How we get these numbers
A conversion site is only worth using if you can check its working. Here is ours.
Last updated · Reviewed by the Ali Raza
Check our working
Every number explained below comes out of this tool. Test it against your own scale.
Granulated sugar · 10 grams equals
2.38teaspoons
The default when a recipe just says "sugar". Free-flowing, so it needs no packing.
Formula: grams ÷ 4.2 = teaspoons
Calculated in your browser — nothing is uploaded or stored.
Level teaspoons
1 tsp granulated sugar = 4.2 g
One level teaspoon of granulated sugar (white) weighs approximately 4.2 grams, based on a bulk density of 0.8525 grams per millilitre and a US teaspoon of 4.93 millilitres.
The method
Density in, grams out
Every number on this site comes from two inputs: the volume of a US legal teaspoon, which is exactly 4.92892159375 millilitres, and the bulk density of the ingredient in grams per millilitre. Multiply them and you get the weight of one level teaspoon.
We store the density, not the result. That sounds like a small distinction but it is the reason the site stays internally consistent: the calculator, the conversion chart, the FAQ answers and the JSON-LD structured data all read from the same 21 density values. There is no separate hand-maintained list of “common conversions” that can quietly drift out of step with the tool.
Take granulated sugar. Its bulk density is 0.8525 g/mL. Multiplied by 4.92892159375 mL, one teaspoon is 4.202 g, which we publish as 4.2 g. Every sugar figure anywhere on the site is derived from that one number at render time.
The assumptions
What every figure here takes for granted
Teaspoons are level. Scraped flat with a straight edge, not heaped. A heaped teaspoon holds roughly 1.5 to 2 times as much, and no conversion table can account for that.
Ingredients are in their normal state. Flour spooned in rather than scooped, brown sugar firmly packed, powders unsifted, salt dry and free-flowing. These are the conventions recipes assume, so they are the conventions we assume.
The teaspoon is the US legal one. 4.92892159375 mL. The metric teaspoon used in the UK, Europe and Australia is exactly 5 mL — 1.4% larger, which is less than the error introduced by packing.
Densities are averages across major brands. Individual products vary by a few percent with granule size and moisture content. We publish one decimal place because that is the precision the data honestly supports.
The limits
When you should ignore this site and use a scale
Volume measurement has a ceiling, and pretending otherwise would make this site less useful, not more. A few percent of error on a quarter teaspoon of baking soda is nothing. The same few percent on 300 g of flour is most of a cup.
Use a scale when you are measuring bulk ingredients above roughly 50 g, when you are brining or curing (where salt is a percentage of the total weight and errors compound), when you are working from a baker’s-percentage formula, and any time a recipe gives weights to the gram — that precision is usually there for a reason.
Use this calculator when you are measuring small quantities, converting a recipe on the fly, working without a scale, or reading a nutrition label. Those are the cases teaspoons were designed for, and where this site is genuinely the right tool.
Corrections
If we've got something wrong
Ingredient densities are not universal constants — they are measured averages, and reasonable sources disagree at the margins. If you have measured something carefully and our figure looks wrong, we want to know. Tell us what you measured, how, and what you got, and we will check it against our references and update the table if you are right.
Corrections change the density value in one file, and every page that quotes it updates with the next deploy. That is the practical benefit of deriving everything from a single source.
Reach us at hello@teaspoontograms.com or through the contact page.
Try it against your own scale
The best test of a conversion site is whether it matches what you weigh. Measure a level teaspoon of sugar, check it against our figure, and see.