Ingredient Substitution Chart: How Much to Measure When You Swap

Every substitution chart tells you what you can swap. Almost none tell you how much of it to measure — and that is where the swap usually goes wrong, because a cup of the replacement almost never weighs what a cup of the original did. Enter the amount the recipe asks for and what you are actually using; this page gives you both answers, and says which of the two the pair calls for.

Every figure on this page is computed from the same verified cup weights used across the site (80 ingredients, checked against the King Arthur Baking weight chart and USDA FoodData Central), so nothing here can drift from the individual ingredient pages. A conversion tells you the amount; it cannot tell you that the swap suits the recipe — see what a weight conversion can't tell you.

A substitution is two questions, not one

Can I use this instead? And how much of it do I measure? The first question is the one every chart answers. The second is arithmetic, and it has exactly three cases:

• Structural dry goods — swap by weight. Flour, starch, sugar, cocoa. The recipe depends on how much substance is in the bowl, not how much space it fills. Match the grams and convert back into cups of whatever you are using.
• Bulk mix-ins — swap cup for cup. Chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruit, crumbs, shredded cheese. The batter carries these as bulk rather than mass; a cookie has room for a certain volume of chips. Matching weight here is actively wrong — across the mix-ins and crumbs on this site a cup runs from 50 g to 170 g, so an equal-weight swap can more than double the volume.
• Liquids — either, they agree. Milk, cream, yogurt, buttermilk, juice, water: all within a few percent of each other per cup, so the two rules land in the same place.

The awkward cases are the ones that look like one family but behave like another. Butter is not oil with a different name (it carries water). Honey is not sugar in liquid form (same). Powdered sugar is not granulated sugar ground finer (it has cornstarch in it). Those get their own worked-out pages, listed further down — the tables here handle the ordinary swaps, where the only thing standing between you and the right amount is the density.

Flour for flour

The most-swapped family, and the one where cup-for-cup does the most damage. Whole wheat is the surprise: it weighs less per cup than white flour (113 g against 120 g), because the bran and germ flakes hold the cup open, so you need more than a cup of it to match a cup of all-purpose. To replace 1½ cups of all-purpose flour, measure 1 ½ cups + 1 tbsp + 1 tsp of whole wheat.

Amounts are rounded to something you can actually measure: to the nearest teaspoon, and to a familiar cup fraction whenever the exact figure sits within about 2% of one — a gap no measuring cup can resolve. Weighing? Ignore the cups and use the gram figure in the column heading.

Bread flour is the one free swap in the table: it weighs exactly what all-purpose weighs, so it goes in gram for gram and cup for cup. The difference between them is protein, not density — more gluten, chewier crumb — which the flour conversion chart compares flour by flour. At the other end, semolina is the heaviest flour on the site at 163 g per cup: a cup of it carries 43 g more than a cup of all-purpose — the equivalent of tipping in an extra ¼ cup + 1 tbsp + 2 tsp of flour.

Sugar for sugar

The dry sugars are the friendliest swap on this page: granulated, caster, brown and coconut sugar are the same sweetener in different crystal sizes, so matching weight matches sweetness. The syrups in the lower half of the table are a different animal — they carry water, they are acidic, and swapping them into a dry-sugar recipe changes the liquid balance, so use the equal-weight figures for weighing rather than as a substitution rule.

Two traps. Brown sugar is only heavier because it is packed — recipes assume you press it into the cup, which is why it reads 213 g against granulated's 200 g despite being nearly the same stuff; spooned in loosely it weighs far less. And powdered sugar is not granulated sugar ground finer: it contains a few percent of cornstarch as an anti-caking agent, so even at the correct weight it thickens and dissolves differently. Full breakdown on the sugar conversion chart; for honey and maple specifically, see sugar to honey.

Butter, oil and the other fats

This is the family where equal weight is the wrong answer, and it is worth knowing why. Solid butter is roughly 81% fat and 16% water; oil is 100% fat. Match them by weight and you have quietly added about a fifth more fat than the recipe wanted, along with none of the water. The tested rule is volumetric: ¾ cup of oil per cup of butter.

Read this table as weighing help, not as swap ratios. For butter to oil use the ¾-by-volume rule and the guidance on the butter to oil page — it also lists the bakes where the swap simply does not work (creamed cakes, cookies, pie crust, laminated pastry). The lightest entry, vegetable shortening at 184 g per cup, is light because it is whipped full of air, not because it is less fatty.

Liquid dairy: the family where it doesn't matter

Good news for once. Every pourable and spoonable dairy item on this site lands between 226 g and 245 g per cup — a spread of about 8%, smaller than the error in how you fill the cup. So within this family you can measure cup for cup or gram for gram and get the same result either way.

