If you are mid-recipe and need this number fast: 1 litre is 67.628 tablespoons. That is the answer, and the rest of this page is the table, the worked examples and the pitfalls for when you have more time. The conversion is exact, because both units are defined volumes in the same system — unlike a cup of flour, which changes weight with the ingredient, a litre is always the same volume, so the factor never varies.
Most people meet this conversion when a recipe is written in one system and their tools are marked in the other. American recipes use litres; metric recipes use tablespoons; and a cook who follows recipes from both ends up converting constantly. The good news is that volume-to-volume conversions are the simplest kind: the factor is exact, it never depends on the ingredient, and it works the same way for water, milk, oil, stock and every other liquid you cook with.
Conversion table
| Litres | Tablespoons |
|---|---|
| ¼ litre | 16.907 tablespoons |
| ½ litre | 33.814 tablespoons |
| ¾ litre | 50.721 tablespoons |
| 1 litre | 67.628 tablespoons |
| 1.5 litres | 101.4421 tablespoons |
| 2 litres | 135.2561 tablespoons |
| 3 litres | 202.8841 tablespoons |
| 4 litres | 270.5122 tablespoons |
Read the table in either direction. Going from litres to tablespoons, multiply by 67.628; going back, divide by 67.628 or multiply by 0.0148. The middle rows are the ones recipes use most — 1 litre is 67.628 tablespoons, and 2 litres is 135.2561 tablespoons. If your amount is not in the table, multiply it by 67.628 and you have the answer. For a quick check: 1 litre is 67.628 tablespoons, 2 litres are 135.2561 tablespoons, and 10 litres are 676.2805 tablespoons.
Worked examples
Measuring without the right cup. Your litre measure is in the dishwasher and you only have a tablespoon measure. ¾ litre is 50.721 tablespoons, so count out 50.721 level tablespoons and you are done. It is slower than using the right measure, but it is exact — this is a fixed unit conversion, not an estimate. The only thing to watch is levelling: a heaped tablespoon is not a tablespoon, and three heaped spoonfuls can add a whole extra litre to a delicate batter.
A dressing or sauce, made to taste. A vanilla custard comes together in the bowl: ¾ litre of oil, then the same again of vinegar, then seasoning. In tablespoons that first pour is 50.721 tablespoons. Dressings are forgiving — a little more or less oil will not ruin them — but knowing the conversion means you can scale the dressing up for a party without guessing, and you can write the scaled version down so it tastes the same next time.
A large pot of stock or soup. A stock pot takes 3 litres of water, which is 202.8841 tablespoons. At this size the jug is the only sensible tool — counting it out in litres would take all afternoon. Fill the jug to the 202.8841 tablespoons line, pour, and repeat if the pot needs more. And remember that stock reduces as it simmers, so measure the water going in, not the stock coming out.
How the conversion works
The US litre is defined as 1000 ml, and the tablespoon is defined as 14.7868 ml. Divide the first by the second and you get 67.628 — that is the whole derivation, and it is why the conversion is exact rather than approximate. No kitchen experiment was needed to establish it; the units were defined this way, so the ratio follows from the definitions. That is also why the same factor appears in every reliable conversion chart: there is only one right answer, and every source that uses US customary units agrees on it.
The one thing to check is which litre your recipe means. This page uses the US customary litre throughout. A metric cup is 250 ml, an imperial cup is 284 ml, and older recipes sometimes use a 'cup' that means whatever cup the writer had in the cupboard. If a recipe from outside the US gives an amount that looks wrong after converting — a cake with far too much liquid, a soup that is far too thin — the cup is the first suspect. Convert the recipe to grams once, write the grams on the recipe card, and the question never comes up again.
Rounding deserves a note too. The exact factor is 67.628 to four decimal places, and the full value runs further (1000.00 ml divided by 14.79 ml). For everyday cooking, rounding to two or three significant figures is fine: a 1% rounding error is invisible in a soup and barely noticeable in a cake. But round only at the end. If you round the factor and then multiply by a large amount, the rounding error grows with the amount — so keep the full factor through the calculation and round the answer, not the factor.
Volume is not weight
A conversion between two volume units is the same for every ingredient, but a conversion between volume and weight is not — and confusing the two is the most common conversion mistake in cooking. A cup of all-purpose flour weighs about 120 g spooned and levelled (King Arthur Baking), a cup of granulated sugar about 198 g, a cup of butter about 227 g, a cup of milk about 244 g (USDA), and a cup of honey about 336 g. All of those weights are approximate, because they depend on how the ingredient is measured: flour is spooned and levelled, brown sugar is packed at about 213 g a cup, and honey is poured.
Flour weight is the most disputed conversion in baking. King Arthur Baking lists 120 g per cup spooned and levelled, while other sources quote 125 g, 130 g and up to 142 g for a scooped cup. We use the King Arthur spooned-and-levelled value as primary, and the gap is a warning: if you scoop flour instead of spooning and levelling it, you can add 20 g or more per cup, which is enough to make a cake dry. Granulated sugar carries a smaller dispute — King Arthur lists 198 g per cup and the USDA rounds it to 200 g, a difference of rounding rather than a real disagreement. When a recipe matters, verify with a kitchen scale: weigh the ingredient instead of measuring it by volume, and every dispute on this page disappears.
Cooking with metric recipes
Most of the world cooks in millilitres and litres, and most American recipes cook in cups and spoons, so sooner or later every cook has to cross between the two systems. The way to do it is to convert the whole recipe to one system before you start, not ingredient by ingredient as you go. Pick the system your tools match — if your jug is marked in millilitres, convert everything to millilitres; if your cups are marked in cups, convert everything to cups — and write the converted amounts on the recipe. Round sensibly: 236.59 ml becomes 240 ml in practice, and 14.79 ml becomes 15 ml, because a 1% rounding is invisible in a soup and barely visible in a cake. But do not round the small things: a teaspoon of baking powder rounded up by 20% is a real error. If a recipe gives grams as well as millilitres, use the grams — weight is the same in every country, and a scale ends the whole argument about cups. After a few converted recipes, the common equivalents become familiar, and the crossing gets faster.
Frequently asked questions
Why do recipes use litres instead of tablespoons?
Mostly tradition and the tools cooks already own. American recipes were written for American measuring cups, and metric recipes for metric jugs, and neither is going to change. The units themselves are equally good for measuring volume — the difference is only what your kitchen is equipped for. Rather than buying a new set of measures for every recipe, convert once and cook with the tools you have.
How many tablespoons are in 1 litre?
Exactly 67.628 tablespoons. Multiply any number of litres by 67.628 to get tablespoons — for example, 1.5 litres is 101.4421 tablespoons. The conversion is exact because both units are defined volumes in the US customary system.
What is 1 litre in tablespoons?
67.628 tablespoons. Multiply 1 by 67.628: 1 × 67.628 = 67.628. This is a common recipe amount — a third of a cup of cream, a few spoonfuls of oil — so it is worth knowing it is a straight multiplication with no special case.
Is a US litre the same as a metric or imperial litre?
Not always, and this is the biggest trap in unit conversion. This page uses the US litre (1000 ml). A metric cup is 250 ml, an imperial cup is 284 ml, a US pint is 473 ml while an imperial pint is 568 ml, and an Australian tablespoon is 20 ml against the US 14.79 ml. If your recipe comes from outside the US, check which system it uses before converting — the factor on this page is correct for US measures only.
Can I use a kitchen scale instead of converting?
For liquids, often yes. A kitchen scale removes volume conversion entirely if the recipe gives grams, and for water-based liquids 1 ml weighs about 1 g, so millilitres and grams are nearly interchangeable. But the shortcut fails for fats and syrups: a cup of olive oil weighs about 216 g, not 237 g, and a cup of honey about 336 g. Use the scale when the recipe gives weights, and use this conversion when the recipe gives volumes.