How Many ml Are in a Tablespoon?
A standard tablespoon holds 15 ml. A teaspoon holds 5 ml — so it takes three of them to fill a tablespoon.
Where this measurement comes from
These volumes are the standard measuring-utensil sizes used across North America, whether sold labeled in French ("cuillère à soupe," "cuillère à thé") or English (tbsp, tsp). Unlike the cup or the pound, these two measurements are fairly universal: you'll find them identical in a Québécois, American, or English-Canadian recipe, which makes them a reliable reference point even when the rest of a recipe mixes systems.
Useful equivalents to remember
- 1 tbsp = 15 ml
- 1 tsp = 5 ml
- 3 tsp = 1 tbsp
- 2 tbsp = 30 ml, roughly 1 fluid ounce (29.57 ml)
- 1 cup = about 16 tbsp
These reference points are especially handy when a recipe calls for a small amount — half a tablespoon, for instance, is simply one and a half teaspoons, easier to measure with the tools already in your drawer than guessing at "half" of a full tablespoon.
When precision really matters
For an ingredient used in bulk — the flour in a dough, the sugar in a frosting — a small measuring error usually goes unnoticed in the final result. That's not the case for what gets measured by the spoon: vanilla extract, baking powder, baking soda, spices. One teaspoon too much baking powder can make a cake rise unevenly and then collapse; too much extract can overpower the whole flavor. It's precisely for these small, high-impact quantities that a graduated measuring spoon is worth using, rather than an approximate serving spoon.
No measuring spoon on hand?
An ordinary table spoon (the one from your utensil drawer) comes close to a tablespoon, but its actual volume varies a lot from one design to another — sometimes 10 ml, sometimes 20 ml. For a recipe that needs to rise, or precise baking, that can easily be enough to throw off the result. The safest bet remains a graduated measuring spoon set, cheap and reusable indefinitely.
Another option if you're converting a larger quantity: our converter automatically shows the combined cups-plus-tablespoons-plus-teaspoons equivalent as soon as the result exceeds a plain milliliter figure — handy when a recipe calls for, say, 90 ml of maple syrup and you'd rather measure by the spoon than a graduated glass.
A tablespoon of dry ingredient, in grams
15 ml is the volume. The weight of a tablespoon depends on what you put in it — our converter's densities give:
- All-purpose flour: 7.5 g
- White sugar: 12 g
- Packed brown sugar: 13 g
- Powdered sugar: 7 g
- Cocoa powder: 6 g
- Butter: 14 g
- Oil: 14 g
- Honey or maple syrup: 21 g
- Fine salt: 18 g
- Water or milk: 15 g
Notice that honey weighs almost three times as much as flour for the same spoon. A recipe listing "2 tbsp" of several ingredients therefore calls for very different weights of each.
Measuring honey, peanut butter, and molasses by the spoon
Sticky ingredients are the most annoying to measure in spoons: half of it stays stuck. Two proven tricks. The first: lightly oil the spoon (or dip it in the recipe's oil, if it has any) before scooping the honey, which then slides right off. The second, more precise: set the bowl on the scale, press tare, and pour the target weight directly — 21 g per tablespoon of honey, 42 g for two tablespoons, with nothing lost in the utensil. It's also the fastest method when a recipe stacks up several spoonfuls of liquid ingredients.
Level or heaping?
A "level" tablespoon is scraped flat with a knife to hold only its exact volume — that's what most recipes assume, including the equivalents above, unless stated otherwise. A "heaping" tablespoon holds extra that can easily double the actual amount for a powdery ingredient like flour or cocoa. If a recipe doesn't specify, always assume it wants a level spoon.
One last practical note: if an American recipe writes "Tbsp" with a capital T and "tsp" in lowercase, that's simply the convention for distinguishing tablespoon (Tbsp) from teaspoon (tsp) — mixing the two up can triple or divide an ingredient's quantity by three, so it's worth double-checking the exact abbreviation before measuring.
The 15 ml tablespoon is the North American standard, but not a universal one — US cup vs imperial cup vs metric cup tours the national variants, cups and spoons included.