What does change is chemistry, not amount. Buttermilk, yogurt and sour cream are acidic: they react with baking soda where plain milk will not, which is why a recipe built on buttermilk usually contains soda and its milk-based cousin contains baking powder. Swapping the liquid without swapping the leavening is the commonest way a substituted cake comes out flat or soapy — the baking powder substitute page works through the pairing. Fat content is the other axis: cream will not whip below about 30% fat, so half-and-half cannot replace heavy cream in whipped applications however carefully you measure it.

Mix-ins and crumbs: swap by volume, not by weight

Here the rule inverts. A cookie dough has room for a certain volume of chips or nuts; it does not care what they weigh. Across the mix-ins on this site a cup spans 50 g to 170 g — a 3.4-fold range — so matching weight instead of volume can overwhelm a batter or leave it half empty. The clearest example is in the coating cupboard: panko is 50 g per cup against 108 g for ordinary dry breadcrumbs, so weighing out a breadcrumb-equivalent 108 g of panko hands you 2 cups + 2 tbsp + 2 tsp — more than double the volume you meant to use.

The full cup-for-cup mix-in table lives on the chocolate chips page, where 18 mix-ins are lined up against a cup of chips. For nuts specifically, the prep state matters more than the species — chopped nuts has whole, halves, chopped, slivered, sliced and ground side by side.

Grains: measure by weight, cook by the packet

Grains swap by weight like other dry goods, with one caveat that outranks the arithmetic: the water ratio and the cooking time are not transferable, and neither are the cooked yields. Use the weights below to get the right amount of grain into the pot, then cook it the way that grain wants to be cooked.

Cooked yields are the other half of the question — a cup of dry rice and a cup of dry quinoa do not become the same amount of dinner. The dry to cooked converter has the yield factors for each, and the grain conversion chart puts the dry weights in one place. Totalling more than one grain at once, as in a mixed pilaf? The recipe weight calculator adds them up.

Substitutions worked out in full

Some swaps need more than a density conversion — a tested ratio, plus adjustments to the liquid, the leavening or the oven. These have pages of their own:

Substitution	The rule
Butter to Oil	Swap butter for oil: 1 cup butter = 3/4 cup oil.
Sugar to Honey	Swap sugar for honey: 1 cup sugar = ½–¾ cup honey.
Cake Flour Substitute	Make cake flour: swap 2 tbsp cornstarch into each cup of flour.
Cornstarch to Flour	Thickener swap both ways: 1 tbsp cornstarch = 2 tbsp flour.
Baking Powder Substitute	Per tsp: ¼ tsp baking soda + ½ tsp cream of tartar.
Yeast Converter	Active dry, instant & fresh yeast — swap by weight.

What a weight conversion can't tell you

Everything above answers "how much", and it answers it exactly. It says nothing at all about whether the swap will work — and it is worth being blunt about the gap, because getting the amount right can make a bad substitution feel authorised.

Weight cannot see gluten: 1 ¼ cups of almond flour weighs the same as a cup of all-purpose and will not build the same structure, because it has no gluten and no starch. It cannot see leavening: self-rising flour already contains baking powder and salt, so swapping it in by weight adds both without telling you. It cannot see water: that is the whole butter-and-oil problem, and the honey one. It cannot see acidity, which is why buttermilk and milk are not interchangeable in a soda-raised batter. And it cannot see particle size — semolina and cornmeal weigh a lot per cup precisely because they are coarse, and coarse flour makes a different crumb at any weight.

The practical version: use these tables when you have already decided the swap is fine and just need the amount, or when you are weighing rather than measuring and want the numbers to line up. When you are not sure the swap is fine, start with one of the worked-out pages above.

Frequently asked questions

How much whole wheat flour replaces 1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour?

By weight, 1 ½ cups + 1 tbsp + 1 tsp. One and a half cups of all-purpose flour is 180 g, and whole wheat flour weighs 113 g per cup rather than 120 g, so you need slightly more of it to land on the same weight — the bran and germ flakes hold the cup open, making whole wheat the lighter flour per cup. For one cup of all-purpose the answer is 1 cup + 1 tbsp of whole wheat. Most bakers do not swap the whole amount at once: whole wheat absorbs more water and gives a denser crumb, so a common starting point is to replace a quarter to a half of the flour and add a little extra liquid.

Do I substitute by weight or by volume?

It depends on what the ingredient does in the recipe. Structural dry goods — flours, starches, sugars, cocoa — should be matched by weight, because the recipe's chemistry depends on how much substance is present, not how much space it takes up. Bulk mix-ins that the batter simply carries — chocolate chips, nuts, dried fruit, crumbs — should be matched cup for cup, because the dough has room for a certain volume, not a certain mass. Liquids are the easy family: they all weigh close to the same per cup, so both rules give nearly the same answer.

Is 1 cup of one flour the same as 1 cup of another?

