Diced Carrots

One US cup of diced carrots weighs between 128 and 142 grams (4.5 to 5 ounces), depending on how the cup is filled and which source measured it. Use 142 grams (5 ounces) for carrots diced by hand to about 1/4 inch. Every figure behind it is below, with the method each source used.

Also called chopped carrots, diced carrot, chopped carrot, carrots diced, carrot cubes.

Chopped vegetables compared: cup weights side by side, the source behind each, and why they differ.

A cup of diced carrots weighs 128 to 142 g (4.5 to 5 oz). The Culinary Institute of America, USDA's school Food Buying Guide and King Arthur all give 142 g, while USDA's own cup of chopped carrot is 128 g. The gap is 11%, just over the 10% tolerance, so this entry publishes the range; for a quarter-inch dice spooned into the cup, 142 g is the figure most sources share.

Carrots are 88% water by USDA's figure, with about 10% carbohydrate, about half of it sugar, and they are firmer than most vegetables. Diced carrot is the one true cube among the common aromatics. Onion breaks into curved layers and celery into arcs, but a carrot cuts into small solid cubes, and cubes of a firm vegetable settle into a cup in a fairly predictable way.

USDA SR Legacy "Carrots, raw" (FDC 170393) lists 1 cup chopped at 128 g, 1 cup of strips or slices at 122 g and 1 cup grated at 110 g. USDA's Food Buying Guide for child nutrition programs, the yield tables used in school kitchens, gives 10.6 quarter-cup servings of raw chopped carrot per pound as purchased at an 83% trim yield, which is 142 g per cup. The Culinary Institute of America's conversion chart gives 1 cup diced at 5 oz, 142 g. King Arthur gives 1 cup diced at 5 oz, 142 g.

King Arthur's figure is the same 5 oz the chart uses for diced onions, celery and bell peppers, a round working figure. For carrots, unlike onion and celery, it matches two sources that reach 142 g by different routes, the Food Buying Guide by yield arithmetic and the Culinary Institute by direct conversion, so it is not a correction.

The physical check: carrot tissue is about as dense as water or a little more, so a cup of dice at 142 g is about three fifths carrot and two fifths air, which is how small cubes settle when spooned into a cup. USDA's 128 g is the same cup holding a tenth less carrot, most likely a coarser, more irregular chop that leaves bigger gaps. Grated carrot is a different measure: fine shreds trap more air, and this site gives grated carrot its own entry at 99 to 130 g per cup.

Sliced carrots sit with the dice. The Food Buying Guide counts a pound of ready-to-use sliced carrots at about 3 1/8 cups, 145 g per cup, and a school portion guide gives 2.5 oz per half cup of slices, 142 g per cup; USDA's slices are lighter at 122 g.

Practical guidance: for carrots diced by hand to about 1/4 inch, use 142 g per cup, 71 g per half cup and 36 g per quarter cup; for a rough, chunky chop, closer to 128 g. The classic mirepoix ratio is by weight, two parts onion to one part each of carrot and celery, so for soups, stocks and braises weigh the three together rather than measuring each by the cup.