How Many Cups in a Quart?

There are 4 cups in a quart. That is the whole answer, and it is one of the most useful numbers in an American kitchen: 1 quart equals 4 cups, which equals 2 pints, which equals 32 fluid ounces. If a soup recipe calls for 2 quarts of stock, you need 8 cups. If a measuring jug is marked in quarts and your recipe is written in cups, multiply the quarts by four and you are done. This page gives you the conversion table, worked examples from real cooking, and the difference between a US quart and an Imperial quart, so you never get caught out again.

The conversion table

Quarts	Cups	Pints	Fluid ounces	Millilitres
1/4 quart	1 cup	1/2 pint	8 fl oz	237 ml
1/2 quart	2 cups	1 pint	16 fl oz	473 ml
3/4 quart	3 cups	1 1/2 pints	24 fl oz	710 ml
1 quart	4 cups	2 pints	32 fl oz	946 ml
1 1/2 quarts	6 cups	3 pints	48 fl oz	1,419 ml
2 quarts	8 cups	4 pints	64 fl oz	1,893 ml
3 quarts	12 cups	6 pints	96 fl oz	2,839 ml
4 quarts	16 cups	8 pints	128 fl oz	3,785 ml

Four quarts make a gallon, so the table above also tells you that a gallon holds 16 cups. The millilitre column is approximate, rounded to the nearest whole number, because a US quart is 946.35 ml.

Worked example 1: a big pot of soup for the week

You are making a vegetable soup and the recipe says it makes 2 quarts. Your ladle and your storage containers are measured in cups, so how much soup is that? Two quarts times four cups is 8 cups, which fills four 2-cup containers exactly. That matters when you are portioning for the week: 8 cups means eight one-cup lunches, or four generous two-cup dinners. If you want to double the recipe, you need 4 quarts of stock, which is 16 cups, and you should check that your stock pot actually holds that much before you start chopping — a 4-quart pot will be full to the brim, and you want a 6-quart pot for a doubled batch so it does not boil over.

Worked example 2: a punch bowl for a party

A party punch recipe is written for a 2-quart jug, but your punch bowl holds 12 cups. Two quarts is 8 cups, so one batch fills two-thirds of the bowl. If you want to fill the bowl, make one and a half batches: 3 quarts, which is 12 cups. That is the kind of mental maths that the quart-to-cup conversion is for — scaling a drink for a crowd without a calculator. And if the recipe is written in litres instead, remember that a litre is slightly larger than a quart: 3 litres is about 12.7 cups, so a 3-litre batch would overflow your 12-cup bowl.

Worked example 3: reading a recipe from another country

An American recipe calls for 1 quart of milk, and your measuring jug is marked in millilitres. One quart is 946 ml, so measure 946 ml, or round it to 950 ml — the difference of 4 ml will not matter in a soup or a sauce. The trap is the Imperial quart: a British quart is 1,136 ml, which is 4.8 US cups, not 4. If you follow a British recipe that asks for a quart and you measure 4 cups, you will be short by nearly a cup. Check which country the recipe comes from before you convert, and when in doubt, trust the millilitres.

Method and source

A US liquid quart is defined as a quarter of a US gallon, and a US gallon is defined as 231 cubic inches, which makes a quart 57.75 cubic inches, or 946.35 millilitres. A US cup is 8 fluid ounces, or 236.59 millilitres, and 946.35 divided by 236.59 is exactly 4. The arithmetic is clean because the American system was built that way: cups, pints, quarts, and gallons are all powers of two. The Imperial system is different, and that is where the confusion comes from: an Imperial quart is a quarter of an Imperial gallon, which is 4.546 litres, so an Imperial quart is 1.136 litres, or about 4.8 US cups. In practice, almost every recipe you meet online that says "quart" means a US quart, but a recipe from a British cookbook written before metrication may mean the Imperial one.

Practical guidance

Learn the chain, not just the one number: 1 gallon is 4 quarts, 1 quart is 2 pints, 1 pint is 2 cups, 1 cup is 8 fluid ounces. If you remember that chain, you can convert any of these units to any other without a chart. Buy a measuring jug that is marked in cups, pints, and quarts, and use it for liquids only — dry ingredients should be weighed, not measured in a jug, because a cup of flour can weigh anywhere from 120 to 142 grams depending on how you scoop it. When a recipe says "quart", it almost always means a liquid quart, used for stock, milk, water, and other liquids. If you are scaling a recipe, convert to cups first, do your multiplication in cups, and convert back at the end, because cups are the smallest unit and the maths stays in whole numbers.

Frequently asked questions

How many cups are in 1 quart?

There are 4 cups in 1 US quart. That is the standard American conversion, used in recipes, measuring jugs, and cookbooks. If the recipe is British and old, it may mean an Imperial quart, which is about 4.8 US cups, but that is rare in modern recipes.

How many cups are in 2 quarts?

There are 8 cups in 2 quarts. Two quarts is also 4 pints, 64 fluid ounces, and about 1.9 litres. A 2-quart jug holds exactly 8 cups, which is why it is a common size for a soup pot or a punch bowl.

How many quarts are in 8 cups?

There are 2 quarts in 8 cups. Divide the cups by four to get quarts. Eight cups is also 4 pints, half a gallon, and about 1.9 litres.

Is a quart the same as a litre?

No, but they are close. A US quart is 946 ml, and a litre is 1,000 ml, so a litre is about 6 percent larger than a quart. For most cooking, you can treat them as roughly equal, but in baking or in a recipe that needs precision, use the exact figure: 1 litre is 4.23 US cups, and 1 quart is 4 cups.