How many tablespoons in a cup?

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Want to know how many tablespoons are in a cup or how many tablespoons are in half a cup or in a quarter a cup? These are some of the common tablespoon to cup conversions we face while scaling a recipe up or down for any recipes.

No problem. You can anyways memorize or take a printout and stick it to the kitchen cooking area where you can easily access and measure your ingredients for the recipe.

Tablespoons in a Cup – Quick Conversions

So the answer to this question “how many tablespoons in a cup?” is 16 tablespoons. That means 16 tablespoons make a cup. These are few similar tablespoon conversions to keep in mind.

16 tablespoons = 1 cup

There are 16 tablespoons in a cup.

12 tablespoons = ¾ cup

There are 12 tablespoons in ¾ th of a cup.

8 tablespoons = ½ cup

There are 8 tablespoons in half a cup.

4 tablespoons = ¼ cup

There are 4 tablespoons in a quarter cup (¼ cup)

2 tablespoons = 1/8 cup

There are 2 tablespoons in one-eighth of a cup

1 tablespoon = 1/16 cup

One tablespoon makes one-sixteenth of a cup.

Cup is a standard measurement unit in the USA. So these tablespoons measurements and conversions are really helpful in perfect cooking and baking. The tablespoon is abbreviated as tbsp or Tbsp and a teaspoon is as tsp. Also, check here how many teaspoons in a tablespoon?

Though it looks simple, one needs to understand the basics of these conversions, why it’s necessary to know, the size and measurement of tablespoons, the size, and measurement of cups, ounces, etc.

Is this measurement same across the world?

There are two perspectives of measurements involved – volume measurement and weight measurement. Teaspoons, tablespoons, cups measure volume whereas grams, liters, ounces, gallons are for mass or weight.

Though tablespoons, teaspoons, cups are used globally for measuring ingredients, all sizes and measurements are not equal globally. The USA (and few more countries) doesn’t follow the metric system of measurements unlike the rest of the globe.

Size of a Cup

Cup is a commonly used unit for volume measurement. In the USA, they have two different measurement systems – customary and legal. Legal cup size is used by FDA for nutritional calculations.

Size of US Legal cup size – 240ml

Size of US Standard (customary) cup – 236.5ml

One Metric cup – 250ml
One Imperial cup – 284.13 ml

As per the US customary system, one tablespoon is equivalent to 15 ml and one cup measures 8 fluid ounces or 237 ml liquid and 226.8 gms. On the ground rule of this, these are few simple conversions to remember.