US cups to tablespoons:
multiply by 16

How many tablespoons are in a cup?

A US cup holds exactly 16 US tablespoons. This is a fixed relationship in the US customary kitchen system, so you can rely on it for butter, flour, oil, milk or anything else measured by volume.

Smaller steps follow from it: 1 tablespoon is 3 teaspoons, so one cup is also 48 teaspoons. The tablespoon is also half a US fluid ounce, and a cup is 8 fluid ounces.

The cups to tablespoons formula

A second example goes the other way. A pancake recipe that asks for 6 tablespoons of melted butter needs 6 ÷ 16 = 0.375 cups, or three eighths of a cup. If you are scaling that recipe up by four, you need 24 tablespoons, which is exactly 1.5 cups.

Chart: cups to tablespoons

Kitchen quantities are usually fractions, so here are the ones you will use most: 1/8 cup is 2 tbsp, 1/4 cup is 4 tbsp, 1/3 cup is 5 tbsp plus 1 tsp, 1/2 cup is 8 tbsp, 2/3 cup is 10 tbsp plus 2 tsp, and 3/4 cup is 12 tbsp.

When converting cups to tablespoons helps

• Scaling down a recipe: halving a quarter cup of oil is 2 tablespoons.
• Butter packaging: a US stick of butter is marked in tablespoons, and 8 tablespoons make half a cup.
• Missing tools: if the 1/3 cup measure is missing, use 5 tablespoons and 1 teaspoon.
• Baking: ingredients such as cocoa, baking powder and cornflour are listed in tablespoons even when a total is given in cups.

Baking and scaling examples

Cups and tablespoons meet most often when you scale a recipe up or down. Take a cookie recipe that uses 1 cup of sugar and 2 tablespoons of vanilla syrup. Doubling it gives 2 cups of sugar, which is 32 tablespoons, and 4 tablespoons of syrup, which is a quarter cup.

Halving a recipe works the same way. If a sauce needs 1/4 cup of cream and you want half, convert first: 1/4 cup is 4 tablespoons, so half of it is 2 tablespoons. That is far easier to measure than an eighth of a cup.

• 1 US cup = 16 tablespoons = 48 teaspoons = 8 fluid ounces.
• 1 tablespoon = 3 teaspoons = 0.5 fluid ounces.
• A tablespoon is about 14.79 ml, so a cup is about 236.6 ml, which is why many metric recipes round a cup to 240 or 250 ml.

Common mistakes with cups and tablespoons

• Using a metric or Australian tablespoon. An Australian tablespoon is 20 ml, while the US tablespoon is about 14.8 ml, so the count of 16 only applies to US measures.
• Mixing up teaspoon and tablespoon. Swapping them is a threefold error, which can ruin baking soda or salt measures.
• Confusing a cup with a mug. A US cup is a measure of 8 fluid ounces, not whatever your mug holds.
• Dividing by 16 when you want tablespoons. If the number of tablespoons is not bigger than the number of cups, you divided instead of multiplying.