Butter Converter
One US stick is 113 g, 8 tablespoons, half a cup. And if your butter came as a 250 g block with nothing printed on the wrapper, this shows you where to cut it.
Fractions are welcome: type 1/2, 1 1/2 or 0.5 in any box.
US sticks carry tablespoon marks on the wrapper, so you can cut straight to a measurement. Most of the world sells butter as a plain block, which is why the second option exists.
Cutting it from your block
The shaded part is what you need. Each division is one tablespoon.
Read me Why butter is the worst ingredient to convert
Every other ingredient is sold as a pile of stuff you measure out. Butter is sold as a shape, and the shape is different depending on which country you are standing in.
In the United States, butter comes in sticks. A stick is a quarter of a pound: 4 ounces, 113 g, 8 tablespoons, half a cup. Four of them make a 1 lb box. The wrapper is printed with tablespoon marks, so an American recipe can say "half a stick" and you simply cut on a line. Recipes there almost never give butter by weight, because they do not need to.
The trap is that 250 g is not 2 sticks. Two sticks are 227 g. A 250 g block is 23 g more, roughly an extra 1½ tablespoons. Halving a 250 g block to get "one stick" hands you 125 g instead of 113 g, about 11% too much fat. In shortbread or a pastry that is enough to notice.
So: if you are working from an American recipe with a block of butter, do not eyeball a stick. Weigh 113 g, or use the block mode above, which tells you what proportion of your particular block to cut and where the line falls.
How this is calculated
Butter is one of the few ingredients where the conversion is a fixed fact rather than a density estimate, because a stick is defined by weight.
| 1 US stick | 4 oz = 113 g = 8 tablespoons = ½ cup = ¼ pound |
|---|---|
| 1 US cup | 2 sticks = 16 tablespoons = 227 g = 8 oz |
| 1 tablespoon | 14 g = ½ oz = 3 teaspoons |
| 1 lb box | 4 sticks = 2 cups = 454 g |
The exact figures are 4 oz = 113.4 g and 8 oz = 226.8 g, since an ounce is 28.3495 g. Wrappers and recipes round those to 113 g and 227 g, which is why 2 × 113 does not quite look like 227. This tool works in the exact values and rounds only when it shows you a number, so nothing drifts as you convert back and forth.
Butter conversion chart
From 1 tablespoon up to a whole 1 lb box. Screenshot it, print it, tape it inside a cupboard door.
| Tbsp | Sticks | Cups | Grams | Oz |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | ⅛ | 1/16 | 14 g | 0.5 |
| 2 | ¼ | ⅛ | 28 g | 1.0 |
| 3 | ⅜ | 3/16 | 43 g | 1.5 |
| 4 | ½ | ¼ | 57 g | 2.0 |
| 5 | ⅝ | 5/16 | 71 g | 2.5 |
| 6 | ¾ | ⅜ | 85 g | 3.0 |
| 8 | 1 | ½ | 113 g | 4.0 |
| 10 | 1¼ | ⅝ | 142 g | 5.0 |
| 12 | 1½ | ¾ | 170 g | 6.0 |
| 16 | 2 | 1 | 227 g | 8.0 |
| 24 | 3 | 1½ | 340 g | 12.0 |
| 32 | 4 | 2 | 454 g | 16.0 |
Grams are rounded to the nearest whole gram, which is as fine as a kitchen scale reads anyway. The two highlighted rows are the ones worth memorizing: 1 stick is 113 g and 1 cup is 227 g.
If your butter is a 250 g block
This is the chart the American converters leave out. It works the other way round: it starts from what a recipe asks for in sticks, and tells you what share of a 250 g block that is.
| Recipe says | Grams | Of a 250 g block | Nearest easy cut |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 tbsp | 28 g | 11% | An eighth of the block is 31 g, close |
| ¼ stick | 28 g | 11% | Same as 2 tbsp |
| ½ stick | 57 g | 23% | A quarter of the block is 63 g, 6 g over |
| 1 stick | 113 g | 45% | Just under half. Half is 125 g, 12 g over |
| 1½ sticks | 170 g | 68% | Two thirds is 167 g, very close |
| 2 sticks (1 cup) | 227 g | 91% | Nearly the whole block. Leave 23 g behind |
| 3 sticks | 340 g | 136% | A whole block plus a third of a second one |
| 4 sticks (1 lb) | 454 g | 182% | Two blocks less 46 g, about 3 tbsp |
A butter block is a plain rectangular bar, so the share of its length is the same as the share of its weight. Cut 45% of the way along a 250 g block and you have your 113 g stick, near enough. That is the whole trick, and it works on a 200 g or 500 g block just as well.
Salt Swapping salted butter for unsalted
You can do it, and most of the time nobody will notice. The adjustment is to reduce the salt the recipe adds by about ¼ teaspoon per stick of butter, which is per 113 g, or per half cup.
