Fenugreek seeds

One US cup of fenugreek seeds weighs 177.6 grams (6.3 ounces). Going the other way, 100 grams is about 0.56 cups.

Also called fenugreek, fenugreek seed, methi seeds, methi, whole fenugreek.

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

A teaspoon of fenugreek seeds weighs about 3.7 g, and a cup about 177.6 g (6.3 oz). USDA and the Shamrock Foodservice spice table agree within 1.2%, and two laboratory studies of the seeds' bulk density bracket the figure.

Fenugreek seeds are the dried seeds of Trigonella foenum-graecum, a plant of the pea family. They are small, hard, angular and golden yellow, with a bitter taste and a sweet, maple-like smell that grows stronger when they are toasted. They are a mainstay of Indian cooking, fried whole in oil at the start of dals and curries, ground into curry powder and spice pastes, and used in pickles and in the Bengali five-spice mix panch phoron; they also flavour Ethiopian berbere. In Indian shops they are sold as methi seeds.

USDA's record for fenugreek seed weighs a tablespoon at 11.1 g, which is 177.6 g a cup and 3.7 g a teaspoon. The Shamrock Foodservice spice table gives 7.75 teaspoons of fenugreek seed to the ounce of weight, 175.6 g a cup. The two are 1.2% apart, well inside the 10% this site allows for whole seeds, so this site publishes USDA's 177.6 g. Confidence is high: two independent measurements agree closely, and the laboratory data below confirm them.

Two bulk sellers are listed without figures because they contradict each other and the seed itself. Frontier Co-op counts 2 cups of whole fenugreek seed to the pound, 226.8 g a cup, and Herbco 4 cups, 113.4 g, exactly half.

King Arthur Baking's chart has no fenugreek row.

The physical check: fenugreek is one of the few spices whose packing has been measured in a laboratory. A study in the Journal of Food Engineering (Altuntaş and colleagues, 2005) measured the bulk density of fenugreek seeds at 701 kg per cubic metre at their driest, 8.9% moisture, falling to 646 as they took up water; the seed itself weighs about 1.24 g per millilitre, and the gaps between seeds take up 43 to 45% of a container. A second study, in the Misr Journal of Agricultural Engineering in 2013, measured 722 to 801 kg per cubic metre. Those come to 166 to 189 g per US cup, and the published 177.6 g sits between them. Frontier's 226.8 g would need the seeds to fill 77% of the cup, far more than hard, angular seeds can; Herbco's 113.4 g would leave 61% of it empty.

Practical guidance: use 3.7 g per teaspoon of fenugreek seeds, 11.1 g per tablespoon and about 178 g per cup. Recipes rarely use more than a teaspoon, because fenugreek turns bitter quickly: fry the seeds only until they darken a shade, not until they are brown. Fenugreek seeds are among the heaviest whole spices by the spoon, about two thirds heavier than dill or anise seed, so a recipe that gives seeds by weight should not be converted with a figure for another seed.