Celery seed

One US cup of celery seed weighs 104 grams (3.7 ounces). Going the other way, 100 grams is about 0.96 cups.

Also called celery seeds, whole celery seed, dried celery seed.

A teaspoon of celery seed weighs about 2.2 g, and a cup about 104 g (3.7 oz). USDA and Chef's Resources agree within 3.8%, and Penzeys' jar sizes fall in the same place.

Celery seed is the tiny dried fruit of wild celery, Apium graveolens, brown and ridged and about a millimetre long. It tastes strongly of celery with a bitter edge, and it is used in coleslaw and potato salad dressings, pickles and brines, Bloody Marys, Chicago-style hot dogs, and in celery salt, which is ground celery seed mixed with salt.

USDA's record for celery seed weighs a tablespoon at 6.5 g and a teaspoon at 2.0 g. The tablespoon works out to 104.0 g a cup. Chef's Resources gives celery seed at 3.81 oz per cup, 108.0 g, and ground celery seed at 4.00 oz, 113.4 g. The two whole-seed figures are 3.8% apart, well inside the 10% this site allows for seeds and grains, so this site publishes USDA's 104 g.

Penzeys sells whole Indian celery seed in a quarter-cup jar of 0.9 oz, a half-cup jar of 1.9 oz and a cup-and-a-half bag of 5.8 oz, 102 to 110 g per cup of container. Container sizes are listed without figures, but these agree with the measured ones.

King Arthur Baking's chart has no celery seed row.

The physical check: whole seeds behave like a fine grain. They are hard, small and roughly the same size, so they pour freely and pack evenly into a spoon, and a spoonful weighs much the same however it is filled. That is why celery seed's sources agree far better than dried herb leaves' do. At 0.44 g/mL it sits with other small seeds on this site: lighter than mustard seed, which is round and dense, and close to cumin and caraway seed, which are similar ridged fruits. Grinding lets the powder settle a little tighter, and Chef's ground figure is about 5% heavier than its whole one.

Practical guidance: use 2.2 g per teaspoon of celery seed, 6.5 g per tablespoon and 104 g per cup. Recipes rarely use more than a teaspoon or two, because the flavour is strong. To make celery salt, grind a tablespoon of seed with two to three tablespoons of salt; that is roughly 6.5 g of seed to 36 to 54 g of table salt. Toast celery seed briefly in a dry pan to soften its bitterness before using it in a dressing.