Cacao Nibs

One US cup of cacao nibs weighs between 120 and 149 grams, depending on how the cup is filled and which source measured it. That range is the answer; a single number would not be. Every figure behind it is below, with the method each source used.

Also called cacao nibs, cocoa nibs, cacao, cocoa.

TL;DR: King Arthur publishes cacao nibs at 120 grams per US cup, but three major producer labels (Anthony's, Navitas, Terrasoul) cluster at 144-149 g/cup. The producer figures are more consistent with the physical density of broken cacao and are the better default for anyone measuring by weight.

Cacao nibs are broken pieces of fermented, roasted (or raw) cacao bean, typically 2-5 mm across. Because they are broken chunks rather than a powder, the density of a scooped cup depends heavily on the specific piece size, how tightly they settle in the container, and how much they were shaken or tapped before measuring. This makes cacao nibs unusually sensitive to measurement method — more so than a flour or a granulated sugar.

There is a real disagreement in the reference data. King Arthur's ingredient chart lists 1 cup at 120 grams (4.25 oz). Three widely-distributed producer labels tell a different story: Anthony's Organic Cocoa Nibs prints 3 tbsp at 28 g (149 g/cup), Navitas Organics prints 1 tsp at 3 g (144 g/cup by linear scaling), and Terrasoul Superfoods also prints 1 tsp at 3 g (144 g/cup). The 120 g/cup and 145 g/cup figures cannot both be right for the same physical product — they represent a 20-25% disagreement, which is large enough to change a recipe result.

A physical density check favors the producer cluster. Solid cacao has a density near 1.1 g/mL. Broken pieces packed into a container leave air gaps between them; typical packing efficiencies for irregular broken material fall between 55% and 65% of the solid density, giving an expected range of 0.60-0.72 g/mL, or roughly 142-170 g/cup. Anthony's at 149 g/cup sits right in this window. King Arthur's 120 g/cup would require the nibs to pack at only 46% of solid density, which is low even for very loosely-settled material.

One caveat: Navitas's own labeling is internally inconsistent. Their 1 tsp = 3 g panel implies 144 g/cup, but their 3 tbsp = 190 calorie count implies closer to 176 g/cup (about 11 g per tablespoon). This is likely a rounding artifact from Navitas printing the same product with different serving-size conventions across product runs, but it suggests that even the producer figures should be treated as approximate.

What to do in practice: if you are following a King Arthur recipe by weight, use their 120 g/cup figure — the recipe was tested against that assumption. If you are working from a general recipe that specifies cups without a weight, the safer default is the producer cluster around 144-149 g/cup, since that is what three of the largest cacao nib brands print on the bags people are actually measuring from.

For anything more precise than 'a cup', weigh the nibs directly. A digital kitchen scale eliminates the packing-density question entirely, and cacao nibs are dense and small enough that a few grams of scatter around the target weight is a rounding error, not a recipe failure.