Tablespoons of rolled oats to grams runs on one number, 5.625 grams per tablespoon. It is a measured property of this ingredient rather than a defined conversion, which is why a generic volume-to-weight tool cannot give you it.
Water is the yardstick: 1 mL of it weighs 1 g. Rolled oats comes in at 0.38041 g per mL, or 38.04% of water, which is why a cup of it is 90 g rather than 236.6 g. Volume and weight only line up for water, and only in metric.
A level tablespoon of rolled oats is 5.625 g, which puts a teaspoon at 1.875 g and a tablespoon and a half — the quantity recipes are fondest of — at 8.438 g. Levelling twice is where the error comes from, so the scale is the faster instrument once the quantity passes a couple of spoons.
Grams are the unit this conversion is really for. A domestic scale resolves to a gram, which is 1.11% of a cup of rolled oats, so weighing gets an accuracy no measuring cup can reach. A 500 g pack of it is 5.556 cups, and a 1 kg pack 11.11.
How the figure is arrived at: Old-fashioned flakes. Very light for their volume because of the air trapped between them.
The formula
tablespoons- The amount of rolled oats you are converting, in tablespoons
5.625- Grams per tablespoon for rolled oats, from its density of 0.38041 g/mL
grams- The equivalent quantity in grams
How it works, step by step
- Enter the quantity in tablespoons.
- It is multiplied by 5.625, the grams-per-tablespoon figure for rolled oats.
- The result appears in grams, with a second reading in oz beneath it.
- Use the measure table if you want a standard recipe quantity rather than a number you type in.
Worked examples
2 tbsp of rolled oats in grams
A recipe calling for 2 tbsp of rolled oats needs 11.25 grams on the scale. The arithmetic is 2 × 5.625 = 11.25, and halving the recipe halves the weight to 5.625 grams.
4 tbsp of rolled oats in grams
A recipe calling for 4 tbsp of rolled oats needs 22.5 grams on the scale. The arithmetic is 4 × 5.625 = 22.5, and halving the recipe halves the weight to 11.25 grams.
12 tbsp of rolled oats in grams
Take 12 tbsp of rolled oats: 12 × 5.625 gives 67.5 grams. Doubling the batch takes it to 135 grams, because the relationship is a straight proportion once the density is known.
How to read your score
Frequently asked questions
How many grams are in 1 tbsp of rolled oats?
One tablespoon of rolled oats is 5.625 grams. Half that quantity is 2.8125 grams and double it is 11.25 grams, so the figure scales straight up and down — there is no offset in this conversion, only the factor.
Why is a cup of rolled oats not 236 g like water?
Because weight per cup depends on what is in the cup. Rolled oats has a density of 0.38041 g per mL where water has 1.00, so a cup of it weighs 90 g rather than 236.6 g. That is a difference of 146.6 g per cup, and it is the reason a single volume-to-weight factor cannot be applied to every ingredient.
Does how I measure it change the weight?
Yes, and by more than most people expect. Handling changes the weight of a cup of rolled oats by roughly 20% — about 9 g either side of 90 g — because old-fashioned flakes. Weighing removes the question entirely.
Is a fluid ounce of rolled oats the same as an ounce?
No. A fluid ounce is a volume — one eighth of a US cup, 29.57 mL — and an ounce is a weight. One fluid ounce of rolled oats weighs 0.3968 oz, so the two readings differ by 60.3%. They coincide only for something with the density of water, and then only roughly.
Is this a US cup or a metric cup?
US customary: 236.59 mL, which is the cup every US recipe means. A metric cup is 250 mL, so the same cup of rolled oats would weigh 95.102 g instead of 90 g — 5.1 g more, or 5.67%. Australian and some European recipes use the metric cup, and the difference is large enough to matter in baking.
Do I need a scale for this, or will measuring cups do?
At this size the spoon wins. One tablespoon of rolled oats is 5.625 g, and a scale reading to the nearest gram is working at 17.8% resolution on that — a measuring spoon is the more accurate instrument below about 5 g, which is why spice quantities are still written in spoons.
How many tablespoons of rolled oats is 500 g?
500 g of rolled oats is 88.889 tablespoons — 0.177778 tablespoons to one gram, so 500 × 0.177778 = 88.889. Going that way is a division by 5.625, or a multiplication by 0.177778 if you prefer.
Rolled oats in tablespoons and grams
| Tablespoons | Grams | Unrounded |
|---|---|---|
| 1/2 tbsp | 2.8125 g | 2.8125 |
| 1 tbsp | 5.625 g | 5.625 |
| 2 tbsp | 11.25 g | 11.25 |
| 3 tbsp | 16.875 g | 16.875 |
| 4 tbsp | 22.5 g | 22.5 |
| 6 tbsp | 33.75 g | 33.75 |
| 8 tbsp | 45 g | 45 |
| 12 tbsp | 67.5 g | 67.5 |
| 16 tbsp | 90 g | 90 |
Based on 90 g per cup of rolled oats. One tablespoon of rolled oats is 5.625 grams.
| Measure | Grams | Ounces | Millilitres |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 cup | 90 g | 3.17 oz | 236.6 mL |
| 1 tbsp | 5.625 g | 0.198 oz | 14.79 mL |
| 2 tsp | 3.75 g | 0.132 oz | 9.858 mL |
| 1 tsp | 1.875 g | 0.0661 oz | 4.929 mL |
| 3/4 tsp | 1.406 g | 0.0496 oz | 3.697 mL |
| 1/2 tsp | 0.9375 g | 0.0331 oz | 2.464 mL |
| 1/4 tsp | 0.4688 g | 0.0165 oz | 1.232 mL |
| 1/8 tsp | 0.2344 g | 0.00827 oz | 0.6161 mL |
US customary measures: 1 cup = 236.59 mL, 1 tbsp = 14.79 mL, 1 tsp = 4.93 mL.
| Ingredient | Grams per cup | Ounces per cup | Density (g/mL) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Panko breadcrumbs | 60 g | 2.116 oz | 0.2536 |
| Cocoa powder | 85 g | 2.998 oz | 0.3593 |
| Rolled oats (this page) | 90 g | 3.175 oz | 0.3804 |
| Oat flour | 92 g | 3.245 oz | 0.3889 |
| Almond flour | 96 g | 3.386 oz | 0.4058 |
| Rye flour | 102 g | 3.598 oz | 0.4311 |
| Dry breadcrumbs | 108 g | 3.81 oz | 0.4565 |
Ordered by weight. The spread across this group is why a single generic cups-to-grams factor cannot work.