Cups to tablespoons converter

The formula

NIST Handbook 44 defines the US kitchen measures from the fluid ounce: a cup is 8 US fluid ounces, a tablespoon is 1/2 fluid ounce, and a teaspoon is 1/3 tablespoon. So:

• 1 cup = 16 tbsp = 48 tsp = 8 fl oz = 236.6 mL
• 1 tbsp = 3 tsp = 1/2 fl oz = 14.787 mL
• 1 tsp = 4.929 mL

Cups to tablespoons: multiply by 16. Tablespoons to cups: divide by 16. Tablespoons to teaspoons: multiply by 3.

Cup fractions in tablespoons and teaspoons

A cup fraction rarely comes out to whole tablespoons. A third of 16 tablespoons is 5 1/3, and a third of a tablespoon is exactly 1 teaspoon, so 1/3 cup is 5 tbsp + 1 tsp. The converter writes every result up to a cup this way, rounded to the nearest 1/8 teaspoon, which is the smallest spoon in most sets.

Handy when the 1/3 cup measure is in the dishwasher, or when you are halving a recipe: half of 1/3 cup is 2 tbsp + 2 tsp. The recipe scaler does that rounding for a whole ingredient list.

UK, metric and Australian tablespoons

The spoons on this page are US measures. Other countries round them to metric:

• Metric tablespoon, 15 mL. Used in the UK, Canada and New Zealand, and 1.4% bigger than the US tablespoon. A US cup is 15.8 metric tablespoons; for cooking, treat the two tablespoons as the same.
• Australian tablespoon, 20 mL. Four metric teaspoons, so it holds about 1 1/3 US tablespoons. A US cup is only 11.8 Australian tablespoons. If an Australian recipe asks for 1 tablespoon of baking powder or salt, use 1 US tablespoon + 1 teaspoon.

The metric teaspoon is 5 mL, close enough to the US teaspoon (4.93 mL) that no recipe will notice. The guide to US, UK and Australian measures compares every cup, spoon and pint size. For grams of a particular ingredient per spoon, use the tablespoons to grams converter.