The Short Answer
So 100 grams of vegetable oil comes to a little under half a cup, and 500 grams is roughly 2.3 cups. This applies to neutral cooking oils broadly — canola, sunflower, corn, safflower, and generic vegetable oil blends all cluster close to this same figure.
Grams To Cups Converter
Convert grams to cups instantly for common cooking and baking ingredients.
Why Oil Weighs Less Than the Same Volume of Water
Water weighs about 237 grams per US cup. Vegetable oil comes in lighter, at roughly 218 grams per cup, because oil molecules are simply less dense than water molecules — oil floats on water for the same underlying reason. As a rough reference point, cooking oils typically have a density around 0.92 g/mL, compared to water's 1.0 g/mL, which is why a cup of oil weighs about 8% less than a cup of water. Any chart that lists vegetable oil at the same weight as water (240 g/cup) is applying water's density by mistake — oil is a genuinely lighter liquid, not an equivalent one.
Grams to Cups Chart
| Grams | Cups | Ounces |
|---|---|---|
| 15 g | 1 tbsp | 0.53 oz |
| 27 g | ⅛ cup | 0.95 oz |
| 55 g | ¼ cup | 1.94 oz |
| 73 g | ⅓ cup | 2.57 oz |
| 109 g | ½ cup | 3.84 oz |
| 145 g | ⅔ cup | 5.11 oz |
| 164 g | ¾ cup | 5.78 oz |
| 218 g | 1 cup | 7.69 oz |
| 300 g | ~1.38 cups | 10.58 oz |
| 436 g | 2 cups | 15.38 oz |
| 654 g | 3 cups | 23.07 oz |
Does the Type of Oil Change the Weight?
A little, but less than most people expect — nearly all common cooking oils fall within a tight band:
| Oil Type | Grams per Cup | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Canola / sunflower / corn / safflower | ~215–220 g | Neutral oils, essentially interchangeable by weight |
| Vegetable oil blend | ~218 g | The reference figure used throughout this guide |
| Olive oil | ~220–224 g | Slightly denser due to its fatty acid composition |
| Coconut oil (liquid/melted) | ~218 g | Same as neutral oils once fully melted |
| Coconut oil (solid) | Varies by temperature | Not a fixed density — see note below |
Coconut oil deserves a separate mention: it's solid below about 76°F (24°C) and liquid above it, and the two states pack into a measuring cup very differently. A recipe that says "1 cup coconut oil, melted" and one that says "1 cup coconut oil, solid" are not asking for the same weight of coconut oil, even though both technically fill a cup. When precision matters, weighing coconut oil sidesteps this issue entirely, since 218 grams is 218 grams regardless of whether it's solid or liquid at the moment you measure it.
Substituting Oil for Butter (and Back)
This is one of the more genuinely useful things to know about oil conversions, since it comes up constantly in recipe adaptation. Butter isn't pure fat — it's roughly 80% fat and about 20% water and milk solids — while oil is essentially 100% fat. That difference means a direct 1:1 swap by volume isn't quite right if you want a comparable amount of fat in the batter:
- Replacing butter with oil: use about 75% of the butter's weight in oil. So 227 g (1 cup) of butter converts to roughly 170 g of oil, which is a little under ¾ cup.
- Replacing oil with butter: use about 133% of the oil's weight in butter. So 218 g (1 cup) of oil converts to roughly 290 g of butter, a bit more than 1¼ cups.
This isn't a flavor-neutral swap — butter brings dairy richness and browning that oil doesn't — but it keeps the fat content of the recipe roughly consistent, which matters more for texture than the flavor difference usually does.
How to Measure Oil Accurately
Because oil is a true liquid, the technique is simpler than for dry or semi-solid ingredients — there's no packing or leveling involved, and any tip suggesting you "pack" oil into a cup is describing a solid-fat technique, not a liquid one:
- Use a liquid measuring cup, not a dry one — liquid cups are designed to be read from the side with headroom below the rim.
- Set it on a flat surface and check the fill line at eye level, the same way you would for water or milk.
- Pour slowly near the target line — oil's viscosity means it takes a moment to settle and stop moving after you stop pouring, so rushing the last bit can lead to overfilling.
- For coconut oil, decide whether the recipe wants it solid or melted before measuring — see the note above.
Does Cup Size Change the Number?
Slightly — since cup standards vary in volume, the weight of oil scales with them:
| Cup Standard | Volume | Vegetable Oil Weight |
|---|---|---|
| US Customary Cup | 236.588 mL | 218 g |
| US Legal Cup | 240 mL | ~221 g |
| Metric Cup | 250 mL | ~230 g |
| Imperial Cup | 284.131 mL | ~262 g |
Quick Reference
- 55 g vegetable oil = ¼ cup
- 109 g vegetable oil = ½ cup
- 218 g vegetable oil = 1 cup
- 436 g vegetable oil = 2 cups
- 14 g vegetable oil ≈ 1 tablespoon
The Bottom Line
218 grams per cup is a dependable reference for vegetable and other neutral cooking oils — just remember it's noticeably lighter than water, not equal to it, since that's the mistake that throws off more oil conversions than anything else. Because oil is a true liquid, measuring by volume is already fairly accurate day-to-day; a scale becomes more useful specifically when substituting oil for butter (or the reverse), or when working with coconut oil, where solid-versus-melted state can make a cup measurement genuinely ambiguous.
Trusted Sources
- Grams in a Cup Converter — Vegetable Oil — The reference calculator this guide's figures (218 g per cup) are drawn from.
- MyFoodData — Nutrition Facts for Vegetable Oil — USDA-sourced nutrition data confirming 1 cup (218 g) as the standard serving size.
- Tell Me In Grams — Vegetable Oil in Grams — Full cup-to-grams conversion table for vegetable, sunflower, canola, and rapeseed oils.
- University of Rochester Medicine — Vegetable Oil, Canola, 1 Cup — Health encyclopedia nutrition entry listing 218 g of total fat per 1-cup serving.
Other Ingredients
Grams-to-cups conversion isn't only useful for oil. Each of these has its own weight-per-cup because densities differ: