Kitchen Unit Converter
Convert cooking volumes between US, UK (imperial) and metric measures. A US cup, a metric cup and an imperial cup are not the same size, and US and imperial pints differ by a fifth — differences big enough to change how a recipe turns out. This converter keeps them straight, handling cups, tablespoons, teaspoons, fluid ounces, millilitres, pints, quarts and gallons. For dry ingredients measured by weight, use the ingredient converter instead, since a cup of flour and a cup of water weigh different amounts.
How to use this tool
- Enter the amount you want to convert.
- Choose the unit you are converting from — note the US, metric and imperial variants are listed separately.
- Choose the unit you want the result in.
- Read the converted amount, and switch on “show every equivalent unit” to see the quantity in all supported measures at once.
- For ingredient weights such as grams of flour, use the Ingredient Weight & Volume Converter instead.
The formula
Volume uses the litre as its base unit. Volume is length cubed, so the cubic ratios grow quickly: a cubic metre holds a thousand litres.
litres = value × L_per_unit
result = litres ÷ L_per_target- L_per_unit
- Litres in one unit of the input
- US gallon
- Exactly 231 cubic inches, or 3.785411784 L
- Imperial gallon
- Exactly 4.54609 L — about 20% larger
US and imperial units share names but not sizes. A US pint is 473 mL while an imperial pint is 568 mL, so recipes and fuel figures do not transfer between the two systems without converting.
Worked examples
A US recipe in metric
- Given
- 2 US cups of stock
- Result
- ≈ 473 ml
A US cup is 236.6 ml, so two cups is about 473 ml — just under half a litre.
US vs imperial pint
- Given
- 1 US pint compared with 1 imperial pint
- Result
- 473 ml vs 568 ml
The imperial pint is about 20% larger, which matters when a British recipe calls for a pint of milk.
Tablespoons to millilitres
- Given
- 3 US tablespoons of oil
- Result
- ≈ 44 ml
A US tablespoon is 14.79 ml, so three is roughly 44 ml.
Frequently asked questions
Because they hold different amounts. A US customary cup is 236.6 ml, a metric cup is exactly 250 ml, and older British recipes sometimes use an imperial cup of about 284 ml. Using the wrong one throws a recipe off by up to 20%, so the converter lists them separately.
Almost, but not quite. A US tablespoon is 14.79 ml while a metric tablespoon is 15 ml — close enough that they are usually interchangeable in cooking. Australia is the exception, using a 20 ml tablespoon, so Australian recipes need extra care.
The US and British systems fixed their gallons at different volumes centuries ago. The imperial gallon is about 20% larger than the US gallon, and because pints and quarts are fractions of the gallon, they differ by the same proportion.
Only by volume. This tool converts one volume into another — cups to millilitres, say. To convert a volume of flour into grams you need its density, so use the Ingredient Weight & Volume Converter, which knows how much a cup of each ingredient weighs.
The underlying ratios are exact definitions — a US gallon is exactly 231 cubic inches, a metric cup exactly 250 ml — so the arithmetic is precise. In the kitchen, rounding to sensible amounts is usually fine; the tool shows enough digits to round as you prefer.
Related tools
Convert baking ingredients between cups, grams, millilitres and ounces using each ingredient’s density.
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Related reading
Millilitres to cups: a liquid conversion guide
The numbers, the cup-size problem, and when it actually matters.
Grams to cups: flour, sugar and butter
Why there is no single answer, and the numbers that actually work.
How many tablespoons are in a cup?
The exact answer, the tricky thirds, and why cups differ worldwide.