Ever encountered a recipe ingredient that says one-fourth cup and thought, how many tablespoons in ¼ cup? You are at the right place as I will discuss how to deal with such conversions and make your work easier as you keep reading the post.
Cooking is easy if we know how to add the ingredients correctly per the recipe instructions with the correct measures.
Doing so gives us the correct results at the end of the recipe. I will discuss cups and tablespoons below, which are everyday cooking measuring methods.
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What are tablespoons and cups?
Tablespoons are generally small kitchen tools to measure ingredients, and their volume in US customary standard units and spoons makes adding any cooking ingredient easy.
The spoons come in small sizes and big sizes. Here, we are talking about a tablespoon slightly larger than a teaspoon, equivalent to 15 ml in volume.
On the other hand, a teaspoon holds 5 ml, according to nutrition labels in the United States.
1 tablespoon = 15 ml,
1 teaspoon = 5 ml
The measures mentioned above are according to labels followed in nutrition labels and the pharmaceutical sector.
Remembering the precise measures in cooking can make things difficult. Therefore, remembering their approximate measures helps us correctly remember and convert any measure.
A tablespoon is ⅛ of a cup, and a cup contains 8 ounces. A cup is equal to 236.588 mL or approximately 236.59 milliliters.
A cup also measures the volume of dry and wet ingredients but can be used where the quantity is more than tablespoons.
A tablespoon can hold ½ of a fluid ounce, whereas a cup can hold eight ounces. Now one can imagine the capacity of a cup.
1 US cup = 8 ounces (236.58 mL) and 1 US tablespoon = ½ US fluid ounce (15 mL),
And,
1 US tablespoon = ⅛ of a US cup.
Sometimes, we may not have a cup or want to measure some ingredients in tablespoons, such as sugar, salt, spices, butter, etc., which need small measures.
Therefore, knowing the relationship between a cup and a tablespoon and their conversion methods helps make calculation easy.
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How many tablespoons are in ¼ cup?
Let us first understand the tablespoons capacity for 1 cup, which makes us easy to calculate one-fourth cup in tablespoons or to know how many tablespoons in a quarter cup.
We can easily say that measuring in tablespoons is more manageable than using teaspoons. One cup contains 16 tablespoons, and 1 cup equals 48 teaspoons.
1 US cup = 16 US tablespoons
The above equation makes it easy to calculate the formula for ¼ cup, ⅙ cup, or ⅛ cup in tablespoons.
Formula:
To get the number of tablespoons, we need to multiply the number of cups by 16.
Tablespoons = cups * 16
To get tablespoons for ¼ cup, using the formula, we get,
¼ cup = ¼ * 16 = 4 tablespoons
¼ cup = 4 tablespoons
Or
0.25 cup = 0.25 * 16 = 4 tablespoons (¼ cup can also be represented using the decimal form as 0.25 cup )
Therefore the answer to the question, how much is ¼ cup in tablespoons? It is four(4) tablespoons.
Another way to remember is that half a cup is eight(8) tablespoons. One-fourth cup or a quarter cup is half of the ½ cup; in that case, half of 8 tablespoons is 4.
¼ cup -> Half of the ½ cup is (¼ cup)
-> ½ * 8 tablespoons
->¼ cup = 4 tablespoons.
Let us check below some more conversions that can be divided further from ¼ cup to ⅙ cup or ⅛ cup.
How many tablespoons is ⅛ cup?
As we have converted above for ¼ cup, using the same formula, let us convert for the ⅛ cup.
⅛ cup is half of the ¼ cup, and we can get the results directly without a formula or a calculator.
To simply put it, ⅛ cup is half of the one-fourth cup. We know one-fourth cup in tablespoons is 4; therefore, half of 4 tablespoons will be 2, that is, one-eight cups is 2 tablespoons.
If you like to check it using a formula, we get,
Tbsp = cups * 16
⅛ cup= ⅛ * 16 = 2 tablespoons
Or
½ of ¼ cup(⅛ cup)
½ * 4 tablespoons = 2 tablespoons.
It can be tricky to remember a lot of mathematics; therefore, remember that ¼ cup is 4 tablespoons and ⅛ cup is 2 tablespoons.
⅙ cup is how many tablespoons?
To get the results for ⅙ cup, we need to use the same formula, and we get,
Tablespoons = cups * 16.
For ⅙ cup, we get
⅙ * 16 = 2.666 tablespoons.
Now, 2.66 can be confusing to make it convert precisely in such a case; to make it easy, the answer for ⅙ cup to tablespoons is approximately 2 tablespoons and 2 teaspoons.
In short, ¼ cup equals 4 US tablespoons, ⅛ cup equals 2 US tablespoons, and ⅙ cup equals 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons(US).
