How Many Grams in a Tablespoon?

Multiply the tablespoons by the weight of one tablespoon of your ingredient. The formula above is set for water. For anything else, pick the food in the converter or take its per-spoon weight from the table below.

Butter weighs about 14.2 g per tablespoon, so 6 tbsp of butter comes to 6 × 14.2 = 85 g. For 1 1/2 tbsp of granulated sugar, the math is 1.5 × 12.5 = 18.8 g.

Tablespoon sizes differ between countries, so check which spoon a recipe uses before you convert. To turn grams back into spoons, use grams to tablespoons.

A UK tablespoon holds 15 ml, only a touch more than the US spoon, so a UK tablespoon of water weighs 15 g. For everyday cooking, the two can be swapped.

The Australian tablespoon is the one to watch. At 20 ml, an Australian tablespoon of sugar weighs about 16.9 g, against 12.5 g in a US spoon. Measure Australian recipes with a 20 ml spoon, or convert them by weight.

A tablespoon is a small, fixed volume, so the gram figure depends on what goes into it. Liquids and soft butter fill the spoon solidly, while powders hold a lot of air.

That is why a level tablespoon of all-purpose (plain) flour weighs only about 7.8 g, while the same spoon of milk weighs about 15.3 g. The table below lists six common ingredients side by side.

When a recipe mixes spoons and grams, convert the spoon amounts once and write the gram figures in the margin. These use USDA data and level US tablespoons:

• 2 tbsp of butter: about 28.4 g
• 2 tbsp of active dry yeast: about 24 g
• 4 tbsp of all-purpose flour: about 31 g
• 1 tbsp of raw garlic: about 8.5 g