Grams to Teaspoons

Grams turn into teaspoons through the weight of a teaspoon

A gram measures weight and a teaspoon measures volume, so there is no single “grams in a teaspoon”: it depends on what fills the spoon. A level US teaspoon of granulated sugar weighs 4.17 grams, of table salt 6.08 grams, of baking powder 4.6 grams. To turn grams into teaspoons (tsp), divide by the weight of one teaspoon of that ingredient.

The spoon here is the US teaspoon: 1/6 US fluid ounce, 4.93 ml, and by definition 1 US tablespoon = 3 teaspoons and 1 US cup = 48 teaspoons. USDA FoodData Central gives one weight per ingredient, and every measure follows from it: a cup of sugar is 200 grams, so a teaspoon is 1/48 of it, 4.17 grams. Baking powder, baking soda, active dry yeast and ground cinnamon USDA weighs by the teaspoon itself — 4.6 grams, 4.6 grams, 4 grams and 2.6 grams.

Three steps

1. Find the weight of one teaspoon of the ingredient — in the table below. For table salt it is 6.08 grams.
2. Divide the grams by it. 10 grams of salt ÷ (292 ÷ 48) ≈ 1.64 teaspoons. For salt the weight of a teaspoon is the USDA cup divided by 48, so the division is written that way.
3. Round to a spoon you own. Measuring spoons come in halves, quarters and eighths: 1.64 teaspoons is just over 1 5/8 teaspoons.

What 5 and 10 grams of each ingredient come to in teaspoons

If the ingredient does not matter yet, start from how many teaspoons 5 grams is — every ingredient at once. The opposite question, how many grams a recipe’s teaspoons weigh, is on the teaspoons to grams page; larger amounts are on grams to tablespoons and grams to cups.

Where this actually comes up

• Sugar for coffee or tea.10 grams of sugar is 2.4 teaspoons; 4 grams, 0.96 teaspoons.
• Salt by the gram. A bread recipe’s 10 grams of salt is 1.64 teaspoons of table salt — kosher salt is coarser and weighs less per spoon.
• Baking powder for a cake. 8 grams of baking powder is 1.74 teaspoons.
• A packet of yeast. 7 grams of active dry yeast is 1.75 teaspoons by the USDA teaspoon.
• Spices. 5 grams of ground cinnamon is 1.92 teaspoons — cinnamon is light.
• Nutrition labels. A label’s 25 grams of added sugar is 6 teaspoons of granulated sugar.

Where USDA’s own spoon weights differ

USDA FoodData Central also lists a teaspoon for some ingredients it weighs by the cup. This converter does not use those portions — they would make a teaspoon disagree with its own cup — but checks every one against the derived weight: 6 of them agree within 1.4 %, and a gap over 5 % would be named on the result page.

Baking powder and baking soda

A teaspoon of baking powder and a teaspoon of baking soda both weigh 4.6 grams in USDA FoodData Central, so 2.17 teaspoons of either is 10 grams. They are still different products: baking soda needs an acid in the recipe and is several times stronger, so a teaspoon of one never replaces a teaspoon of the other. Each has its own row and its own pages.

Water: a gram is a milliliter

1 ml of water weighs about 1 g, so a US teaspoon of water weighs its own volume, 4.93 grams. That makes 10 grams of water 2.03 teaspoons, exactly the volume of 10 ml on the milliliters to teaspoons converter. Every other liquid — milk, oil, honey — uses its USDA weight, because a spoon of it is not a spoon of water.

Where the teaspoon and the gram come from

The teaspoon was the small spoon for stirring tea, which reached European tables in the 17th century. American cookbooks of the late 19th century, Fannie Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School Cook Book of 1896 among them, made it a level measure, and the US teaspoon settled at 1/3 of a tablespoon, 1/6 of a fluid ounce. The gram was defined in France in 1795 as the weight of one cubic centimeter of water at the temperature of melting ice. Grams to teaspoons is where a recipe’s small weights meet a set of measuring spoons.

US or metric teaspoon

This page uses the US teaspoon of 4.93 ml. The metric teaspoon used in the UK, Australia and most of the world holds 5 ml, 1.4 % more — close enough for cooking. Every result page names the metric figure on one line under the answer. The teaspoon by volume alone is on the milliliters to teaspoons and teaspoons to milliliters pages.

Doing it in your head

Three anchors cover most recipes: a teaspoon of sugar is about 4 g, of table salt about 6 g, of baking powder about 4.6 g. So 20 grams of sugar is about five teaspoons, 12 grams of salt about two, and 9 grams of baking powder about two. For anything USDA weighs by the cup, divide the cup by 48: a cup of flour at 125 grams makes a teaspoon of 2.6 grams.

Where the weights come from

Every weight on this page except water’s comes from a household portion in USDA FoodData Central, the SR Legacy dataset (the final release of the USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference), taken for a level spoon. Each result page names the exact entry — for baking powder it is USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy entry 172803 “Leavening agents, baking powder, double-acting, sodium aluminum sulfate”, portion “1 tsp” = 4.6 grams. The same weights drive teaspoons to grams and, for the ingredients USDA weighs by the cup, cups to grams. A heaped spoon weighs more than a level one; for baking powder and yeast a kitchen scale is the exact answer.