A kilogram of honey fills roughly 2.98 US cups. If you have just bought a 1 kg bag or tub and your recipe is written in cups, that is the conversion you need: divide 1,000 g by the weight of one cup, 336 g poured (King Arthur Baking), and the answer is 2.98 cups. Treat it as a close, practical figure rather than an exact one, and weigh the ingredient whenever precision matters.

Honey is thick, floral syrup made by bees; sweeter than sugar by weight. It is used for baking, glazes, dressings and sweetening tea. That is why the kilogram-to-cups question comes up so often: honey is sold by weight in most countries, while many recipes — especially American ones — measure it in cups. This page converts the whole kilogram, not just a single cup, so you can plan a whole bag or tub against a recipe instead of converting one spoonful at a time.

Conversion table: kilograms of honey to cups

One US cup is 236.6 ml, and one cup of honey weighs 336 g poured. Every row below is that cup weight divided into the weight shown, so the whole table follows from a single number. Figures are rounded to two decimal places and labelled approximate.

Weight Cups (approx.)
100 g 0.3
250 g 0.74
500 g 1.49
750 g 2.23
1 kg (1,000 g) 2.98
1.5 kg (1,500 g) 4.46
2 kg (2,000 g) 5.95

The same cup weight works in the other direction too:

Measure Weight (approx.)
1 cup 336 g
1 tablespoon 21 g
1 teaspoon 7 g
1 kg in tablespoons about 48 tbsp

If you only need part of the kilogram, the table above is the fastest way to read it off. Half a kilogram is 1.49 cups, a quarter is 0.74 cups, and 100 g — a common recipe amount — is 0.3 cups.

How the figure is worked out

The calculation is a single division: 1,000 g ÷ 336 g per cup = 2.98 cups. The only input is the weight of one cup of honey, and that comes from King Arthur Baking, which lists one US cup of honey at 336 g, poured. The confidence rating on that figure is high, which means it is a published, checked value rather than an estimate — but it is still a cup measurement, and cups are never as exact as grams.

One thing to know before you use the number: King Arthur lists 336 g per cup (21 g per tablespoon); USDA lists about 339-340 g. Honey is denser than any dry sweetener.

Poured means filling the cup from a jug and reading the level at eye height, with the cup on a flat surface. Liquids do not pack or settle the way dry ingredients do, so the main error is a meniscus read at an angle or a cup that is not quite level.

That is also why every number here carries the word approximate. A cup is a volume measure being used as a stand-in for weight, and the two only line up when the filling method matches the published one. If the dish is forgiving — a stew, a marinade, a crumble topping — the cup figure is plenty. If it is a cake, a loaf of bread, or anything where a 10% error changes the texture, weigh the ingredient on a kitchen scale and skip the cups entirely.

Worked examples

The table is useful, but recipes do not come in kilograms. Here are three ordinary situations where the kilogram-to-cups figure does real work.

Example 1 — a cake from a 1 kg bag

A sponge cake calls for 2 cups of honey. Two cups weigh 672 g, so from a 1 kg bag you use just over a third of it and have about 0.98 cups left — enough for a second, smaller bake. If you are making the same cake again next weekend, one bag covers roughly 1.5 two-cup cakes before it runs out.

Example 2 — doubling a cookie batch

Your cookie recipe uses 1½ cups of honey (504 g) and you want to double it for a school bake sale. Doubled, that is 3 cups, or 1008 g — about 101% of a kilogram bag. Weighing 1008 g straight from the bag is faster and more accurate than scooping three cups, and you still have -0.02 cups in reserve.

Example 3 — a glaze measured in grams

A glaze recipe lists 100 g of honey rather than cups. That is 0.3 cups — just over half a cup, or about 4.8 tablespoons. Measuring the glaze by weight avoids the common mistake of packing a cup too firmly and ending up with a glaze that sets too sweet and too thick.

Measuring it well, and storing what is left

The most common mistake with honey is the packing question. Poured is the method behind every figure here, and changing the method changes the weight. A cup scooped hard from the bag can weigh 10–20% more than a spooned-and-levelled cup, which in a cake means a sweeter, denser crumb and a bake that browns too fast. The second mistake is measuring over the mixing bowl: spill a little extra in and there is no way to take it back. Measure over the bag or a plate instead.

Storage matters once you have opened a kilogram pack. Airtight jar at room temperature; crystallisation is natural and reverses in warm water. A kilogram is a lot of honey for a home kitchen — for most households it will last weeks or months — so decanting it into a sealed container on the day you open it is worth doing: it keeps the weight stable, keeps moisture out, and means the cup you measure in a month weighs the same as the cup you measure today.

Without a scale, tablespoons are the fallback: one kilogram of honey is about 48 level tablespoons, and one cup is 16 tablespoons, so you can build any amount in the table above from spoonfuls. It is slower than weighing, and each spoonful adds its own small error, but for soups, marinades, and everyday cooking it is close enough. For baking, borrow or buy a scale — it is the single cheapest upgrade to a home baker's accuracy.

Buying it by the kilogram

Shops sell honey by weight, and the kilogram is the standard pack size in most countries outside the United States. Knowing that the pack holds about 2.98 cups lets you compare it honestly against smaller packs: a 500 g pack is 1.49 cups, so if the kilogram costs less than twice the 500 g price, it is the better buy — provided you will use it before it goes stale. For honey, baking, glazes, dressings and sweetening tea. Work out how many cups your household actually uses in a month before choosing the big pack; a bargain that ends up thrown away is not a bargain. And remember the figure is approximate: if the recipe on the packet is written in grams, follow the grams. Cups are a translation, not the original.

Frequently asked questions

How many cups are in 1 kg of honey?

About 2.98 cups. One cup of honey weighs 336 g poured (King Arthur Baking), and 1,000 g ÷ 336 g = 2.98 cups. The figure is approximate, because how firmly the cup is filled changes the weight slightly.

How many grams is 1 cup of honey?

336 g, poured, according to King Arthur Baking. That is the single number every conversion on this page is built from — multiply it by the number of cups for grams, or divide a gram weight by it for cups.

Is 2.98 cups per kilogram exact?

No — it is a close, practical figure. Cup weights vary with filling method, humidity, and how settled the ingredient is in the pack. For everyday cooking the error is small enough not to matter. For baking, brines, or anything where a 10% error changes the result, weigh the ingredient on a kitchen scale instead of converting.

How many cups are in 500 g of honey?

About 1.49 cups — half the kilogram figure. The same division applies: 500 g ÷ 336 g per cup = 1.49 cups. The conversion table near the top of the page lists 100 g, 250 g, 750 g, 1.5 kg, and 2 kg as well.

Why do different sources give different cup weights for honey?

King Arthur lists 336 g per cup (21 g per tablespoon); USDA lists about 339-340 g. Honey is denser than any dry sweetener. This page uses the primary published figure and states it plainly, so you can adjust if your recipe book uses a different one.

Related conversions

More conversions for honey, and the tools that do this arithmetic for you: