Fresh chives

One US cup of fresh chives weighs between 42 and 56.7 grams (1.5 to 2 ounces), depending on how the cup is filled and which source measured it. Use 48 grams (1.7 ounces) for chopped or snipped chives, as USDA and its school Food Buying Guide weigh a cup. Every figure behind it is below, with the method each source used.

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

A cup of chopped fresh chives weighs about 42 to 57 g (1.5 to 2 oz), and about 48 g for chives chopped or snipped and spooned in without pressing, the figure USDA and its school Food Buying Guide share. By the spoon that is 3 g a tablespoon and 1 g a teaspoon.

Chives are the hollow, grass-like leaves of Allium schoenoprasum, the smallest of the onions. They are sold in small bunches or packages and are almost always cut into short pieces, with a knife or scissors, for baked potatoes, eggs, soups, dips, cream cheese, sour cream and as a garnish. Unlike leafy herbs, chives have no leaves to strip from stems, so the whole bunch is used.

USDA's record weighs a tablespoon of chopped chives at 3 g and a teaspoon at 1 g, 48 g a cup. USDA's school Food Buying Guide, in its row for freeze-dried chives, says 1 oz of dried chives replaces 14.7 oz, 8 2/3 cups, of fresh chopped chives, which is 48.1 g a cup. Norway's food table, from chives weighed by its health directorate, gives 18 g a decilitre, 42.6 g a US cup. King Arthur Baking's chart gives half a cup of fresh chives at 3/4 oz, 21 g, 42 g a cup. America's Test Kitchen weighs half an ounce of chives as 4 tablespoons finely minced, 56.7 g a cup. The lightest and heaviest are 35% apart, over the 10% this site allows for chopped produce, so the entry publishes the range with USDA's 48 g as the working figure.

King Arthur's figure is not wrong. It agrees with Norway's within 1.4%, and both are lighter than USDA's, which would fit chives cut into longer pieces. Its 42 g is part of the range.

The physical check: a chive is a thin hollow tube, so even cut into short rings each piece is mostly air inside its wall, and the rings stack loosely. A cup of snipped chives at 48 g is about a fifth leaf by volume, heavier than chopped parsley or cilantro, because small rings pack more evenly than flat pieces of leaf. Finely minced, the tubes are crushed flat and split, the pieces settle closer, and the cup gets heavier, which is ATK's 56.7 g. USDA's two spoon weights are rounded to the whole gram: 3 g a tablespoon could be anything from 2.5 to 3.5 g, which covers every figure from 40 to 56 g a cup.

Practical guidance: use 48 g a cup for chives snipped or chopped and spooned in loosely, which is 3 g a tablespoon and 1 g a teaspoon; for finely minced chives, about 3.5 g a tablespoon. An ounce of chives, 28 g, gives a little over half a cup chopped. For dips, compound butters and herb cheeses where chives are a main flavour, weigh them; for a garnish the spoon is close enough. Freeze-dried chives are not a cup-for-cup swap: the Food Buying Guide uses 1 oz of them in place of 14.7 oz of fresh.