In the US, recipes generally use cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons when describing the amounts of ingredients used. For some ingredients, such as meat and fish, recipes will provide the weight of the ingredient in pounds, ounces, etc. Liquids may also be given in gallons, quarts, or pints.
Common Abbreviations
| 1 C or c | 1 cup |
| 1 T or tbsp | 1 tablespoon |
| 1 t or tsp | 1 teaspoon |
| 1 lb | 1 pound |
| 1 oz | 1 ounce |
| 1 gal | 1 gallon |
| 1 qt | 1 quart |
| 1 pt | 1 pint |
Recipes from other countries will often use the metric system, so solid ingredients will be given in grams or kilograms and liquids will be given in milliliters or liters. For this reason, it is extremely useful to have a food scale. When recipes from the UK or Australia use cups or pints, they are likely using imperial cups and pints, which are different than US cups and pints! Even tablespoons and teaspoons are different, so pay attention to where the recipe comes from.
Common Abbreviations and Equivalences
| 1 kg | 1 kilogram | 1000 grams |
| 1 g | 1 gram | |
| 1 l | 1 liter | 1000 milliliters |
| 1 ml | 1 milliliter |
You can find numerous conversion tools and charts online, but spoonacular already converts recipes for you! Just toggle between metric and US on the recipe page.
