How Many Pounds in a Cup?

The divisor in the formula above fits water only. For a dry food, look up what one cup of it weighs in pounds, then multiply that by the number of cups.

By USDA figures, a cup of all-purpose flour weighs about 125 grams, or 0.276 pound. A bread recipe that calls for 6 cups of flour therefore needs 6 × 125 = 750 grams, which is 1.65 pounds. Granulated sugar is heavier, so 4 cups of it come to about 1.76 pounds.

To run the numbers backward, divide a weight in pounds by the weight of one cup. The pounds to cups converter does that step for you.

The pound is the same on both sides of the Atlantic. The US and the UK both use the avoirdupois pound of exactly 453.59237 grams.

The cup is where the two part ways. A British or Australian recipe usually means the metric cup of 250 ml shown in the table below. A metric cup of water weighs about 0.551 pound, a little more than the US cup in the answer above.

Pounds describe weight, and cups describe space. Fill three measuring cups with butter, sugar and flour, and they look the same. On a scale, though, the butter comes close to half a pound, the sugar a bit less, and the flour only a little over a quarter.

The difference is density, meaning how much food fits in the same space. Butter and milk are dense and leave no gaps. Flour and powdered sugar are fine and airy, and shredded cheese is lighter still per cup because of the gaps around each shred.

Recipes list cups, but bags and blocks of food are sold by weight. Before you shop, add up the cups of each ingredient across all your recipes and convert the total once.

A double batch of cookies with 4 1/2 cups of flour needs about 1.24 pounds. A macaroni and cheese that uses 3 cups of shredded cheese needs about 0.747 pound. Buy a little extra, since the cup weights are averages and every scoop differs.