Milliliters to Cups

European, Asian and many online recipes measure liquids in milliliters, while American kitchens are stocked with cup and spoon sets. The converter gives a decimal, but measuring cups come in fractions, so round to the nearest practical set: 200 mL is 0.85 cup, a little over 3/4 cup plus a tablespoon; 150 mL is 0.63 cup, just under 2/3; and 100 mL is 0.42 cup, which you can measure as 1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon.

For quantities under about 60 mL, cups are too coarse and spoons work better: 30 mL is 2 US tablespoons and 15 mL is just over one.

A 250 mL carton of juice is 1.06 US cups, a 330 mL can is 1.39 cups, a 500 mL bottle is 2.11 cups, and a 1 L carton of milk or stock is 4.23 cups, a bit more than a US quart of 4 cups. A 400 mL can of coconut milk, a size common in Asian recipes, is 1.69 cups.

Remember that a recipe from Australia or New Zealand already uses a 250 mL cup, so if it says 2 cups you need 500 mL, which is 2.11 US cups. Converting that recipe's cups to milliliters first and then into US cups avoids the drift.

Use a liquid measuring cup at eye level and read the bottom of the curved surface. If you own a kitchen scale, water-based liquids can simply be weighed, since 1 mL of water weighs about 1 g. That is often more accurate than any cup.

To go from cups back to milliliters, see cups to milliliters. Larger volumes are on milliliters to liters, and all kitchen units are in the unit converter.