teaspoons, so half is 8 teaspoons, which is 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons. Going down to the smallest unit makes every one of these trivial.