US cups to US tablespoons conversion table
| US Cups | US Tablespoons | Milliliters (mL) | US Fluid ounces (fl. oz) |
| ¼ cup | 4 tablespoons | 59.14 mL | 2 fl. oz |
| ⅙ cup | 2 tablespoons+2 teaspoons | 39.43 mL | 1.33 fl. oz |
| ⅛ cup | 2 tablespoons | 29.57 mL | 1 fl. oz |
| ½ cup | 8 tablespoons | 118.29 mL | 4 fl. oz |
| ⅔ cup | 5 tablespoons+ 2 teaspoons | 157.72 mL | 5.33 fl. oz |
| ¾ cup | 12 tablespoons | 177.44 mL | 6 fl. oz |
| 1 cup | 16 tablespoons | 236.58 mL | 8 fl. oz |
Where do we use tablespoons and not cups?
We can use tablespoons when we do not require much stuff to make any dish.
For example, while making any fried rice dish using 1 cup of rice, we require adding oil in less quantity, and we may use, in such case, a teaspoon or a tablespoon, but we may not need oil to add in cups.
Therefore, adding oil in tablespoons and using cups to add rice makes sense.
The recipe goes wrong and is unhealthy if you use cups for tablespoons and tablespoons instead of cups to add oil and rice.
The above shared is the perfect example to show where we can use tablespoons and cups for regular cooking that needs ingredients to be added in fewer quantities or to cook for 2-4 members.
If cooking for a family, using tablespoons and cups correctly helps make any dish easily.
Tablespoons and cups relationship in Imperial system
The Imperial system is outdated and no longer uses cups and tablespoons. The United States uses its customary units, not Imperial measurements, to measure the volume.
Earlier, United Kingdon used the cups and tablespoons measures in old recipes that have conversions in Imperial and vary with the US customary measurements.
The United Kingdom no longer uses it. If you see any old recipe, it is always a good idea to check which country it originated from as only a few countries, such as the USA, use standard units, and the rest of the countries use metric measures.
To understand Imperial measures, let us see how they vary with US tablespoons below for ¼ cup, ⅛ cup, and ⅙ cup.
Table to convert from Cups to US and Imperial tablespoons
| Cups | US Tablespoons | Imperial Tablespoons | Milliliters (mL) |
| ¼ US cup | 4 US tablespoons | ~3.33 Imperial tablespoons | 59.14 mL |
| ¼ Imperial cup | 4.80 US tablespoons | ~4 Imperial tablespoons | 71.03 mL |
| ⅙ US cup | 2.66 US tablespoons | ~2.22 Imperial tablespoons | 39.43 mL |
| ⅙ Imperial cup | 3.20 US tablespoons | ~2.66 Imperial tablespoons | 47.35 mL |
| ⅛ US cup | 2 US tablespoons | ~1.66 Imperial tablespoons | 29.57 mL |
| ⅛ Imperial cup | 2.40 US tablespoons | ~ 2 Imperial tablespoons | 35.51 mL |
The imperial cup is more significant than the customary US cup used in cooking.
One Imperial cup equals 284.1 mL, and 1 US cup equals 236.58 mL.
The Imperial cup is an outdated cup(used in old recipes), and the one currently used in the United States is equivalent to 236.58 mL, and the nutrition cup equals 240 mL.
Similarly, the Imperial tablespoon holds more volume than the US tablespoon.
1 Imperial tablespoon = 17.75 mL or 0.625 fluid ounces, whereas
1 US tablespoon = 14.78 mL and 15 mL in nutrition labeling.
Therefore, the data in the above table clearly shows that Imperial tablespoons and cups hold more capacity.
The information is only for general purposes as we need to use only US cups and US tablespoons with their customary measurements.
The United Kingdom currently uses metric measures, and so does the rest of the world.
Conclusion
In conclusion, ¼ cup to tablespoons is 4 tablespoons, ⅛ cup to tablespoons is 2 tablespoons, and ⅙ cup is 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons.
To know about the rest of the cups to tablespoons, refer to the tables mentioned and comment below for any questions related to any conversion.
Faq’s
¼ cup or quarter cup dry ingredients such as flour or sugar; measure 4 tablespoons.
Liquid ingredients such as oil, water, milk, etc., measure about 4 tablespoons for ¼ cup.
Butter equals 4 tablespoons for a quarter cup or ¼ cup.
¼ cup of all-purpose flour, cake flour, almond flour, etc., equals 4 tablespoons.
A quarter cup contains 12 teaspoons. One cup equals 48 teaspoons and ¼ cup equals 12 tsp(48/4 = 12)
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