How Much Butter Is a Half Cup? | Sticks, Grams, No Guesswork

A half cup of butter equals 1 stick, 8 tablespoons, 4 ounces, or about 113 grams.

If you bake or cook often, this comes up all the time. A recipe gives butter in cups, your package is marked in sticks, and another recipe throws grams into the mix. That’s when kitchen math starts to feel annoying.

The good news is that a half cup of butter is one of the cleanest conversions you’ll deal with. In U.S. recipes, it lines up neatly across the common measuring systems, so once you lock it in, you can move between sticks, tablespoons, ounces, and grams without stopping to search every single time.

That matters in baking, where butter amount can change texture in a hurry. A little too much can leave cookies greasy. Too little can make cakes dry or shortbread crumbly in the wrong way. So yes, the conversion is simple, but getting it right still counts.

How Much Butter Is a Half Cup? In Everyday Kitchen Terms

In plain kitchen language, a half cup of butter is:

• 1 full stick of butter
• 8 tablespoons
• 24 teaspoons
• 4 ounces
• About 113 grams

That’s the version most home cooks in the U.S. use. If your butter comes in standard sticks, you can usually stop there. One wrapped stick is your half cup. No scoop, no level cup, no scale needed.

Things get a bit less tidy once you work from a tub, a block, or a recipe from outside the U.S. That’s when weight starts to make more sense than volume. A half cup is still the same amount, though the form of the butter changes how you measure it.

Why Recipes Switch Between Cups And Weight

Cups are common in U.S. home kitchens because they’re easy to read and easy to repeat. Weight is common in baking books and many non-U.S. recipes because it’s steadier. You don’t have to wonder if the butter was packed, softened, or a bit melted along the edge.

By NIST’s U.S. customary to metric conversion table, 1 U.S. cup is about 236.6 milliliters. That puts a half cup at about 118.3 milliliters. For butter, recipes usually translate that kitchen volume into the stick and gram amounts cooks know by heart.

Half Cup Of Butter In Sticks, Grams, And Ounces

If you want one line to memorize, use this: half a cup of butter equals 1 stick, 4 ounces, or about 113 grams. That covers the three formats you’ll see most often on recipes, wrappers, and recipe cards.

In many U.S. grocery stores, the wrapper already does the work for you. Standard sticks are marked by tablespoon, which makes it easy to cut off part of a stick when you need less than a half cup. Land O Lakes’ butter conversion chart lists the same kitchen math: 1 stick equals 1/2 cup, 8 tablespoons, 4 ounces, and about 113 grams.

If you use a scale, 113 grams is the clean target. Some cooks round to 112 grams because 4 ounces equals 113.4 grams, and recipe charts often round to the nearest whole gram. In real kitchen use, that tiny gap won’t change your batch.

Ways To Measure Half Cup Butter Without Guesswork

When The Butter Is Still In Sticks

This is the easiest case. Take one full stick and you’re done. If the wrapper has tablespoon marks, you can also count off 8 tablespoons. Most stick butter sold in the U.S. is built for this exact kind of measuring.

If your recipe asks for melted butter, measure first, then melt. That keeps the amount steady and avoids pouring in more than you meant to use.

When The Butter Is Soft, Scooped, Or Melted

If the butter is in a tub or already softened, use one of these methods:

1. Scoop butter into a dry measuring cup until it reaches the 1/2 cup line, then level the top.
2. Use 8 measured tablespoons.
3. Put a bowl on a scale, zero it out, then add butter until it reaches 113 grams.

The scale method is the neatest when you want repeatable results. It also cuts down on dishwashing, which is never a bad thing after a long baking session.

Butter Amount	Sticks And Spoons	Weight
1 tablespoon	1/8 stick	About 14 g / 0.5 oz
2 tablespoons	1/4 stick	About 28 g / 1 oz
1/4 cup	1/2 stick / 4 tbsp	About 57 g / 2 oz
1/3 cup	2/3 stick / 5 1/3 tbsp	About 76 g / 2.7 oz
1/2 cup	1 stick / 8 tbsp	About 113 g / 4 oz
3/4 cup	1 1/2 sticks / 12 tbsp	About 170 g / 6 oz
1 cup	2 sticks / 16 tbsp	About 227 g / 8 oz
1 pound	4 sticks / 32 tbsp	454 g / 16 oz

Salted And Unsalted Butter Use The Same Conversion

For measuring, salted and unsalted butter work the same way. A half cup is still 1 stick, 8 tablespoons, 4 ounces, or about 113 grams. The salt changes flavor, not the basic kitchen conversion.

That said, the choice still matters in baking. Unsalted butter gives you tighter control over the final taste, especially in cakes, cookies, pie crust, and buttercream. Salted butter can still work in plenty of recipes, though you may want to trim a bit of added salt elsewhere if the recipe is touchy.

If you like checking butter details by measured serving size, USDA FoodData Central is a handy database for butter entries listed by spoonful and other household measures. That’s useful when you’re converting a recipe and also tracking nutrition.

Common Mistakes That Throw Off Butter Measurement

Most butter mistakes don’t come from bad math. They come from measuring the right amount in the wrong state.

• Melting before measuring: If a recipe says “1/2 cup butter, melted,” measure the butter first, then melt it.
• Using a liquid cup for solid butter: You can do it, but a dry cup or a scale is cleaner and more exact.
• Guessing at partial sticks: Use the wrapper marks or tablespoons instead of eyeballing it.
• Confusing whipped butter with regular butter: Whipped butter has more air, so the same volume may not match the same weight.
• Reading non-U.S. recipes too fast: Many baking recipes from outside the U.S. list butter by grams, not cups or sticks.

One more thing: butter temperature and butter amount are not the same issue. A recipe may ask for softened butter, cold butter, browned butter, or melted butter. Those directions change texture and mixing behavior. They do not change what half a cup means unless the recipe tells you to measure after melting or browning.

If You Have	Measure This For 1/2 Cup	Best Move
Wrapped stick butter	1 whole stick	Use it as-is or cut by wrapper marks
Butter in a tub	8 tablespoons or 113 grams	Use a spoon or a scale
Melted butter needed	1/2 cup before melting	Measure first, melt second
Metric recipe	About 113 grams	Use a scale for steady results

What A Half Cup Of Butter Looks Like In Real Recipes

A half cup of butter shows up everywhere. It’s common in cookie dough, muffin batter, pan sauces, mashed potatoes, and quick breads. In many of those recipes, it’s the fat base that shapes texture and carries flavor.

Say a recipe calls for 1/2 cup butter and 1 cup sugar. That usually means one full stick. If another recipe asks for 113 grams of butter, that’s the same amount written in metric form. If you see 8 tablespoons, same story again. Once you spot that pattern, you stop treating each version like a fresh conversion problem.

That’s the real trick here. You’re not learning three different measurements. You’re learning one butter amount with three common labels.

Half Cup Butter Cheat Sheet

Here’s the version worth saving to memory:

• 1/2 cup butter = 1 stick
• 1/2 cup butter = 8 tablespoons
• 1/2 cup butter = 4 ounces
• 1/2 cup butter = about 113 grams
• Measure first if the recipe asks for melted butter
• Use a scale when your butter isn’t in sticks

Once that set of numbers clicks, recipe conversions get a lot calmer. No second-guessing. No mid-recipe pause. Just the right amount of butter in the bowl.