How many tablespoons in a cup?
There are 16 tablespoons in 1 US cup, so ½ cup is 8 tablespoons and ¼ cup is 4.
A US cup holds 8 fluid ounces and a tablespoon holds half a fluid ounce, which is where the 16 comes from. In metric terms a cup is 236.6 ml and a tablespoon is 14.79 ml.
Thirds are the awkward ones. Sixteen doesn't divide by three, so ⅓ cup is 5 tbsp + 1 tsp and ⅔ cup is 10 tbsp + 2 tsp.
Converter
Measure it as 1 cup.
| Cups | Tablespoons | Tablespoons and teaspoons | Milliliters |
|---|---|---|---|
| ⅛ cup | 2 | 2 tbsp | 29.57 ml |
| ¼ cup | 4 | 4 tbsp | 59.15 ml |
| ⅓ cup | 5⅓ | 5 tbsp + 1 tsp | 78.86 ml |
| ⅜ cup | 6 | 6 tbsp | 88.72 ml |
| ½ cup | 8 | 8 tbsp | 118.3 ml |
| ⅝ cup | 10 | 10 tbsp | 147.9 ml |
| ⅔ cup | 10⅔ | 10 tbsp + 2 tsp | 157.7 ml |
| ¾ cup | 12 | 12 tbsp | 177.4 ml |
| 1 cup | 16 | 16 tbsp | 236.6 ml |
| 2 cups | 32 | 32 tbsp | 473.2 ml |
Calculated from the exact unit definitions (1 US cup = 236.5882365 ml, 1 oz = 28.349523125 g) and rounded for the kitchen.
Tablespoons in metric and Australian cups
Recipes from Australia, New Zealand and Canada often use a 250 ml metric cup. That is 16.9 US tablespoons, close enough to 16 that most recipes work either way.
Australia also uses a 20 ml tablespoon, four teaspoons instead of three, so an Australian cup is 12½ Australian tablespoons. When an Australian recipe asks for a tablespoon of baking powder, salt or gelatin, measure 4 US teaspoons.
When to stop counting spoons
Spooning out tablespoons is fine for butter, oil and anything under ¼ cup. Past that, a measuring cup is quicker and you're less likely to lose count. For flour and sugar, a scale beats both: see grams to cups for what a cup of each weighs.
Level every spoon with the back of a knife. A heaped tablespoon of a dry ingredient holds noticeably more than a level one, and recipes always mean level unless they say otherwise.
Butter is already marked
A US stick of butter is 8 tablespoons, or ½ cup, and the wrapper is printed with tablespoon lines. Two sticks make a cup. The butter conversion page has sticks in grams.
Recipes you find in videos rarely agree on units. ReelMeal turns a TikTok, Reel or YouTube video into a written recipe, and its Units setting shows the amounts in US cups and ounces or in grams and milliliters.
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How many tablespoons are in ½ cup?
8 tablespoons. That is also 4 fluid ounces, or one US stick of butter.
How many tablespoons are in ⅓ cup?
5⅓ tablespoons, which you measure as 5 tbsp + 1 tsp. Two thirds of a cup is 10 tbsp + 2 tsp.
How many tablespoons are in ¼ cup?
4 tablespoons, which is 2 fluid ounces or about 59 ml.
Is a tablespoon the same size everywhere?
Nearly. A US tablespoon is 14.79 ml and the metric tablespoon used in the UK, Europe, Canada and New Zealand is 15 ml, too small a gap to matter. The exception is Australia, where a tablespoon is 20 ml.