How to Convert a US Recipe to Metric (Grams, ml and °C)

American recipes use cups, spoons, ounces and Fahrenheit. Most of the world cooks in grams, milliliters and Celsius. Converting is easy once you know one rule: dry ingredients go to grams, liquids go to milliliters. Here is the full process.

Step 1: Convert dry ingredients from cups to grams

This is the only step that needs care, because a cup of each ingredient weighs something different. Look each one up rather than using one number for everything:

For anything else, use the cups to grams converter, or paste the whole ingredient list into the recipe converter and it converts every line at once.

Step 2: Convert liquids from cups to ml

A US cup is 236.6 ml. Most cooks round to 240 ml, which is close enough for liquids. So 1 cup of milk ≈ 240 ml and 1/2 cup ≈ 120 ml. Full table: 1 cup in ml.

Step 3: Convert spoons

• 1 US tablespoon = 14.8 ml (use a standard 15 ml metric spoon)
• 1 US teaspoon = 4.9 ml (use a standard 5 ml spoon)
• Watch out for Australian recipes: their tablespoon is 20 ml.

Small amounts of baking powder, salt and spices can stay in spoons. Converting 1 teaspoon of baking soda to grams gains you nothing.

Step 4: Convert ounces and pounds

• Ounces of weight (cheese, chocolate, meat): 1 oz = 28.35 g, 1 lb = 454 g.
• Fluid ounces (liquids): 1 US fl oz = 29.6 ml.

“8 oz chocolate” is a weight (227 g). “8 fl oz milk” is a volume (237 ml, 1 cup).

Step 5: Convert oven temperature

°C = (°F − 32) × 5 ÷ 9, then round to the nearest 5 or 10. 350°F → 180°C, 325°F → 160–165°C, 375°F → 190°C. Fan oven: subtract another 20°C. See 325°F vs 350°F or the oven converter.

Step 6: Convert pan sizes

1 inch = 2.54 cm. An 8-inch square pan is 20 cm, a 9-inch round is 23 cm and a 9×13-inch pan is about 23×33 cm.

Worked example: chocolate chip cookies

Going the other way

Have a metric recipe and only cups? Use the grams to cups converter. For example, 600 grams of flour is 5 cups, but 600 g of sugar is only about 3 cups.