Milliliters to Grams Converter

A milliliter is a volume. A gram is a mass.

Water near room temperature is close to 1 gram per milliliter. Honey is not. Oil is not. A 240 mL bottle of water is about 240 g. The same 240 mL of honey is more than 340 g. The same 240 mL of vegetable oil is a little over 220 g.

This converter multiplies milliliters by the grams in one US cup, then divides by 236.588, the milliliter content of that cup. NIST treats the milliliter as a cubic centimeter and the liter as 1000 mL. The kitchen job is to attach a food-specific density to that volume.

School water bottles, formula pitchers, and salad-dressing cruets are all labeled in mL. Recipes written in Europe often list oil and milk in milliliters. US cups hide the density problem until the bake fails.

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How to use milliliters to grams

Type the milliliters from the bottle, syringe, or graduated cup. Select the food. Read grams, then ounces if you are checking a US package.

Use the water row for plain tap water and for ice that has melted. Use milk for dairy milk, not for a sweetened chocolate drink. Use oil for liquid vegetable oil, not for a vinaigrette that already includes vinegar and sugar.

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Formula and a 240 mL water check

Grams = milliliters × (grams per cup ÷ 236.588).

Water in this table is 237 g per cup. So 240 mL × (237 ÷ 236.588) = 240 × 1.0017 = 240.4 g. That is why people say "a milliliter of water is a gram" and still get a result that is not exactly 240.

Honey check: 15 mL (about one FDA labeling tablespoon) × (339 ÷ 236.588) = 21.5 g. That matches the heavy spoon you feel when you dip into the jar. Oil check: 15 mL × (218 ÷ 236.588) = 13.8 g.

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Reading milliliters on real containers

Look at the fill line, not the bottle capacity printed on the plastic. A 500 mL bottle is often sold with a 480 mL fill. Medicine syringes marked in mL are fine for small oil or vanilla amounts if you wash them for food use.

Hold a liquid measuring cup on the counter and read at eye level. A cup lifted in the air reads high. Foam on milk adds volume without adding the full density of liquid milk, so wait for the foam to settle or skim it.

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The 240 mL label cup and the 236.588 mL kitchen cup

FDA household rules for Nutrition Facts set 1 cup equal to 240 mL, 1 tablespoon to 15 mL, and 1 fluid ounce to 30 mL. Those rounded figures keep labels consistent. This tool keeps the US customary cup at 236.588 mL so grams track the same density table as the cups converters.

The difference on a 240 mL pour of water is under a gram. The difference on honey is larger in absolute grams because honey is denser, but it is still a small fraction of a lunch portion. Brand variation in honey water content is a bigger error source than the cup definition.

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What to do with the gram result

Use grams when you scale a bake or log a lunch. Use milliliters when you pour. Converting lets you compare a European yogurt drink listed as 200 mL with a US cup of milk listed as 244 g.

If the result is for a sweetened drink, the grams are the drink mass, not the sugar mass. Turn to Label Sugar to Teaspoons for the grams of sugar on the panel. A 240 mL juice box can weigh about 250 g and still hide 20 g or more of sugars on the label.

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Lunchbox liquids parents actually pour

A 120 mL thermos of milk is about 124 g. That is a reasonable sip for a young child. The same 120 mL of chocolate milk is a similar mass and a different sugar problem. The Dietary Guidelines ask families to avoid added sugars before age 2 and to keep added sugars under 10 percent of calories after that. Mass conversion does not replace that rule.

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Tools that make milliliters trustworthy

A cheap liquid cup with faded numbers is worse than a washed medicine cup that still shows 5 mL ticks. For vanilla, food coloring, and oil in a muffin batch, the medicine cup wins. Wash it in hot soapy water and keep it in the baking drawer so nobody returns it to the sick-kid bin.

European UHT milk cartons often list 200 mL or 1 L. Two hundred milliliters of milk is about 206 g on this table. That is a little less than the 244 g US cup. If a pancake recipe written in grams wants 240 g of milk, a 200 mL carton is short. Add 40 mL more from a second carton rather than thinning the batter with water unless you like flat pancakes.

Infant bottles marked in ounces and milliliters are fine for water and for prepared formula that you already mixed by the can directions. They are the wrong tool for honey. Thick liquids cling. You will under-pour if you use a narrow nipple bottle as a pitcher.

Restaurant sauce cups sold as 2 oz are about 60 mL. That is a useful visual for dressing on a lunch salad. Sixty milliliters of a sweet bottled dressing can hide as much sugar as a cookie. Convert the dressing mass if you want, then still read the label grams of added sugars. Mass and sugar are different columns.

Ice melts to a smaller liquid volume than the ice-cube tray suggests because of air in the cubes. If a recipe wants 100 mL of water and you only have ice, melt extra and then measure the liquid. Do not count cubes and hope.

A travel mug marked 350 mL of coffee is not this converter's job if you want caffeine. It is this converter's job if you need the mass of milk you stirred in. Thirty milliliters of milk is about 31 g. That is a splash. One hundred milliliters is about 103 g, a small latte-style pour in a kid cocoa. Cocoa packets still need the sugar label.

Smoothie cups sold as 16 fl oz are about 473 mL. If the cup is mostly banana and milk, the mass will be higher than 473 g of water because banana is denser than water. Blend, then pour into a known milliliter pitcher if you need grams for a school nurse log. Guessing from the printed cup size is how those logs drift.

Vinegar and lemon juice sit close to water. Using the water row for a 15 mL acid splash is close enough for a dressing. Using the water row for condensed milk is wrong. Condensed milk is sugar and dairy in a thick syrup. Weigh the can portion instead.

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Temperature, foam, and foods this page will get wrong

Hot oil is slightly less dense than cold oil. Frozen slush is not a liquid density. Carbonated soda includes gas. Infant formula powder mixed by scoop is not the milk row.

Cocoa mix stirred into milk is not the cocoa-powder density. Cocoa powder at 86 g per cup is a dry scoop. Once it is a drink, use the liquid you actually poured and the label for sugar.

NIST volume units do not assign a food. USDA FoodData Central does. If your food is missing, weigh it once in a known milliliter cup and keep that household number on a note inside the cupboard door.

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How it works

Volume times density. Oil floats on water because it is less dense. Honey sinks because it is more dense.

Frequently asked questions

• Is 1 mL always 1 gram?

  Only for water near room temperature. Pick the ingredient.

Related calculators

References

1. USDA Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central
2. NIST. SI Units - Volume
3. NIST Office of Weights and Measures. Metric Household
4. FDA. Guidance for Industry: serving sizes of foods (household measures)
5. USDA ARS. Measurement conversion tables
6. USDA and HHS. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2020-2025
7. FDA. Added Sugars on the Nutrition Facts Label
8. Vos et al., American Heart Association. Added Sugars and Cardiovascular Disease Risk in Children