Ounces to Cups Converter – Convert Oz to Cups

Ounces and cups in recipes

The ounce (oz) is a measurement of mass used mostly in UK and the the former British colonies, including the US, UK, Australia, New Zealand, among others. It has been standardized most recently in the 20-th century and is now defined in terms of grams (28.35 grams to be precise).

The cup is a unit of volume with two definitions that one can encounter in recipes. The most widely used is the US legal cup, defined as containing 240 ml of volume. An older unit still encountered is the Imperial cup which equals 284 ml. Both units are supported by our converter.

Ideally, one would not convert weight to volume (oz to cups) since this conversion requires the introduction of density in the calculation, and that can only be roughly estimated from averages. Therefore, using volumes introduces unnecessary uncertainty in the preparation of a recipe and should be avoided when a kitchen scale is available. This holds especially true for sweets and desserts.

 How many ounces in a cup?

It depends on what is to be put in the cup. Simply put, the weight in ounces of a given volume of an ingredient depends directly on the density of said ingredient. For example, a cup of water weighs about eight and a half ounces, while a cup of vegetable oil weighs just 7.7 ounces. So if we take 7.7 ounces of oil it will fill a cup while 8.5 ounces of water will leave some empty space on the top.

To answer the question, first learn what the density of the substance is, then divide its volume by the density to get the number of ounces in a cup. This can involve both research and math, and you can spare yourself the effort if you simply employ our oz to cups converter as long as the ingredient is among the list of supported ones.

 Converting between oz and cups

The conversion from ounces to cups can be approached once the density of the substance to be converted is known. For example, a recipe might specify 8 ounces water and 16 ounces of flour, and you may want to convert those measurements to cups. To do so, follow these instructions:

Eight ounces of water to cups

Sample task: convert eight ounces of water to cups, knowing that the density of water is 1 gram per milliliter meaning that a US cup holds 8.5 oz of water. Solution:

Formula:
oz / 8.5 = cups
Calculation:
8 oz / 8.50 = 0.941176 cups
End result:
8 oz is equal to 0.941176 cups

For practical purposes, eight ounces of water equal one cup of water.

Sixteen ounces of milk to cups

Sample task: convert sixteen ounces of flour to cups, knowing that the density of flour is 0.67 grams per milliliter meaning that a cup holds 5.7 oz of flour. Solution:

Formula:
oz / 5.7 = cups
Calculation:
16 oz / 5.70 = 2.807018 cups
End result:
16 oz is equal to 2.807018 cups

For most scenarious you’d be happy to round that up to three cups of flour while skimming just a bit off the top of the last one.

Oz to cups conversion tables

For your convenience, we present charts for some of the most used cooking ingredients, namely water, milk, and vegetable oil.

Ounces of water to cups conversion table

Often used quantities of water in ounces and their corresponding values in US cups are listed below.

Ounces to cups of milk conversion table

Below is a kitchen conversion chart in ounces of milk and their corresponding values in cups (US legal cups).

Ounces of vegetable oil to cups conversion table

This helpful conversion chart is between ounces and cups of vegetable oil such as olive oil, sunflower oil, and others.