1 cup is 16 tablespoons. The number below is worked from the US measure, and the chart covers the amounts either side of it so you can read off whatever your recipe actually calls for.
Cups to tablespoons chart
| Cups | Tablespoons |
|---|---|
| 1/4 cup | 4 tbsp |
| 1/2 cup | 8 tbsp |
| 1 cup | 16 tbsp |
| 2 cups | 32 tbsp |
| 3 cups | 48 tbsp |
| 4 cups | 64 tbsp |
| 6 cups | 96 tbsp |
| 8 cups | 128 tbsp |
| 12 cups | 192 tbsp |
| 16 cups | 256 tbsp |
US, UK and metric are not the same cup
A US cup is 236.6 ml. A metric cup, used in Australia and New Zealand, is 250 ml. An old UK imperial cup is 284 ml. So 1 cup comes to 237 ml under the US measure, and a recipe written elsewhere will not line up.
The gap looks small on one cup and stops looking small on four. Where it matters most is liquid in baking, since the ratio of wet to dry is what sets the crumb.
Fluid ounces measure space, not weight
A fluid ounce and an ounce share a name and measure different things. The fluid ounce is a volume, about 29.6 ml. The ounce is a weight, 28.35 g. They happen to sit close together for water, which is exactly why the two get mixed up.
For water the two nearly coincide, so nothing goes wrong. For flour, oil or honey they diverge sharply, and that is where a recipe fails.
Going the other way: tablespoons to cups
The same relationship read backwards. This is the chart you want when the recipe gives tablespoons and your measuring kit is marked in cups.
| Tablespoons | Cups |
|---|---|
| 2 1/2 tbsp | 0.156 cup |
| 5 tbsp | 0.313 cup |
| 10 tbsp | 5/8 cup |
| 16 tbsp | 1 cup |
| 20 tbsp | 1 1/4 cups |
| 30 tbsp | 1.88 cups |
| 40 tbsp | 2 1/2 cups |
| 60 tbsp | 3.75 cups |
| 80 tbsp | 5 cups |
| 120 tbsp | 7.5 cups |
| 160 tbsp | 10 cups |
Measuring it without getting it wrong
Liquid and dry measuring cups hold the same volume but are built for different jobs. A liquid cup has a spout and headroom, so it can be filled to a line and carried without spilling.
A dry cup is filled to the brim and swept level, which is why it has no spout. Using a dry cup for liquid means filling it to the very top, and any of it that slops out is measurement you have lost.
Read a liquid measure at eye level, with the cup on the counter rather than in your hand. Held up and read from above, the curve of the surface makes it look fuller than it is.
When rounding is safe and when it is not
The exact figure is 16 tablespoons. Rounding it to a convenient number costs you very little on a single quantity and adds up quickly once a recipe is doubled or tripled.
A useful rule: round freely for anything savoury that you can taste and adjust, and keep the decimal for baking, brining and anything involving yeast. Those are the cases where the ratio, not the amount, is doing the work.
Where this comes up
Most recipes are written for one system and cooked in another. American recipes measure by cup, European ones by gram, and anything from a bakery measures by weight because that is what the result depends on.
Knowing that 1 cup is 16 tablespoons is what lets you cook from any of them.
Related conversions
For every kitchen figure in one place, see the full conversion chart.
