How Many Grams Is a Tablespoon?
A tablespoon is 15 ml, but grams depend on what is in it: 15 g of water, 13 g of oil, about 8 g of flour, 12 g of sugar. Why volume to weight is ingredient-specific, with a table.
In short
A tablespoon is a volume of 15 ml in the UK, US and Australia is 20 ml. What it weighs depends on the ingredient: roughly 15 g of water, 13 g of oil, 12 g of granulated sugar, 8 g of plain flour, 20 g of honey or golden syrup, and 14 g of butter. There is no single gram figure because ingredients have different densities.
The question does not have one answer, and the reason is worth understanding because it explains why recipes go wrong when spoons and scales are mixed.
Volume versus weight
A tablespoon is a unit of volume: 15 ml in the UK and, near enough, the US. Grams are a unit of weight. Converting between them requires knowing how dense the ingredient is, and cooking ingredients vary enormously.
Fifteen millilitres of water weighs 15 g. Fifteen millilitres of flour, which is mostly air between particles, weighs around 8 g. Fifteen millilitres of honey, which is dense, weighs about 20 g.
The table
Level tablespoons, 15 ml:
| Ingredient | Grams per tbsp |
|---|---|
| Water, milk, stock | 15 |
| Vegetable or olive oil | 13 |
| Butter | 14 |
| Granulated sugar | 12 |
| Caster sugar | 13 |
| Brown sugar, packed | 14 |
| Icing sugar | 8 |
| Plain flour | 8 |
| Cornflour | 9 |
| Cocoa powder | 7 |
| Honey, golden syrup | 20 |
| Peanut butter | 16 |
| Salt, table | 18 |
| Salt, flaky | 9 |
| Baking powder | 12 |
| Rice, uncooked | 13 |
| Oats | 6 |
Teaspoons are one third of these figures, since a teaspoon is 5 ml.
Why it matters
For most cooking, not much. A tablespoon of oil in a pan is a tablespoon of oil whatever it weighs.
For baking it matters a great deal. Bread and cake recipes depend on ratios of flour, fat, sugar and liquid, and a recipe that says 30 g of flour is asking for something quite different from one that says two tablespoons, even though the table above suggests they are close. The heaped-versus-level question alone can double a spoon of flour.
That is why serious baking recipes give weights, and why a kitchen scale is a better investment than a set of measuring spoons.
The spoon-size problem
Most people use whatever spoon is in the drawer. A dessert spoon holds around 10 ml; a serving spoon might hold 25. Neither is a tablespoon. If you measure by spoons at all, use a proper measuring spoon and level it.
Australian recipes assume a 20 ml tablespoon, a third larger. American recipes assume 14.8 ml, which is close enough to ignore. Older British recipes occasionally assumed 17.7 ml, which is the source of a good deal of inherited confusion.
The practical rule
Anything liquid or fatty: a tablespoon is about 13 to 15 g, close enough. Anything powdery: roughly half that, and level it. Anything sticky: about 20 g. And if the recipe is for something that has to rise, weigh it.
Common questions
Is a tablespoon 15 g?
Only for water and things with similar density, such as milk or stock. For anything else the gram figure differs, and for flour or cocoa it is roughly half of 15.
Is a UK tablespoon the same as a US one?
Very close: 15 ml in the UK and 14.8 ml in the US. Australia uses 20 ml, so Australian recipes need adjusting. Old British recipes sometimes assumed a larger spoon, around 17.7 ml, which explains some inconsistency in inherited recipe cards.
Should I level the spoon?
Yes, unless the recipe says heaped. A heaped tablespoon of flour can be nearly double a level one. Level with the back of a knife for dry ingredients.
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