Dried cherries

One US cup of dried cherries weighs between 142 and 160 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 dried cherries, dried tart cherries, montmorency dried cherries, cherries dried, dried sweet cherries, dried sweetened cherries.

Dried cherries publish as a range 142 to 160 grams per cup because the authoritative sources disagree by 12.7%, over the 5% sugar tolerance, and the disagreement reflects genuine product variation rather than measurement noise. USDA SR Legacy record 171708 measures tart Montmorency cherries with added sugar coating at 160 g/cup, and King Arthur publishes an unspecified generic dried cherry at 142 g/cup. Commercial brand data adds further evidence of variance: Meduri Dried Cherries publish 1/3 cup at 40 g (120 g/cup), notably lighter than either authoritative source.

The biggest driver of the variance is the sweet-versus-tart-cherry split. Tart cherries (Montmorency, primarily grown in Michigan) are naturally sour and are almost always sweetened during drying with sugar syrup, sunflower oil, or fruit juice concentrate. The sweetening adds mass and fills interstitial space in the cup, pushing tart dried cherry density toward the high end at 160 g/cup. Sweet cherries (Bing, dark sweet, Rainier) dry with their natural sugar and typically without added sweetener, producing a denser cherry per piece but fewer pieces per cup because the dried sweet cherries stay larger and rounder. The net effect is that sweet dried cherries often measure lighter per cup than tart sweetened dried cherries, because the packing benefit of the sugar coating on tart cherries outweighs the mass benefit of sweet cherries staying larger.

Brand and processing further split the numbers. Ocean Spray, Cherry Central, and King Arthur's own dried cherry product all use different sugar-to-cherry ratios and different drying temperatures, and each produces a slightly different bulk density. The 20-gram spread between KA's 142 and USDA's 160 represents the typical range for commercial products; the Meduri outlier at 120 g/cup likely reflects an unusually low-density processing method (larger air gaps, less sugar coating, or drier product). Bakers using recipes developed with one specific brand should trust that recipe's implicit density; bakers substituting between brands should weigh the fruit rather than trust cup measurements.

Compared to the fresh version added earlier this session, dried cherries at 142-160 g/cup are close to the fresh pitted figure of 154 g/cup but represent completely different products. Fresh cherries at 154 g/cup are 82% water; dried cherries at 160 g/cup are 16% water. The mass concentration is roughly 5-6 times higher per gram in dried form, but the cup density stays similar because the drying process shrinks pieces without dramatically changing how they pack. This is the same pattern documented in the dried-blueberries entry (fresh 148, dried 160) and different from the dried-apples pattern (fresh apple-slices 109, dried-apples 86) where drying dramatically lightens the ingredient because apple flesh puffs during drying rather than collapsing.

Category assignment is sugar rather than milled, following the precedent established for dried-cranberries and dried-blueberries. Small dried berries roughly the size of a raisin belong in sugar because they behave as small crystalline or particulate solids in packing terms, similar to sugars, salts, and chocolate chips. A dried cherry is 8-12 millimeters wide, close to raisin size (149 g/cup, sugar category), and packs similarly. Larger dried fruits already on the site (dried-apricots at 130, dried-figs at 149, dried-apples at 86, dried-pineapple at 142-160) sit in milled because their chunks are meaningfully larger than raisins and their packing is dominated by geometry.

Confidence is low because the two authoritative sources disagree over tolerance, not because sourcing is weak. Both USDA and King Arthur are cited transparently, along with the brand variance from Meduri as commercial context. Bakers should treat the middle of the range (about 150 g/cup) as reasonable for generic sweetened dried cherries and weigh their specific product when precision matters. Sweet dried cherries without added sugar will run at the lower end; tart sweetened dried cherries will run at the upper end.