Dried marjoram

One US cup of dried marjoram weighs 27.2 grams (0.96 ounces). Going the other way, 100 grams is about 3.68 cups.

Also called marjoram, marjoram leaves, dried marjoram leaves, sweet marjoram, crushed marjoram.

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

A teaspoon of dried marjoram weighs about 0.6 g, and a cup about 27.2 g (1 oz). USDA and two bulk sellers agree within 8%.

Dried marjoram is the dried, crumbled leaf of sweet marjoram, Origanum majorana, a close relative of oregano with a milder, sweeter and more floral flavour. It goes into sausages and stuffing, poultry seasoning, tomato sauces, soups and stews, roast lamb and pork, and herb blends such as herbes de Provence. Jars hold small crumbled leaves; ground marjoram is sold less often.

USDA's record for dried marjoram weighs a teaspoon at 0.6 g and a tablespoon at 1.7 g. The tablespoon, the more precise of the two, is 27.2 g a cup. Herbco, a bulk seller, counts 18 cups of cut and sifted marjoram to the pound, 25.2 g a cup, for both its regular and its organic marjoram, and Frontier Co-op counts 17 cups, 26.7 g. The three are within 8%, inside the 10% this site allows for spices, so this site publishes USDA's 27.2 g. Confidence is medium: no supermarket label gives a teaspoon of marjoram in grams, and the bulk sellers' counts are rounded to the half cup in a pound.

One figure is listed without a value. The Shamrock Foodservice spice table gives 34 teaspoons of marjoram to the ounce of weight, 40 g a cup, 47% heavier than the three measurements of the leaves. Its row names no form, where most of the table's other herbs are listed as leaves, flakes or ground, so it may describe a finer cut or ground marjoram; it is kept without a figure.

King Arthur Baking's chart has no marjoram row.

The physical check: marjoram is lighter than its cousin oregano by the spoon. USDA, which weighs both, puts a teaspoon of dried oregano leaves at 1.0 g and one of marjoram at 0.6 g. Marjoram's leaves are smaller and softer, and dried they crumble into fine, papery flakes that stand at every angle in the spoon and leave most of it air. That puts marjoram with the lightest herbs on this site, parsley flakes at 0.5 g a teaspoon and basil at 0.7 g, rather than with oregano and thyme, which is where all three independent measurements put it.

Practical guidance: use 0.6 g per teaspoon of dried marjoram, 1.7 g per tablespoon and 27 g per cup. When a recipe gives fresh marjoram, use about a third as much dried by volume. Oregano can stand in for marjoram, but it is stronger in flavour and, by the spoon, almost twice as heavy, so start with less. For sausage recipes that give marjoram in grams, weigh it: a gram of marjoram is close to two level teaspoons.