Be aware that this is a rule of thumb rather than a precise correction, because salt levels in butter vary by brand and by country. Treat ¼ teaspoon per stick as the starting point, taste where the recipe lets you, and lean toward taking out slightly less than you think.
Where it matters most: buttercream, shortbread, plain butter cookies and anything else where butter is most of the recipe and there is nowhere for salt to hide. Where it barely matters: a chocolate cake, a spiced quick bread, anything with a strong flavor doing the work.
Going the other way, using unsalted where the recipe wanted salted, add about ¼ teaspoon of salt per stick. Bakers generally prefer unsalted precisely because it puts the seasoning back under your control, and because unsalted butter tends to be fresher on the shelf.
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Questions bakers actually ask
How many grams is a stick of butter?
113 g. A US stick is a quarter of a pound, which is 4 ounces, which is 113.4 g exactly. Every wrapper and every recipe rounds that to 113 g and no bake has ever suffered for the missing 0.4 g.
Two sticks make one cup, which is 227 g. Four sticks make the standard 1 lb box, which is 454 g. If you only remember one number from this page, remember 113.
How many tablespoons are in a stick of butter?
8 tablespoons, and the wrapper is printed with all eight of them. Half a stick is 4 tablespoons, which is also ¼ cup. One tablespoon of butter is 14 g or half an ounce.
Those printed marks are more accurate than they look, because they are cutting lines on a bar of even thickness rather than a scoop of something. Cutting on the line beats packing butter into a measuring cup every time.
My butter has no markings. How do I measure it?
Three ways, best first.
Weigh it. A digital scale ends the problem permanently. Set the recipe's grams, cut, done. This is why the rest of the world gives butter by weight.
Cut by proportion. A block of butter is a plain rectangular bar, so a share of its length is the same share of its weight. Set the block mode above and the tool tells you what percentage of the block to cut, and where the line falls in centimeters if you measure the block first. For a 250 g block, one stick is 45% of it, which is a little inside the halfway point.
Displace water. If you have no scale and no ruler, fill a liquid measuring cup with cold water to a level you can read, then push butter under the surface until the water rises by the volume you need. For half a cup of butter, start at 1 cup of water and add butter until it reads 1½ cups. Pour off the water and the butter is your measure. It is fiddly and it wets the butter, but it works.
Is a 250 g block the same as two sticks?
No, and this is the mistake worth knowing about. Two sticks are 227 g. A 250 g block is 23 g heavier, about 1½ extra tablespoons, or roughly 10% more butter.
Halving a 250 g block gives you 125 g rather than the 113 g a stick weighs. In a cake you will probably get away with it. In shortbread, pastry, or a cookie you want to hold its shape, that extra fat spreads and greases, and you will taste and see the difference.
Can I use salted butter instead of unsalted?
Usually yes. Cut the salt the recipe adds by about ¼ teaspoon per stick of butter, which is per 113 g. Going the other way, add about ¼ teaspoon per stick when a recipe wanted salted and you only have unsalted.
Salt levels differ by brand and by country, so this is a starting point rather than a precise correction. It matters most in recipes where butter is the main event, such as buttercream, shortbread and plain butter cookies, and hardly at all in something strongly flavored.
Does melted butter measure the same as solid butter?
By weight, yes: 113 g of butter is 113 g whether it is cold, soft or liquid. By volume it is close enough that recipes treat a melted stick as ½ cup, though butter does take up slightly more room once melted.
The real reason to care is that recipes usually specify the state for a reason. Creamed cold butter traps air and lifts a cake. Melted butter makes a chewy, dense cookie. Swapping one for the other changes the result far more than any measuring difference does, so follow what the recipe says rather than what is convenient.
Is European butter different from American butter?
Yes, in fat content. US rules require butter to be at least 80% milkfat, and most standard American butter sits right at that line. European and European-style butter is commonly labeled 82% or higher, which means less water and a richer, softer result.
For most baking you can swap them gram for gram. In laminated pastry the higher fat butter is genuinely better because there is less water to turn to steam and tear the layers, and it stays pliable when cold. In a cake batter the difference is small, though very high fat butter can make cookies spread a little more.
Why do American recipes use sticks at all?
Because it works, in the US. The stick is a fixed quarter pound with cutting marks printed on it, so "1 stick" is an unambiguous quantity that needs no scale and no measuring cup. For a country that measures everything else in volume, butter is the one ingredient that quietly gets measured by weight.
The problem only appears when the recipe leaves the country. If you are writing recipes for anyone outside North America, give butter in grams as well. It costs you one bracket and saves your readers this entire page.
Based on the US definition of a stick of butter as a quarter pound. Block sizes vary by market, so weigh where you can. Last reviewed August 2026.