Dried apricots

One US cup of dried apricots weighs 130 grams. Going the other way, 100 grams is about 0.77 cups.

Also called sulfured dried apricots, dried apricot halves, diced dried apricots, chopped dried apricots, dried prunus armeniaca.

Two sources agree within tolerance across different piece states, an unusual pattern that reflects the physical behavior of sticky dried fruit. USDA FoodData Central publishes Apricots, dried, sulfured, uncooked (SR Legacy) at 1 cup halves = 130 g, implying a density of 0.5495 g/mL. King Arthur's Ingredient Weight Chart lists 'Apricots (dried, diced)' at 1/2 cup = 64 g, extrapolating to 128 g per cup and 0.5411 g/mL. The gap between them is 1.54 percent, well inside the 10 percent milled tolerance, so this entry publishes USDA's figure of 130 g per cup and names both sources. The USDA cup portion is confirmed by proportional consistency across cup fractions: 0.5 cup halves at 65 g and 1.5 cup halves at 195 g both divide to the same 130 g per cup.

The interesting feature here is that USDA measures halves and King Arthur measures diced pieces, yet the figures nevertheless nearly coincide. For most nuts and grains on this site, cutting or chopping a whole piece changes its cup weight noticeably: chopped walnuts at 117 g per cup are denser than walnut halves at 99 (USDA) or 128 (KA), and chopped hazelnuts at 115 are meaningfully lighter than whole hazelnuts at 135. Dried apricots do not show this pattern because the pieces are sticky and semi-rigid, dominated by concentrated glucose and fructose after moisture loss. They do not slide freely against each other into settled arrangements, and their intrinsic density of roughly 1.35 to 1.45 g/mL is only partly realized in cup measurements. The apparent 0.55 g/mL indicates about 40 percent air by volume regardless of piece shape. Whether the pieces are halves or dice, they form irregular clumps with similar overall air content.

This is why dried apricots publish at a single figure with medium confidence despite the source-state mismatch: the physical mechanism of sticky-fruit clumping makes the halves-versus-diced distinction less important than it would be for nuts. A reader converting from cups to grams gets a workable answer whether they scoop halves or chop first. The 1.54 percent gap between USDA's halves and King Arthur's diced sits well inside the 10 percent milled tolerance and represents measurement noise plus normal fill variation, not a meaningful state-dependent density difference.

Product variants: sulfured versus unsulfured dried apricots differ in preservation method but pack at essentially the same density. Sulfured apricots retain their bright orange color and slightly higher moisture; unsulfured are darker brown and slightly drier, which may produce a small density increase (perhaps 3 to 5 percent) but no authoritative source publishes separate cup portions. Turkish dried apricots (typically whole pitted) and California dried apricots (typically halved) trade at similar cup weights per USDA data. Sweetened or infused dried apricots, sometimes marketed as 'soft' dried apricots, contain added glycerin or corn syrup that increases moisture and density; these would earn separate entries if a second authoritative source becomes available.

Dried apricots are placed in the milled category alongside other dried-fruit pieces (chopped dates on this site sits in the same category for the same physical reason). The category rule tracks packing behavior: irregular semi-rigid pieces pack by scoop with air gaps in the same way as whole grains and nuts. The 10 percent category tolerance applies here, and the 1.54 percent observed gap between sources sits comfortably inside it. Raisins on this site are categorized as sugar rather than milled because their smaller particle size and packing behavior aligns more closely with granulated sugar than with chunked dried fruit.

No standards body publishes a bulk density for dried apricots. Codex Alimentarius has a standard for dried apricots covering moisture content, defect tolerances and sulfur dioxide limits but not physical density. Two independent authoritative sources agree within tolerance, so this entry is held at medium confidence. A third independent source, such as a professional culinary reference or a producer's laboratory measurement, matching within tolerance would move it to high confidence.