Never quite. Across the 14 flours and starches on this site a cup runs from 85 g to 163 g — so measuring a replacement cup for cup can put you 36% over or well under the flour the recipe wanted. Bread flour and all-purpose are the one easy pair: both weigh 120 g per cup, so they swap gram for gram and cup for cup at once. Everything else needs the arithmetic.

Can I swap almond flour for all-purpose flour cup for cup?

The measurement answer is that 1 ¼ cups of almond flour weighs the same as a cup of all-purpose (120 g against 96 g per cup) — but matching the weight will not make the swap work. Almond flour has no gluten and no starch, so it cannot build structure: it browns faster, holds far more fat and produces a batter that never sets the same way. Treat it as a different ingredient rather than a substitution, and use a recipe written for it. This is the general limit of any weight conversion — it gets the amount right and says nothing about whether the swap works.

How much oil replaces a cup of butter?

Not the equal-weight figure. A cup of butter is 227 g and a cup of oil is 218 g, so equal weight would suggest about 1 cup + 2 tsp — but butter is only about 81% fat and 16% water while oil is 100% fat, so matching the weight overshoots the fat badly. The tested rule is ¾ cup of oil per cup of butter (1 stick becomes 6 tbsp), which our butter to oil page works through in cups, grams and mL along with the recipes it does not suit.

Can I swap panko for regular breadcrumbs?

Cup for cup, yes — that is exactly the swap-by-volume case. But do not match them by weight: panko is 50 g per cup against 108 g for ordinary dry breadcrumbs, so a cup of panko is barely half the mass. Weighing out 108 g of panko would give you 2 cups + 2 tbsp + 2 tsp — more than double the volume the recipe expected, and far too much for a coating. Panko's whole character is that it is light and open, which is also why it stays crisper.

Does swapping sugars work by weight?

For the dry ones, yes. Granulated, caster, brown and coconut sugar are all sucrose in different crystal sizes, so matching the weight matches the sweetness closely — granulated at 200 g per cup against packed brown at 213 g means a cup of granulated is ¾ cup + 3 tbsp of packed brown. Powdered sugar is the exception among the dry ones: it is ground sugar plus cornstarch, so it dissolves and behaves differently even at the right weight. Liquid sweeteners — honey, maple, agave, molasses — carry water and are handled by their own rules, not by weight.

How much honey replaces a cup of sugar?

¾ cup, by volume — not the equal-weight amount. A cup of honey is 340 g against 200 g for granulated sugar, so equal weight would be only ½ cup + 1 tbsp + 1 tsp of honey. The tested King Arthur rule works in cups instead, and the swap needs three other adjustments — cut the other liquid, add a little baking soda, and drop the oven temperature — which our sugar to honey page covers in full.

Why do the liquid dairy swaps not need any arithmetic?

Because they all weigh nearly the same. Across the 10 pourable and spoonable dairy items on this site a cup runs from 226 g to 245 g — a spread of only about 8%, which is less than the error in how you fill the cup. So milk, buttermilk, cream, yogurt and sour cream can be measured cup for cup or gram for gram interchangeably. Whether the swap suits the recipe is a separate question: buttermilk and yogurt are acidic and will react with baking soda, where plain milk will not.

Can I swap one grain for another cup for cup?

You can measure it that way, but check two things first. The dry weights differ — a cup of raw long-grain white rice is 185 g against 170 g for quinoa — so a cup of rice is 1 cup + 1 tbsp + 1 tsp of quinoa by weight. More importantly the cooking water and time are not transferable, and the cooked yields differ, so a straight swap in a one-pot dish will not come out right. Our dry to cooked converter has the yields; the grain conversion chart has the dry weights side by side.

Is there one substitution rule that always works?

Yes, and it is not a ratio: weigh the original, then weigh the replacement to the number the recipe actually needed. Every table on this page is that one operation done for you. It is also why professional recipes are written in grams — a gram of an ingredient is a fixed thing, whereas a cup is a container that different ingredients fill to wildly different weights.

Why do most substitution charts not give amounts?

Because they answer a different question. A typical chart is a list of what can stand in for what — buttermilk for milk, cocoa for chocolate — and it assumes you will measure the replacement in the same units the recipe used. That assumption is safe for liquids and mix-ins and quietly wrong for everything dry, which is where a swap most often goes astray. This page exists to fill in the second half: the amount.

Need a different conversion?

One ingredient at a time: cups to grams for all 80 ingredients, grams to cups in reverse, and tablespoons to grams for spoon amounts. Whole families side by side: flours, sugars and syrups, dairy and fats, baking ingredients, grains. Changing the size of the recipe as well as its ingredients? Use the recipe scaler or the recipe halving chart, and the recipe weight calculator to total the whole list once you have settled it.