Milliliters to US cups converter

How to convert ml to cups

Divide the milliliters by 236.5882365, the size of one US customary cup in milliliters, or multiply by 0.0042268. So 250 mL = 1.0567 US cups, a little over one cup, and 500 mL = 2.1134 cups. Use it to measure a metric recipe with American measuring cups and spoons.

Turning the decimal into cups and spoons

US measuring sets come in cups, tablespoons and teaspoons: a cup is 16 tablespoons and a tablespoon is 3 teaspoons. Fill whole and half cups first, then make up the rest with spoons.

For 150 mL, the answer is 0.634 cup. Half a cup is 118.29 mL, which leaves 31.71 mL, or 2.14 tablespoons at 14.79 mL each. So 150 mL is ½ cup plus 2 tablespoons, within 1.5%.

Metric amounts in US cups and spoons

• 50 mL: 3 tbsp + 1 tsp
• 100 mL: 6¾ tbsp
• 125 mL: ½ cup + 1¼ tsp
• 250 mL: 1 cup + 1 tbsp
• 500 mL: 2 cups + 2 tbsp
• 1 liter: 4¼ cups

Each of these is within 1.5% of the metric amount.

ml to cups chart

When the recipe's cup is already metric

Recipes from Australia, New Zealand and Canada use a 250 mL metric cup (NSW cooking-measure reference). With a set of metric cups, 250 mL is simply one cup and needs no conversion; with US cups it is 1.0567 cups, or 1 cup + 1 tbsp.

US nutrition labels use yet another cup, 240 mL, under 21 CFR 101.9(b)(5)(viii). A label's 240 mL is 1.0144 US customary cups, about 1 cup + ½ tsp.

Mistakes to avoid

• Multiplying instead of dividing. 250 × 236.59 gives 59,147, an impossible number of cups. The cup figure is always much smaller than the milliliter figure.
• Reading decimal cups as cups and tablespoons. 1.5 cups is 1 cup plus 8 tablespoons, not 1 cup plus 5.
• Starting from liters. Multiply liters by 1,000 first: 0.75 L is 750 mL, or 3.17 cups. Liters to cups does both steps.

For the reverse direction, use cups to ml. To weigh ingredients instead of measuring them, the cooking converter turns cups of a named ingredient into grams.