How Many Cups in a Pound? Flour, Sugar, Butter & More

Older recipes and many shopping lists use pounds: “1 lb flour”, “a pound of butter”. But a pound is a weight, and a cup is a volume, so the answer changes with every ingredient. Here is how many cups are in a pound of the ingredients you use most.

The short answer

1 pound = 16 ounces = 453.6 grams. To find the cups, divide 453.6 by the weight of one cup of that ingredient. Flour weighs about 120 g per cup, so 453.6 ÷ 120 = 3.78 cups.

Cups in a pound: the chart

Ingredient (1 lb)	Cups	How to measure it
All-purpose flour	3.78	3 3/4 cups
Bread flour	3.78	3 3/4 cups
Whole wheat flour	4.01	4 cups
Powdered sugar	4.01	4 cups
Granulated sugar	2.29	2 1/4 cups
Brown sugar, packed	2.13	2 cups + 2 tbsp
Butter	2.00	2 cups (4 sticks)
Rice, uncooked	2.29	2 1/4 cups
Rolled oats	5.10	5 cups
Chocolate chips	2.67	2 2/3 cups
Cocoa powder	5.40	5 1/3 cups + 1 tbsp
Peanut butter	1.68	1 2/3 cups
Honey	1.35	1 1/3 cups
Water	1.92	1 3/4 cups + 2 1/2 tbsp
Milk	1.86	1 3/4 cups + 1 1/2 tbsp
Vegetable oil	2.08	2 cups + 1 1/2 tbsp
Table salt	1.57	1 1/2 cups + 1 tbsp

Weights assume a US cup (236.6 ml), with flour and powdered sugar spooned and leveled and brown sugar packed.

Why the numbers are so different

Light, airy ingredients like flour, oats and cocoa take up a lot of room for their weight, so a pound fills many cups. Dense ingredients like honey and peanut butter pack a pound into much less space. That is also why one universal “cups to grams” number never works.

Bags and boxes you’ll see in the store

5 lb bag of flour ≈ 19 cups (2.27 kg)
4 lb bag of granulated sugar ≈ 9 cups (1.81 kg)
2 lb bag of brown sugar ≈ 4 1/4 cups packed
2 lb bag of powdered sugar ≈ 8 cups
1 lb box of butter = 4 sticks = 2 cups. See the butter converter.

“A pint’s a pound” – is it true?

Only roughly, and only for water-like liquids. A US pint (2 cups, 473 ml) of water weighs about 473 g, a little more than a pound. For flour or sugar the saying is far off: a pint of flour weighs only about 240 g.

Going from grams

Metric recipes often use 450 g or 500 g, close to a pound. See 450 grams to cups and 500 grams to cups, or use the grams to cups converter for any amount.