Pounds to Cups Converter
A pound of all-purpose flour is about 3.6 cups, not the 2 that a pint-a-pound rhyme suggests.
1 lb of…
| Substance | Density | 1 lb weighs / measures |
|---|---|---|
| Water | 1 g/ml | 1.9172 cup |
| Milk (whole) | 1.03 g/ml | 1.8614 cup |
| Flour (all-purpose) | 0.529 g/ml | 3.6242 cup |
| Sugar (granulated) | 0.845 g/ml | 2.2689 cup |
| Butter | 0.911 g/ml | 2.1045 cup |
| Vegetable oil | 0.92 g/ml | 2.0839 cup |
| Honey | 1.42 g/ml | 1.3502 cup |
| Table salt | 1.217 g/ml | 1.5754 cup |
| Rice (uncooked) | 0.85 g/ml | 2.2556 cup |
Why pound to cup (US) needs a substance
Pounds measure weight and cup (US)s measure volume, so there is no single conversion factor between them. What bridges the two is density — how much a given volume of that particular substance weighs:
volume = mass ÷ density
Water is the easy case: it is almost exactly 1 g/ml, so 1 ml of water weighs 1 g and the numbers look identical. Nothing else behaves that way — flour is about half as dense, and honey is nearly half again as dense.
Using this for recipes
Pick the ingredient from the list and the conversion uses a typical density for it. Dry ingredients are the least predictable: scooping flour straight from the bag can pack in 20% more than spooning it in gently, which is exactly why baking recipes prefer weights. If you have a density from a supplier or a label, choose Custom density and enter it.
Densities here are typical values for guidance. For anything where precision matters, weigh it.