Kitchen Unit Converter

The numbers worth remembering: 1 tablespoon is 3 teaspoons; 1 cup is 16 tablespoons or 48 teaspoons; 1 cup is 240ml; 1 tablespoon is 15ml; 1 teaspoon is 5ml. From those five facts you can convert almost any kitchen volume in your head. The presets in this tool cover the most-asked conversions: cup to tbsp, cup to tsp, cup to ml, tbsp to tsp, tbsp to ml. Click one and the calculation runs instantly.

This is volume-only conversion. The numbers don't depend on what you're measuring - 1 tablespoon is 15ml whether it's water, oil, vanilla extract or honey. That's the difference between this tool and the [recipe unit converter](/recipe-unit-converter): the recipe converter handles ingredient density (1 cup of flour vs 1 cup of sugar weighing differently in grams), this one handles pure volume-to-volume swaps. For everyday "how many tbsp in a cup" questions, this is the faster tool.

You're cooking from a recipe written in cups and your kitchen has tablespoons but no measuring cups (the standard British position). Or the recipe says "3 tbsp" of olive oil and you only have a 5ml medicine spoon to hand - that's 9 spoonfuls. Or a baking recipe needs "½ tsp baking powder" and you grabbed the tablespoon, in which case ½ tsp is one-sixth of a tablespoon, or about 2.5ml.

The most common confusion: tablespoons in different countries. A US tablespoon is 14.79ml (rounded to 15ml in cooking). An Australian tablespoon is 20ml. A UK tablespoon was historically 17.7ml but modern UK measuring spoons match the US 15ml standard. This tool uses the 15ml convention, which matches UK and US recipe writing in 2026. For Australian recipes, multiply tablespoon counts by 20/15 = 1.33.

Use volume (this tool) for liquids, small spice quantities, and rough cooking. Use weight (a kitchen scale) for baking, anything precise, anything ratio-based. Volume measurement is faster and equipment-light; weight measurement is more accurate. For everyday cooking - a stew, a curry, a stir-fry - volume is fine and the small inaccuracy doesn't matter. For bread, cake, pastry and patisserie, volume measurement of dry ingredients can be 20% off and the result fails.

If you're scaling a recipe at the same time as converting units, the [recipe scaler](/recipe-scaler) handles servings adjustments, then come back here for unit swaps. For temperature conversions (Fahrenheit, Celsius, gas marks), the [oven temperature converter](/oven-temperature-converter) covers those. Most full recipe conversions involve all three steps: temperature, units, sometimes scaling.

Reading "tsp" as "tbsp" or vice versa is the single biggest spoonful mix-up. The lower-case "tsp" is teaspoon (5ml), capital-or-lower "tbsp" or "T" is tablespoon (15ml) - 3x the size. In a recipe that says "1 tbsp salt" it's salting for a stew; "1 tsp salt" is for a small pasta dish. Triple the salt and you'll throw the pan away. When in doubt, the lowercase letter is smaller in real life too.

Heaped vs level matters. "1 tablespoon flour" usually means level (scrape excess off with a knife edge), unless the recipe specifies "heaped" or "rounded". A heaped tablespoon of flour can be 50% more than a level one. Old British recipes sometimes assume heaped (gran's apple crumble); modern recipes assume level. If unsure, use level - you can add more, you can't take it out.